Nafisa Barot visited Madison to give a lecture organized by Asha-Madison on 2 May 2000. She is the director of Utthan, a non-governmental organization in the coastal Bhal region of Gujarat that helped start a people's movement for developing drinking water systems. She talked about how Utthan started encouraging the use of age-old technologies for storing water to combat the drought in Gujarat. These schemes harvested rainwater using lined community ponds and desalination facilities built and managed by local communities who have satisfied their water needs on their own instead of having to rely on canals and dams reaching them. Below, we provide the e-mail announcement of the talk. Coming soon: photographs!

Utthan is a non-governmental organization first started in the coastal Bhal region of Gujarat, Western India. It has helped start a people's movement in the region for developing sustainable drinking water systems. Solutions have included rainwater harvesting, lined ponds, recharge wells, desalination. These are built and managed by members of the local communities with special emphasis on participation of women.

Gujarat (and other parts of India) is facing the worst drought in the last 100 years. The government's reliance on centralized and foreign-funded regional pipeline schemes has not solved Gujarat's water supply problems. Although the number of schemes for providing drinking water and the amount spent has been increasing, the number of 'no-source' villages has also continued to increase. Utthan along other voluntary organizations from all over Gujarat are calling for a change in policy to allow drinking water management, particularly in the rural areas, to go to the local rural communities.

Other Utthan activities in Gujarat include community health programs, women's credit groups, social afforestation, rural marketing, and nonformal education. Ms. Nafisa Barot would especially like to meet and talk to members of the Indian community here.

The lecture will also include screening of a video about Utthan, screening of slides. We hope to have a discussion as part of the lecture. This is especially relevant in the context of the current drought in many parts of India, and in the context of the opposition to the Narmada Valley Project.

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