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Here's what Sonam Wangchuk plans to do to solve Ladakh's water woes

Their efforts have attracted awards and also inspired a Bollywood character in a movie about youth tasting success off the beaten path (Aamir Khan’s character in '3 Idiots').

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The bore-well was dug in April after water was found at 130 feet in this Himalayan desert.
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Sonam Wangchuk founded the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL) in 1988 together with a group of Ladakhi youth to re-engage Ladakhi students and help them complete their education. Over the years, SECMOL observed that Ladakhi youth had a greater role to play: safeguarding the dying ecosystem in Ladakh and succeeding while living in harmony with nature. 

Their efforts have attracted awards and also inspired a Bollywood character in a movie about youth tasting success off the beaten path (Aamir Khan’s character in 3 Idiots).

Watch Sonam explaining the principles that drive SECMOL’s adoption of solar power and a sustainable lifestyle in this video:

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In the recent past, global warming and the exponential influx of tourists have taken their toll on picturesque Ladakh. Extinction of rare plants and birds, plastic waste littering the landscape and streams and pollution from vehicles and fuel emissions: the ecosystem has paid a heavy price. 

Rural Ladakhis get their water supply from streams replenished by melting glaciers. But global warming has reduced their water supply and tourist hotels dispose sewage into the streams. When the summer waters flow,they are polluted by sewage and waste, bringing diseases like cholera and diarrhoea.

Amidst this deterioration, SECMOL’s Phey campus, 18 kilometers from Leh, promotes sustainable living in harmony with nature, transforming a desert area into an oasis with 1000+ trees and gardens. It houses 40 students and a few volunteers and staff, but can take in 100 more people during workshops. The campus buildings, built using low-cost local materials and techniques like rammed earth and arched windows, use minimal imported wood.The traditional Ladakhi-style dry composting toilets do not need flushes, conserving water and providing manure for their vegetable garden and trees.

The campus is heated by its passive solar design. A solar electric system powers lights, TV, computers and tools. The water in bathing blocks have solar-heated water and solar cookers in the kitchen eliminate fuel use. In winter, buildings draped in plastic create green-houses for vegetable gardens.

However, a new and major challenge for SECMOL’s campus is water supply during the summer months. For years, they used a solar-powered pump to bring in water from the Indus river. But the polluted summer water now pose a problem, bringing disease and costing extra money and power to treat.

So SECMOL plans to instal an innovative solar bore-well to access clean drinking water all year round.The project will cost Rs 4,00,000, and must be done by June 2015. They started drilling for water in March 2014, and finally found water at 130 feet. The bore-well was dug in April. 

Now, the organisation needs to raise funds to pay the driller and instal the solar bore-well. Impressed by this continued commitment to sustainability, the Ochre Hearts foundation is running a crowdfunding campaign to raise funds for SECMOL’s solar bore-well.

This project is a sustainable and eco-friendly solution to SECMOL’s water woes. At stake is a safeguard against diseases, their year-round water supply and a more visible success that could be used to promote a return to sustainable living among both rural and commercial Ladakhi society.

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