Grass Roots

• Author: Daphne Ewing-Chow - Anna Jaquiery - Denise Marín - Ashlin Mathew - David Smith
• Position: Reported by ASHLIN MATHEW in New Delhi, India; DAPHNE EWING-CHOW in French Polynesia; ANNA JAQUIERY in Wellington, New Zealand; DENISE MARÍN in São Paulo, Brazil; and DAVID SMITH in N'Djamena, Chad.
• Pages: 42-48

42 FINANCE & DEVELOPMENT | December 2019

Grass Roots

From Brazil to New Zealand, local activists show that small-scale initiatives can

make a diference

I

n India, a civil servant gives up his desk job to show villagers how to conserve water and

overcome drought. On a Pacic Ocean atoll, a shing guide helps fellow islanders build

a sustainable tourism industry. And in New Zealand, a retired urban couple are restoring

native plant species on their farm. ey are among the many people across the world who

are pitching in to mitigate climate change. ese are their stories.

Waterman of India

Rajendra Singh set out to cure the sick . He ended

up taking on a far big ger problem: the shortage of

water in India, a drought-plagued countr y with 17

percent of the world’s population but just 4 percent

of its freshwater resources. It’s a crusade that has

earned him the moniker “Waterman of India.”

In 1983, Singh quit an unrewarding civil ser vice

job to take advantage of his t raining in Ayurveda,

an Indian system of med icine based on herbal

remedies. He moved from Jaipur, the capital of

the northern state of Rajast han, to Gopalpura, a

small village where a number of people suered

from night blindness, a condition in developing

countries caused by vita min A deciency.

“I wanted to set up an Ayurvedic clinic to help

cure them,” Singh says. “While I did do that as

well, the people in the village underscored the

fact that their immediate crisis was one of water.”

One of Singh’s patients told him about johads,

traditional reser voirs made of rocks and ea rth.

Singh, the son of a farmer, quickly understood the

need for the reservoirs, which c apture rainwater

and so help prevent a decline in the water table.

He enlisted the help of several friends and a few

villagers to build the rst johad, in 1985.

“ere weren’t many people as most had migrated

to the city as a result of water scarcity in the village,”

Singh, 63, explains. “Most often it was the women

in the village who helped.”

He persuaded villagers to overcome caste divi-

sions and work together. “at was the only way

water would become a collective and communit y

project,” he says. It took more than eight months

Rajendra Singh (center) confers with villagers in

Bhupkera, Rajasthan.

PHOTO; COURTESY OF RAJENDRA SINGH