By Ayushi Sareen:
On 1st May, 2013 IndiaUnheard published a video by their Community Correspondent Vrinda Azad addressing the issue how children of the Jairamnagar Primary School of Chhattisgarh had to put their lives at stake, everyday, to get drinking water. It so happened that the hand pump in the school had not been functional since the past 4 months, and students had only two options to get drinking water- one, was to cross a busy road to reach a water tank; and second, was to cross the railway tracks of a neighbouring station to reach the public taps where water flowed freely for one and all!
Vrinda showed the video to the village headman who in turn, contacted the PHE (Public Health Engineering Department of Bilaspur District) and told them that the issue was going to get media attention.
And within five days of Vrinda filming the video, the hand pump was repaired! This is what she has to say about this:
“I did not even get a chance to go the PHE department to show them the video. I got a call one day from the school to tell me that the hand pump had been fixed. I think what happened was that the village headman called the PHE up and told them that the issue was going to go to the media through the video I had filmed. I like to believe that my camera scared them.”
Here’s Vrinda’s impact video showing a working hand pump at Jairamnagar Primary School!
