Kiran Kumar Sen and Shreyas S of Biome Environmental Trust became members of the Fluoride Knowledge and Action Network (FKAN) and began working in the fluoride affected areas of Kolar and Chikkaballapur. They applied for and won the Wipro Sustainability Seeding Fellowship in 2017. 

They started with the vision of building a water and health institute (WAHI), whose aim was to become an institute of knowledge and sharing it with different stakeholders on emerging drinking water contamination issues and their solutions. 

With support from the Wipro Sustainability Fellowship, work began in Chikkaballapur district to set up the Chikkaballapur District Water Quality Platform. They were mentored by Dr Sunderrajan of INREM and Vishwanath Srikantaiah and Avinash Krishnamurthy of Biome Trust.

The important activities/events which have been vital in this journey are as follows:
1. In a coordination meeting in Chikkaballapur on 13 July 2018, the team’s advocacy led the administration to kickstart  a process for supplying safe water to all 1961 anganwadis in the district using funds from the VHNC

2. The team supported the district by reporting issues in the implementation of the above order. As a result, after much discussion the district issued a circular instructing panchayats to take responsibility for the supply to anganwadis through support of watermen / Jalagara

3. With the support of the NPPCF program, nutrition for schools and anganwadis was promoted. On 18 July 2018, amla saplings were supplied to all schools in the district to raise awareness on fluorosis. In the last district platform meeting, 18 July is dedicated annually to observe solutions to fluorosis across all government institutions

4. On the health front, Kiran and Shreyas supported the supply of pharma supplements to the health department for fluorosis patients. This was for patients showing deformity and extreme joint pains. They supported the district in the formation of Karnataka’s first fluorosis rehabilitation centre in Bagepalli

5. They formed a forum of stakeholders to review and take actions on water quality issues by forming the district platform

6. They supported capacity building of the frontline workers i.e. Jalagara of the Panchayat department from 290 villages in 2 blocks. Details here

7. The team was part of the District CSO’s covid relief committee. Supported more than 5000 families in 60 villages. Details in this report

8. Their current phase of work is building capacity for the local CSO partner i.e. Foundation for Ecological Security in Bagepalli to scale up action