Voice and Choice of water

This is Mrs. Kochurani Mathew, Director (Health and Environmental Sanitation), Socio Economic Unit Foundation, Kerala, India.

SEUF is a professional organization working with the communities to promote sustainable socio economic development with a focus on water, environmental sanitation and empowerment of deprived groups with special attention to women.

When we are speaking about Knowledge Management in the WatSan projects, it is important to think about the voice and choice of women in the subject. SEUF has many successful experiences in the WatSan sector which was initiated by women.

The Ward level Women Water and Sanitation Resource Group (3WSRG) is one of the initiatives for facilitating the effective participation of women in water and sanitation activities. 3WSRG attended the capacity building training programmes in SEUF and share their expectations in the field activities relating to the programme and prepare an action plan. They facilitate meetings in the user group level and with the help of participatory tools find the action points. In the process of development of the same 3WSRG attended the review meetings in each month and share the field experiences. This is analyzed in the meetings adapt successful lessons and experience from other user groups. In most of the time, there is a new lesson from each review meetings.

3WSRG is acting as a resource team at grass root level for the promotion of knowledge in the field of water and environment sanitation. They also initiated waste and water management system as demonstration and income generation activities from WatSan programme. In each Grama Panchayath, we have a group of 50 - 60 women who can communicate to a larger women group using the existing system like Self Help Groups.

This kind of initiatives from SEUF as part of different programmes is helping to manage and access the knowledge sharing concept not only in the so called middle level, but also in the grass root level.

I believe the voice and choice of women can be making into action through these kinds of knowledge management initiatives.

Thank You…

Best Regards,
Kochurani Mathew.