Wherever the Need started working in India in 2000, when we supported a private school in the city of Krishnagiri in the south-eastern Indian State of Tamil Nadu. Although we didn’t know it at the time, this project would be the first of many in the State. We built a new roof, so the children could actually continue their education during the rainy season, and build dividing walls, so they could focus on their individual class lessons, rather than be drowned out by the older, louder children in the adjoining section.

There was a few years’ gap between the project in Krishnagiri and those we eventually started in and around Cuddalore, but in the meantime we busied ourselves with the Ashraya Orphanage in Bangalore where we started by sinking a borehole to enable the 60+ children to have constant water. This work expanded with the construction of toilets and showers, a solar pump to draw the water from the ground to a tank on the roof and a school bus to take the children from their home to their school. In 2004, we committed the funds raised in our Christmas appeal to feed 11,000 people over a ten day period, co-ordinated by the Ashraya.

Post-tsunami India, we contributed to a number of different short-term projects to support people along the Tamil Nadu coast. The largest and most notable of these was a pregnant mothers and baby scheme to monitor the effects of women swallowing large amounts of salt water, and the impact on their unborn child(ren).

The tsunami prompted us to become involved with a local NGO named Bless, and we have channelled much of our work in the area through them. We started with a substantial project in the village of Madhuanthaganallur where we introduced 13 shallow hand pumps, 5 deep well hand pumps, 21 street taps, 3 over-head tanks, 242 toilets, 20 biogas toilets and a large eco-san toilet for the school. This physical work was introduced at the same time as an educational and training programme was underway, to ensure the participants understood the value of the facilities being installed, and the correct way to use them.

The project had three impacts on our work: firstly it introduced us to the widespread use of eco-sanitation toilets; secondly we actively participated in setting up self-help groups, especially among the women; and thirdly it made us understand the importance of training, to ensure the long term success of our work.

These three factors now play a major role in our work around the world.

From this time on, several projects overlapped, as we also started working in Tamil Nadu's northern neighbour state, Andhra Pradesh, and continued our work with Bless in Cuddalore.

Our American friend David Purviance introduced us to a number of orphanages in Andhra Pradesh, that had been built by Methodist missionaries at the turn of the 20th century, which had fallen into a terrible state of repair. Over a two year period, we worked in a number of facilities including the Methodist Rural Children’s Home, near Hyderabad, the Methodist Boarding Home for Girls and Boys, Chandrakal, the Mary Knott Hostel, Vikarabad and the Little Flower Home in Nagercoil.

Most of the facilities we provided enabled the young girls, in particular, to go about their ablutions without the prying eyes of older men watching their every move – a sad factor of modern-day India.

One other project we supported in Hyderabad was through an organisation called Technology for the People, an excellent group working with Moslem girls to give them computer and graphic design training to enable them to find a good job and, frequently, support their family.

Concurrently, we were working in Tamil Nadu on numerous projects introducing sustainable water and eco-sanitation facilities. Again the projects are too numerous to mention, but sites include St Mary’s School at Anna Velankanni, the two St Joseph’s at both Krishnakuppam and Vazhuthalampattu, and the charmingly delightful Sri Murugan School.

If there were a jewel in the eco-sanitation crown, it would be the women-only complex at Mohan Singh Street in Cuddalore. This complex, which follows our mandate that where possible we only use compressed earth blocks, has been designed for the use of 350 women and their children. It gives these women not just eco-san toilets, but bathing and clothes washing facilities as well, all in a well-built enclosure which gives them absolute privacy.

We recently embarked on our most ambitious project to date, and that was a 48 house construction using compressed earth blocks in a village called Karrigan Nagar. We feel that this project may be the largest of its kind anywhere in India (if not the world). It will provide housing, sustainable water and eco-sanitation toilet facilities to some of the poorest people you will find anywhere. They all come from the lowest Indian caste and, like many others, are in great need of support.

Please check for further updates on Karrigan Nagar, as at the time of writing it is not finished.