Our past few days have been spent touring around Kuttanad with Profs. Chris and Marijoan Bull, who were staying with us at MGU, getting acquainted with the project. Mr. Bull is on the engineering faculty at Brown and has been a source of technical and administrative support for Rainwater for Humanity. They left with great fanfare this morning (for Mumbai, continuing a conference tour around India).

The SES was quite happy to have him here, (because of the typical level of faculty involvement in India's educational system, it adds a degree of legitimacy for us as well) and invited him to give an informal talk on his work Tuesday morning. After discussing the challenges in bridging technical solutions to problems with practical social and political implementation, a couple students in attendance responded with impressively critical questions. They pointed out the vastly disproportionate energy and resource consumption of the United States and its hypocritical stance on combating global climate change. Although we hear such arguments put forth by developing countries in abstract terms during WTO and UN negotiations, it was much more striking to hear from local students.

We visited Achinakom again in the afternoon to check on the continuing concrete foundation work. Although most adult men are at their jobs, the villagers continue to perform the majority of the labor.


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System construction began yesterday morning, so we have spent much of the past 48 hours in Achinakom, hard at work observing the build and laboring with the workers. We arrived at about 9:30  Sunday morning to find three hired laborers and a couple men from nearby helping prepare the canal. Although they had erected a tent over the system, there was about 30 cm of water and mud at the bottom (none of the workers in the canal seemed to pay any mind to the unfortunate smell and high potential for pollution in the stagnant water).

They were first working to excavate the canal walls to the proper width and curvature. Because the soil is quite loose and damp, this was not too difficult with hand tools and sufficient perseverance. The only serious obstacle was a tree stump partially intruding on the site. Removal seemed quite daunting, but they continued undeterred with axes and were able to pry several hundred pound of wood free. A bamboo-walled divider was also inserted to section off the canal, with its interior filled with excavated dirt.

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Our past few days in Kuttanad have been quite productive. After two more trips to Achinakom, consultations with a few involved parties in the area, and some more fieldwork,
we are getting a good grip of the situation on the ground. We have also become
more acquainted with M.G. University and its students.

Tuesday afternoon, Dr. Ramasamy and Dr. Thomas graciously arranged a
small meeting with us and about 30 environmental science students (Masters and
Doctorate). Although admittedly a bit awkward at first, we were able to
introduce ourselves, talk about Rainwater for Humanity, and field questions
from the students. They seemed particularly impressed with the initiative shown
by Christina and the rest of our Providence team in starting such a project.
Despite high levels of social awareness, student-driven groups so active on
issues outside their studies are quite uncommon here. We had to explain several
times that all motivation is provided by the student team (with professors
acting only in an advisory role), and that such work is undertaken entirely
extracurricularly. They were noticeably excited by this prospect, and when we
polled the crowd on interest in participating in the project nearly everyone
(after some hesitation) raised their hands.

We are working to find students here who can continue as localRead more

We flew in to Kochi on August 1 (Andrea and Eli from Delhi,
Christina from Hong Kong), met Mr. Sylas (a Ph.D student in
environmental science) at the airport and made the two hour drive to
Mahatmas Gandhi University outside Kottayam.

After breakfast the next morning, we drove Achinakom village, the
project site, with Mr. Sylas, Dr. Thomas (former director of MGU
School of Environmental Science), Prof. John, and Dr. Ramasamy
(current School director). We sat in on a general body meeting (all
in Malayalam; we were pretty lost but had some translation) with the
future system users, local committee members, and us from the
university. Although construction deadlines are approaching, the
atmosphere was pretty relaxed, with plenty of joking and smiling.

This was followed by a local committee meeting with the two
Panchayath (local government body) members from Achinakom, four
village representatives, and Suma (the women's self-help group
secretary). They set out a construction schedule for the system over
the next three weeks, with material delivery later this week and
building beginning on the ninth. It is expected to take twelve days
to finish construction and allow all concrete to cure. They also
agreed to open a bank account for project expenses in the name of
“Rainwater for Humanity – Achinakom.” Suma and a Panchayath
member will be signatories.

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Rainwater for Humanity is thrilled to be participating in the Ideablob Finals, running from June 22-30th.  We have a chance to win $10,000 based on votes alone, but we need your support! Go to:

Email or Facebook us with any questions, and as
always, thanks so much for helping out!

We've received some request for the Business Plan to be added to the website.  This is the most recent edition of our Business Plan, from April 2009. Enjoy!

Rainwater for Humanity has been honored with a $10,000 Energize Your Community Grant from Dosomething.org!  Awesome!