Integrated Services for Children & Mothers (ISDCM)

To provide safe drinking water to the population of Manikganj Sadar Thana.
To determine the extent of arsenic contamination in all tubewell water of the Manikganj Sadar Thana.
To identify arsenic affected patients in the Thana . Initial screening will be done by the arsenic testing team during the testing work and then finally by the trained physicians of Sadar Thana Health Complex.
To make community people aware of the arsenic poisoning.
To involve community members in choosing, financing, implementing and maintaining alternate sources of safe drinking water.

Activities :-

There are approximately 22,000 tubewells in Sadar Thana with a population of 237,771. UNICEF agreed to provide 275 MERCK Field Test Kits. ISDCM is already in receipt of all the 275 kits which are now being used in the field. Tubewells are being tested with those kits and marked with RED and GREEN for the community to understand that water from the RED marked spouts of tubewells is Arsenic contaminated and is not safe for drinking and spouts marked GREEN is Arsenic free and safe for drinking. During testing of tubewell water each tubewell caretaker is being given one - page printed leaflet on Arsenic problems with solutions to deal with and indicating how to use alternate safe water sources as well.

Achievement:

40 Tubewell Testers Trained (assisted by Dhaka Community Hospital and DPHE). They are now working in the field and being supervised by 2 Field Supervisors and 1 Thana Coordinator.
11566 Tubewells Tested and Marked.
80 Laboratory Test Validation completed.
Information Leaflet Developed, printed and being distributed.
2 Test Tubewell sites for Deep Tubewell selected, construction to commence.
2 Sites for Arsenic Removal Plant selected, Work Order issued for installation of the Plants and Community mobilized for participation in the installation.

Introduction : Manikganj Sadar is one of the Arsenic affected thanas in the district. Manikganj Sadar Thana has been selected for Arsenic Mitigation because of prevalence of Arsenic and also because it has not been covered by any other agencies and it is easily reachable from Dhaka for supervision and coordination by the sponsoring agencies.

Considering the severity of Arsenic in human body Rotary Club, under moral obligation, came forward for funding safe water systems while UNICEF to support for determining intensity of Arsenic through survey of TW water, testing of existing Govt., NGO and Private TWs, identifying Arsenic Patients, making members of community aware of Arsenic poisoning in choosing, financing and maintaining alternate sources of save drinking water.

In pursuance to “Calcutta Commitment” on Arsenic Mitigation programme in the Sub region ROTARY – Bangladesh H20 Project Committee has mobilized its available resources in support of the Project in one of the worst affected Thanas in the country following the “Integrated Thana” model advocated by UNICEF – Bangladesh Office.
The project is jointly undertaken by ROTARY – Bangladesh H20 Project Committee and four ROTARY Clubs namely – Manikganj, Dhaka Central, Dhaka Mid City and Dhaka in collaboration with UNICEF – Bangladesh with technical participation of DPHE (Department of Public Health Engineering).

PROJECT PURPOSE:


Donor & Agreement:	UNICEF – Rotary International H2O Project BD,No. UNICEF/NGO/2000/10
Area & Duration :	Manikgang Sadar, January 2000 – July 2000
Cost of Project :	BD, Tk. 5,814,500.00