Raindrop posters inspired hundreds

“Our efforts were well paid off by the 70 enthusiast visitors attending the poster exhibition although the afternoon received a heavy downpour of first rain in Kathmandu,” shared Raj Prasai, coordinator of the event from Nepal Youth at GUTHI (NYG).

 More than 500 people observed the winning posters on rainwater harvesting selected at the Geneva Raindrop Award competition on the occasion of World Water Day 22nd March, 2014. The posters shared by International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance (IRHA) along with the 15 posters of NYG were displayed at Nepal Art Gallery, BabarMahal.

A visitorto the exhibition,Shyam Kumar Shah opined, "If only one can change their attitude, nothing is impossible. There is many simple ways one can adopt to overcome water crisis."

On 24th March, NYG displayed the posters during the exhibition at Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). There were more than 200 visitors and one of the attendeesManoj Thakur, senior scientist at National Agriculture Research Center (NARC) said, “In a five years time I am seeing a serious scarcity of water, this poster awareness campaign is an eye opening and I suggest to carry it in massive scale”. Also, SachinjiGandharbaworking at The United Nations added," It would be better if there would be legal provisions for enforcement."

On 28th MarchGlobal Power Shifter (GPS) invited NYG to put up the exhibition at their training program in the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) hall. More than 85 youths in the training were excited to see the posters. PrasujMarharjan, a volunteer from Clean up Nepal posted on his facebookwall, “I would definitely collect rainwater in a big bucket if it rains”.  He was very inquisitive about the system.

The exhibition during the Joint Sector Review (JSR) Conference II on Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)on 31st March made a remarkable presence among the policy makers, government and development agencies at Godavari Village Resort, Godavari. The experts from the water sector were glad seeing the display and were very curious. There were about 200 participants in the program. Ramesh Kumar Sharma from Fund Board indicated," The new houses must adapt rainwater harvesting. Also, the old houses though there might not be possibility to construct new storage tanks, they must find a way to guide the water under the surface i.e. built a recharge structure. It will help to recover the ground water that is depleting drastically”.

Nepal Rainwater Harvesting Alliance (NeRHA), Bio-Gas Support Partnership (BSP) Nepal and SmartPanijoined hands with GUTHI to arrange the series of exhibitions.

News report by Raj Prasai and Prakash Amatya