Biome Trust has won the People’s Choice Award under the water category for the ‘Million Wells’ campaign. Thanks to your support, we were able to create multiple social media posts and reach out to people all across.
The 2021-2022 Transformative Cities People’s Award went to four initiatives for their work in the areas of water, energy, housing and food systems. Up to 16000 people from across the globe voted online to determine the winners, out of 12 international projects.
Biome has received 1500 Euros as prize money, and has decided to share this money equally with the two other finalists from Cameroon and Mexico in the water category, in solidarity for the work done.
Winning the award will provide us with both local and international acknowledgment and access to other people working towards water conservation in their cities and countries. The award will allow us to interact and learn from these groups. The prize money will also help us create communication material and spread the word about the importance of shallow aquifers/groundwater management at the micro levels. These inputs will further help us continue with the campaign better.
About the Project
Water category: Million Wells for Bengaluru (India) aims to tackle the decrease of rainfall and to avoid flooding as the city gets paved over. A traditional but marginalized well-digging community, the Mannu Vaddars, are determined to help their community by sending rainwater to replenish the water table from which the city meets a large part of its water needs. At the same they revive their own livelihoods.
Shuba Ramachandran, who represented Million Wells at the Finale stated “We want that the traditional well diggers see themselves (as) barefoot hydrologists that understand ground water. What we are doing in Bengaluru is being rolled out to other 10 pilot cities and then perhaps to other 500 cities. Winning this award puts us in a much better place to talk about the work that we do and see it work across the country.”
Video of the Award Ceremony will be available at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiSTZKtBfz7R5BC2fxrLsGg