YUSHU QUAKE survivors persevere in the face of continuing enormous challenges. Your support for the Bayan Seniors Water Project has also brought relief to those earthquake victims. Thanks to your generosity, we raised more money than needed for the water system, so the TSF board directed $2,500 to quake recovery efforts.
--> Find out how your kindness is helping in Yushu.
--> Find out how your kindness is helping in Yushu.
Visit the TSF blog for more photos and news. Our newest post features an update on the aftermath of the Yushu earthquake.
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
Bayan Seniors Water Project
DECEMBER, 2010
Just in from Bayan: three senior residents describe how their lives have improved in recent months thanks to the new water system.
Just in from Bayan: three senior residents describe how their lives have improved in recent months thanks to the new water system.
LHAZO PEKAR
My wife and I joined the Bayan senior community two years ago. We are from Drokor Toma of Gonmo Toma Shang. We have five children – one is a monk at the Bayan monastery and the rest live as nomads. In the past, we have had to go very far to fetch water. There were even cases of two elderly members who slipped on their way to get water and got badly injured. The seniors here have no personal caretakers therefore, we have to do everything on our own. Although we are located near the Machu river, the water is unclean as the Darlak district slaughterhouse upstream dumps all of its waste into the river. Therefore, our only source of clean water has been from the Bayan hill. Since the installment of the water system, which provides three different water faucets, we have had easy access to water. Around 50 elderly families use the water system daily. Your generous help has truly benefited us and made our lives multiple times better. We no longer have to walk far to get water. We are extremely grateful to the Sogan Foundation for your generous help in building the water system.
I would like to thank the Sogan Foundation from the bottom of my heart. I think of your kindness daily – at the crack of dawn and before going to sleep. May you all live long. It is not only us who have benefited from the water system but also our livestock (yaks and sheep). We have easy access to water now and no longer have worries over walking far distances to get water. In my heart, I believe that this water project benefits all sentient beings. I can no longer walk as much to do my daily circumambulations but when I do, I pray for your well being, prosperity and happiness as well as that of all sentient beings.
I am a senior resident of the Bayan community and I come from a village near here. Having the new water system has been extremely beneficial to us seniors. We no longer have to walk up the hill to get water nor even consider drinking the impure water from the Machu river. We are extremely grateful for your help. We constantly keep you all in our prayers.
May 2, 2010
With great appreciation to all who have made this possible, we report that the Bayan Seniors Water Project fundraising effort is now complete. We have met and surpassed our goal of $30,000, and the extra money we raised will be used to help the seniors in additional ways and to support earthquake survivors in Kyigudo.
Please check back in the upcoming weeks for more details about the start of construction of the water system and for news about how your donations will aid the seniors and go toward relieving suffering in the aftermath of the quake.
With great appreciation to all who have made this possible, we report that the Bayan Seniors Water Project fundraising effort is now complete. We have met and surpassed our goal of $30,000, and the extra money we raised will be used to help the seniors in additional ways and to support earthquake survivors in Kyigudo.
Please check back in the upcoming weeks for more details about the start of construction of the water system and for news about how your donations will aid the seniors and go toward relieving suffering in the aftermath of the quake.
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.