Clean water and solar energy for Indian mountain villages

2009: Techem sponsors DESWOS project with 10,000 Euros
Berlin, November 2009. DESWOS, the German Development Assistance Association for Social Housing celebrates its 40th anniversary at this year’s general meeting. Techem GmbH, a globally leading energy service provider for the real estate industry, once again sponsors a DESWOS project and supports the DESWOS anniversary project, by which 40 families in the Indian Nilgiris Mountains receive comprehensive assistance.
They belong to the 162 families of the Paniya tribe, who live at a height of 2,000 metres in a very isolated mountain area and need help. The people’s houses are washed away by the monsoon rains every year. The poorest families are invariably the most severely affected, as they live in simple huts without water and power connection, and often in areas hardly fit for settlement. Therefore it makes sense to improve the construction of these simple houses so that they are able to withstand the torrential rain. In the 40th anniversary year of DESWOS, the housing industry’s development assistance organization is helping 40 families of the Paniya tribe to build more robust houses in a joint do-it-yourself effort.
Techem supports several Paniya villages with infrastructural community projects. For instance, wells are being built to ensure the supply of drinking water. The wells are equipped with pumps, filters and water tanks and connected to the houses with pipes laid above ground. In future, every family will at last have clean drinking water.

The donation from Techem also makes the installation of solar street and localised lighting possible. This is a great achievement, finally bringing light to the dark houses of people living far away from public power supply networks. Light also supports the efforts of the people, above all the children and adolescents, to acquire an education. It also contributes to safety on mountain roads and is a protection against wild animals.

The maintenance of solar equipment requires little effort and expense. Young people with some technical understanding are being trained by the DESWOS project partners and the costs are borne by the users in the form of small fees. The families themselves are taking an active part in all of these measures.