Dandiya Raas in Pleasanton, Calif., for Project Oasis – A Fundraiser for India’s Severe Draught-struck Villages
Project Oasis work in Rajasthan, May 4. (Dinesh Maheswari/Project Oasis)
I’m pretty sure that you are familiar with the water crisis in India, you must have heard about the recurrent droughts or a major city in Southern India running out of water. If you don’t know what’s going on, I can sum it up in a simple sentence; the future looks grim, writes Suchay Dharnidharka.
At the moment, around 97 million people do not have access to drinking water, and an estimated 185,000 children under the age of 5 die due to lack of drinking water.
The clock is ticking.
Project Oasis has risen up to the challenge and created a very effective and powerful method to combat this issue in the state of Rajasthan — creating check dams in the rural areas.
The project is an initiative under the International Association of Human Values or IAHV, a 501(c)(3) organization registered in the United States. Project Oasis is one of its several initiatives and has already completed two (2) check dams and aims to increase the number to fourteen (14) by the summer of 2020.
If you are wondering, what are these check dams and what do they do? Well in simple terms, check dams accumulate rainwater and store it in an efficient manner such that the water seeps into the ground, percolates into water tables and facilitates groundwater recharge. This ensures that water remains available throughout the year for irrigation, consumption and feeding livestock.
To make it even better, this program intends to build 1,000 check dams by the year 2025, which will help over 2 million villagers.
Now the question is, what can you do to help?
It’s actually quite simple: come together as a community, celebrate and contribute to the cause.
With an intent to provide a platform to bring together, like-minded people, and raise funds for this noble cause, Project Oasis is organizing a fun night to celebrate Navratri with traditional dandiya dance night in Pleasanton, Calif. on Saturday, October 5, 2019.
It will be a four-hour family-friendly ticketed event and expects to attract around 1,000 people from the South Asian community. All you will have to do is pick up your dandiya sticks and groove to the DJ music.
Guess what! we also have some fun activities planned for the kids with a chance to win prizes. Bring along your friends and family and party for a cause. Tickets are now available for sale – hurry up and get yours at Oasis Dandiya 2019 at – tiny.cc/oasis-dandiya.
