Service deliveries like Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WaSH) can contribute to peacebuilding by creating a sense of ownership and cohesiveness. Caritas India Samvaad program supported by Missio emphasised creating an enabling environment of empowered and sensitized communities where social peace and integration are restored in 6 districts of Uttar Pradesh.

In the 2013 Uttar Pradesh has faced one of the most gruesome communal riots in the country. The conflict that started between the two communities has taken the whole of western Uttar Pradesh into its clutches. The outcomes were devastating for everyone. Society has suffered its brutal consequences.

Caritas India believes that delivering basic services can contribute in a major way to building peace and stability in society. ‘Samvaad’ promotes dialogue and interaction within the community to address the wholistic development and social harmony in the society where every citizen can live in peace and fraternal care and solidarity with one another.

The program has made significant changes within a few months by stimulating positive mental frames and perceptions within the inhabitants in the focused areas. To inbuilt the concept of communities’ participation and ownership, a cleanliness drive was organised by Caritas India’s local partner Karuna Social Service Society. Around 50 people from three villages carried out the cleanliness drive on the School campus, drainage, handpumps, roadside and other areas with their local resources.

“If we continue to organize such events, the old beauty of the village will be restored, and the areas will be free from different polluted materials,” said Mr. Ashok & Mrs. Munesh Devi are residents of Sikrauda, Bijnor district, UP.

The program has garnered maximum participants from the other three villages to clean the water sources, drains, roads etc. in a day. In nature nothing is a waste, people have used extracted weeds as fodder for the cattle and the rest will be decayed to form manure. The idea promoted being, the cleaner the water of the hand pump, the lesser the water-borne diseases.

The whole endeavour was actualization entirely due to the hard work and collaboration with possible risk-taking of the local people. This proves that the solution lies within or among the communities and within the short span of six months the local communities have shown tremendous faith in our local partner & Caritas through the initiative of the cleaning drive.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene have been a consistent input in Samvaad’s work; whether it’s cleaning water bodies, water quality checks or providing the sources with the help of Panchayath, this elixir of life has been a priority and a basic need of the masses with whom the program work with across the beneficiary community. In targeted villages, the work is driven by the needs of the community by improving their wisdom to lead and collaborate to take care of basic resources while sustaining harmony and bridging the gap within the community.