Let us introduce our project ‘Drop of Hope’ to you. We are a group of eight graduate students, currently studying at the University of St. Aiming to leave a positive impact with our project, we decided to tackle a major problem, namely water scarcity in Rajasthan, India. Our vision arose out of our finding that farmers in the region are facing long periods of drought with an average precipitation of 6-15mm between October and June. Moreover, scarce water resources in Rajasthan are currently put to wasteful use as farmers often flood their fields. This means that farmers who are dependent on agriculture – 67% of the population of Rajasthan - do not have any source of income during the long periods of drought. As a result, farmers, mostly men, have to migrate to cities in search of work leaving their wives solely responsible in charge of the children. Children have no choice but to miss school for the time being in order to help out their parents. In the end, this creates a vicious circle of poverty. Therefore, we are setting up the project ‘Drop of Hope’ intended to address the problem.
