Rain Water Harvesting at Outreach Training Institute

Outreach Training Institute (OTI) is a project of Indian Evangelical Mission which is situated in in Hosur, Tamil Nadu about 55 kms from Bangalore.   Indian Evangelical Mission recruits new missionaries every year and trains them for cross cultural Missionary work and sends them to the unreached area in India and to other countries. 

Beneficiaries: Outreach Training Institute.

a. OTI trains 20-25 cross cultural missionaries for 6 months, three times in every two years. Missionaries’ candidates come from all over the country.

b. The cross cultural missionary training is training by association in which the students are taught to experiment different approaches in the campus which they are expected to do in the communities. Like tailoring, biogas cooking, kitchen gardening, irrigation and rain water harvesting to name few.

c. The Training Institute campus is open for other organizations to come and use the facilities for their camps, run seminars and train their workers as well. Therefore the campus is always at use to promote the vision of God.

Project need: Rain water harvesting,

a. OTI has 14 acres of land. There are 8 buildings, one small chapel, four wheeler shed, two workshop rooms, security cabin, security room and a cow shed.

b. Out of 14, acres of land, 8 acres approximately is vacant land with 138 coconut trees but not yielding fruits for the lack of water. (Other trees like 108 mango trees, 10 chikoo, 5 drum stick, Gawas 4, Lemon 3, tamarind 13, and jackfruit 8 trees) and plenty of other big trees, and different plants in the campus which need watering.

c. The water level has gradually gone down below 1200 fits in the OTI campus and surrounding areas. In order to bore new bore well is a very costly affair and results of getting water is a big risk.

d. It becomes extremely difficult to pump water from the bore well and due to small quantity of water availability.

e. The summer which stretch from 6-8 months, the garden plants die due to lack of water and the campus becomes dry. 

Proposed plan.

The plan is to dig a sump of 20x10x10 beside the dining hall to collect rain water from, Dining Hall building, Theodore Williams Resource Center building and Married Quarter building.  This simple system, which works very well is already there for one building called Academic Block building.

Project

a. Water reservoir: The sump will hold 56000 liters of water which will be more than sufficient for more than a month in running of the institute.

b. Self-sustaining of the campus: The rain water for cultivation in the campus, water for coconut trees and to develop a beautiful garden, vegetable garden, and washing, cleaning and so on. 

c. Charging the existing bore well: The tank behind the second guest house will be connected to the existing bore well to provide energy to the bore well so that the bore well will continue to yield enough water.

Financing required:

$A13,120 to the complete project.

For more details about the project please contact Friends of IEM.