Water-Secure Future in Nepal

Hong Kong Red Cross , Hong Kong

In the remote villages of Okhaldhunga, Nepal, accessing clean water has become a daily struggle.  Due to climate change and unplanned development, dwindling water sources have left many households without reliable access to safe drinking water.  Women and children often have to walk every day to fetch water, placing a heavy burden on their health and livelihoods.

But the Hong Kong Red Cross, together with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Nepal Red Cross Society, is taking a community-driven and participatory approach to address this urgent crisis through the Nepal Sustainable and Inclusive Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project.

At the heart of this initiative is a deep commitment to engaging local communities as active partners in the design and implementation of sustainable water solutions.   With the support of ZeShan Foundation, the project team is working closely with communities to understand their unique needs and priorities, leveraging their valuable local knowledge and perspectives.

Beyond just building new infrastructure, the 15-month disaster mitigation project will empower communities to take ownership of their water resources.  This includes providing training and support for the construction and maintenance of community-managed water supply schemes, as well as promoting behavioural changes around hygiene and sanitation practices.

This project will also incorporate nature-based solutions where feasible, recognizing that restoring and protecting local ecosystems can play a crucial role in enhancing water security.   However, the primary focus will be on amplifying the voices and agency of the communities themselves.

Ultimately, it aims to ensure long-term access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for more than 700 villagers in three communities when it is completed in July 2025.   More importantly, it seeks to cultivate a sense of self-reliance and resilience within these communities – equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and collective power to secure their water future for generations to come.

Join us in empowering communities to build a water-secure future in Nepal.

Hong Kong Red Cross

Villagers discussing the design of their own drinking water scheme.
Villagers measuring and estimating the works for their drinking water scheme.

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村民商討如何設計屬於社區的飲用水供應系統。
村民為社區供水系統工程進行測量。

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In the remote villages of Okhaldhunga, Nepal, accessing clean water has become a daily struggle.  Due to climate change and unplanned development, dwindling water sources have left many households without reliable access to safe drinking water.  Women and children often have to walk every day to fetch water, placing a heavy burden on their health and livelihoods.

But the Hong Kong Red Cross, together with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Nepal Red Cross Society, is taking a community-driven and participatory approach to address this urgent crisis through the Nepal Sustainable and Inclusive Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project.

At the heart of this initiative is a deep commitment to engaging local communities as active partners in the design and implementation of sustainable water solutions.   With the support of ZeShan Foundation, the project team is working closely with communities to understand their unique needs and priorities, leveraging their valuable local knowledge and perspectives.

Beyond just building new infrastructure, the 15-month disaster mitigation project will empower communities to take ownership of their water resources.  This includes providing training and support for the construction and maintenance of community-managed water supply schemes, as well as promoting behavioural changes around hygiene and sanitation practices.

This project will also incorporate nature-based solutions where feasible, recognizing that restoring and protecting local ecosystems can play a crucial role in enhancing water security.   However, the primary focus will be on amplifying the voices and agency of the communities themselves.

Ultimately, it aims to ensure long-term access to safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene for more than 700 villagers in three communities when it is completed in July 2025.   More importantly, it seeks to cultivate a sense of self-reliance and resilience within these communities – equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and collective power to secure their water future for generations to come.

Join us in empowering communities to build a water-secure future in Nepal.

Hong Kong Red Cross

Related Links

Clean Air Schools

Clean Air Network, Hong Kong

Environmental protection has been higher on public agenda in Hong Kong. It is exciting to see more information exchanges and community campaigns on pressing issues like greenhouse gases, wastes and habitat degradation. But what about air pollution?

Compared to the extreme hot days, odor nuisances or loss of endangered species, smog might seem to be a less worrying phenomenon. Air pollution, however, can be harming our health at different stages slowly yet severely. Air pollution deserves our attention.

Sharing the same mission that we need more conversations and actions on air pollution, ZeShan Foundation has collaborated with Clean Air Networks (“CAN”) in 2022 to carry out a 2-year school-based project on air monitoring and education. The pilot will support 8 primary and secondary schools in Sham Shui Po and Tuen Mun to gather real-time data on air quality via monitor installation. This is one of our first attempts to develop more community-led initiatives to address our environmental issues. With the available data and technical support from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, the participating school management, teaching staff and students will be guided by CAN to develop and test out their adaptation measures to address air pollution in schools.

Sowing the seeds of raising awareness and knowledge, ZeShan hopes to see more behavioral changes around air pollution on a school level, and ultimately a cleaner and healthier learning environment for nurturing young minds.

Alexa Li
Assistant Program Manager
ZeShan Foundation

CAN school project artwork

Chinese medicine practitioner checking on villager
Outreach service in the villages
Service team visits remote villages

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Outreach service in the villages
Chinese medicine practitioner checking on villager
Service team visits remote villages

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Green Collar Incubation Hub

A Plastic Ocean Foundation, Hong Kong

In recent years, a growing number of recycling stations has been noticed in many urban communities, housing unwanted household items. Recyclables in the rural side, however, do not share the same story – valuable recyclables are often turned into mismanaged waste or even pollution menace, where recycling facilities or services are lacked or limited.

Hoping to change the narrative in the rural setting, ZeShan Foundation has partnered with A Plastic Ocean Foundation (“APO”) to develop a community-led waste management model in rural villages. In this one-year pilot project, two cohorts of passionate young adults will be equipped with professional training on recycling operation. Guided by APO’s recycling partners, the trained green collars will then take the lead on running a series of community recycling drives for people residing in villages located in the New Territories West. These range from collecting household plastic waste to processing them into quality recycling materials that can be repurposed for a second life.

Through mainstreaming the green practices in rural neighbourhood and cultivating a pool of green talents, ZeShan hopes to test and demonstrate this alternative model in strategically addressing the growing waste problem and rivitalising the recycling industry in Hong Kong.

Alexa Li
Assistant Program Manager
ZeShan Foundation

A Plastic Ocean Foundation's Education Team is introducing rural green facility and the natural habitats of Ha Tsuen to university students

APO’s Education Team is introducing rural green facility and the natural habitats of Ha Tsuen to university students

A Plastic Ocean Foundation's Education Team has been invited to offer a career talk on Green Opportunity and Employment for IVE (Shatin)

APO’s Education Team has been invited to offer a career talk on Green Opportunity and Employment for IVE (Shatin)

A Plastic Ocean Foundation's Education Team's mobile clean recycling station where our officer is introducing the concept of clean recycling to rural residents

APO’s Education Team’s mobile clean recycling station where our officer is introducing the concept of clean recycling to rural residents

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Blue Sky is the Limit

Blue Sky Energy Technologies Limited, Hong Kong

The Blue Sky Project aims to reduce energy usage and enhance indoor air quality (IAQ) in the NGO sector, as well as facilitate behavioural change among this target population through the transparent availability of energy data and user-centric engagement. The project partners with 4 non-governmental organizations, including Hong Kong Christian Service, Hong Kong Playground Association, Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), and Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council. ZeShan Foundation and Lee Hysan Foundation are the strategic partners and sponsors of the project, which has the full support of the Hong Kong Council of Social Service.

Service Scope

  • 51 service locations with different facilities such as offices, campsites, and stadiums, which collectively provide diverse services ranging from youth service, education, social service, elderly care, rehabilitation, etc.
  • 1,500+ staff engagement
  • 290+ smart energy meters and 100+ IAQ sensors installation
  • Secure log-in account for web dashboard and mobile app
  • Data granularity of each centre, separated into air conditioning, light, and socket load
  • Notification and alerts which prompt energy and IAQ abnormality investigation
  • Weekly consumption report for energy and IAQ review
  • Energy usage comparison against other locations and benchmarks

 

Blue Sky SAVE Model

In order to make energy saving and IAQ enhancement transparent and actionable, the Blue Sky SAVE Model is applied:

Signal – Smart sensors collects data and processes in server

Action – Experimental energy saving actions are encouraged by centre managers and Blue Sky engagement programs

Verification & Reward – Weekly summaries are analysed by Blue Sky AI and emailed to centres

Evaluation – Quarterly evaluation on engagement level

 

Digital Engagement

Users receive weekly summary emails of their energy and IAQ performance, accompanied by notifications and recommended actions to enhance their performance. The Blue Sky AI model determines a daily energy budget, which is informed by past energy usage patterns and real-time environmental factors. Paired with real-time analytics, the AI model triggers a notification to users when their actual energy usage is higher than that which was budgeted. In another element of performance feedback, users are also provided with visualizations of their energy usage and IAQ compared to external benchmarks, along with targeted areas of improvement and action tips to reach these goals.

Offline Engagement

Staff members at each service location can volunteer to be Blue Sky Ambassadors, and would receive in-depth training and attend workshops to establish a deep understanding of the energy usage and IAQ patterns of their premises. With this foundation of knowledge, Ambassadors are encouraged to derive action plans to facilitate behavioural change around energy usage. To aid this effort, collateral materials such as reusable cutlery, posters, and upcycled gadget stands are made available at all service locations to nudge users towards sustainable choices and energy conservation in their daily operations.

Energy visits are regularly carried out by Blue Sky energy experts at every service location to investigate the sites’ energy usage and IAQ patterns. In collaboration with Blue Sky Ambassadors, this initiative can facilitate the discussion and discovery of creative and user-centric ways to reduce energy usage and improve indoor air quality across the NGO sector. 

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Blue Sky staff and NGO partners

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Monitoring devices installed at NGO premises

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Visit Electrical and Mechanical Services Department

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When an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book.

Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

When an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

Photos Grid for Heading 02

Placeholder image
  • Tab 1
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Inside Tab Heading 01 H4

It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy. Various versions have evolved over the years, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose (injected humour and the like).

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.

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