Water management is a good investment: not only can it contribute to poverty reduction, but it can do so in ways that are affordable... and it has a great potential to promote the health of local communities. 
- World Health Organization
Caring for elderly nomads, traditionally
Throughout Golok’s long history, the nomadic families of Gongma Tøma have relied upon monasteries for support as family members aged. After a hard life of following their herds across the land, the time comes when the challenges of the road give way to the need for a more sedentary life. The younger generations then assume responsibility for the family’s herds and allow their elders to retire, often in a home built within the precincts of their chosen monastery. There, these elders benefit from the watchful care of the monastery’s monks, and can live out their days in comfort, devoting themselves to study, prayer and meditation. This is the not just the local custom, but the tradition of the whole of Tibet, honored and supported from ancient times.
Bayan Seniors Water Project
In 2007, families in Gongma Toma, a district within Golok’s remote Gabde County, began reviving the tradition of building simple retirement homes near Bayan, a local monastery.
Bayan has approved the construction of 54 homes for elders, enough to form a small retirement community on the monastery’s land. As of August, 2009, 32 of these homes have been completed, with 85 people already in residence. Additionally, fourteen homes are under construction, with eight more in the planning stage. Ultimately the monastery hopes to see the community grow to 300 people, the most that the land can support. However, a water system will be critical to the sustainable expansion of this community. We are now raising funds to install a water system that will bring clean, safe water directly to this elderly community.
Click to enlarge this view of the senior community at Bayan
THE PROBLEM –
Currently, residents must fill buckets with water from an unprotected spring some distance away, and haul it back along narrow dirt paths to their homes. In the very best of conditions, they risk drinking water contaminated by livestock, or injury as they carry the water on steep hillside paths. The paths can become especially dangerous in the rainy season, when they turn slick from mud, and in the long winter when ice and snow make traversing the paths extremely hazardous.
THE SOLUTION –
The monastery has prepared a project proposal for the construction of a gravity flow “spring catchment” water system, an efficient and economical means to deliver clean water directly to the senior community. The project will take advantage of the natural spring that now serves as the residents’ water source, which has been analyzed and deemed sufficient to supply water for 30 or 40 years. The spring will be protected, and systems installed to filter the water and collect it in a large cistern. Gravity will allow the water to flow through a set of underground pipes to two taps near the community, which will be insulated from the freezing winter weather by small brick enclosures. No electric or gas-powered pumps will be required to bring the water to the surface.
The monastery has prepared a project proposal for the construction of a gravity flow “spring catchment” water system, an efficient and economical means to deliver clean water directly to the senior community. The project will take advantage of the natural spring that now serves as the residents’ water source, which has been analyzed and deemed sufficient to supply water for 30 or 40 years. The spring will be protected, and systems installed to filter the water and collect it in a large cistern. Gravity will allow the water to flow through a set of underground pipes to two taps near the community, which will be insulated from the freezing winter weather by small brick enclosures. No electric or gas-powered pumps will be required to bring the water to the surface.
THE BUDGET –
Our budget for this project is now approximately $30,000 – the monastery has accepted a lower bid from a competing contractor which is $10,000 less than the original estimate. Included in the budget:
Our budget for this project is now approximately $30,000 – the monastery has accepted a lower bid from a competing contractor which is $10,000 less than the original estimate. Included in the budget:
- All labor, including protection of the natural springs, digging trenches, any blasting necessary to bury the pipes and cistern, and construction of two brick buildings to house water taps with either faucets or hand pumps. The enclosures will prevent the pipes from freezing, and must be large enough to permit access for repairs and to allow people in thick winter clothes to maneuver with their water buckets.
- All materials, including pipes, filtration system, cement, bricks, and a cistern with capacity to hold a supply for 300 people.
- Transportation of all materials, a significant cost given Gongma Tøma’s remote location.
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