Astral Foundation, powered by Astral Pipes and Astral Adhesives, has launched an initiative to lay a 2.7 km water pipeline to make water accessible in Hiwali, a village in Maharashtra prone to acute drought, every summer. The initiative was supported by local tribal villagers, Social Networking Forum, and a local NGO called Gadwat.
This World Water Day, the CSR wing of the Astral Group also launched a short film that captures the essence of their first-ever project in this remote village. The video is a peek into a day in the life of a school-going child from the Hiwali village while demonstrating the evolution of Astral Foundation.
Home to a tribal population, this village land runs dry during the summer months and people trek miles across difficult terrain to fetch potable water daily. Hidden to the world outside, this village has talented students, some of whom know tables till 600 and a few who can solve the Rubik’s cube in seconds. These children have to give up a part of their childhood to fetch water as part of their day-to-day routine.
The task to make clean water accessible to Hiwali was an engineering challenge that the Astral Foundation undertook. They installed two water storage tanks and built a 50 ft deep well, along with a pipeline to permanently make water accessible to the villagers. The initiative will benefit 300+ villagers and 1500+ livestock. The residents of Hiwali do not have to trek for water anymore and the students have more time to study.
More than 2 billion people across the world have no access to clean water. Every day, nearly 1,000 children under the age of 5 die from diarrhoea, attributed to poor water and sanitation. World over, women and children spend an estimated 200 million hours hauling water every day.
Keshav Gavit, a teacher at Z P Primary Digital School Hiwali, said, “They (the students) focused all their energy and thought towards fetching water when the school ends. It was the most crucial event in their day. No one in the village realized that they were losing a major chunk of their childhood. The Hiwali Pipeline project has changed the way of life here for good. There aremany happier faces and brighter minds in the class now, with a motive to dream about something more than just fetching water for survival.”
Referring to the initiative, Kairav Engineer, VP Business Development, Astral Pipes, said, “Astral Foundation is our CSR initiative functioning towards sustainable development. Our focus is to address social and environmental challenges and take up projects in the fields of Health, Environment, Education, Disaster Management, etc. This village of Hiwali has very talented kids and the hardships for water are unthinkable. We plan to work further in the same direction so as to give back to our society and environment.”
