Introduction
Setting: A small village suffering from water scarcity.
Drought effects are visible with dried-up riverbeds, cracked land, and distressed villagers.
Sarah, an ordinary woman looking for a good purpose in life, learns about this village and decides to help them.
What should she do?
Community Meeting
Setting: The village community center.
Sarah gathers villagers, learns from them about what they have tried, and then educates them about water conservation techniques they have not yet tried. She suggests adopting rainwater harvesting systems and implementing strict water usage regulations, but they tell her the village council authority makes the decisions.
Strengthening Infrastructure
Setting: The village council office.
Sarah is told by the village council that there is not really enough rain water to catch, and they are already conserving water, so she proposes building new wells and constructing pipelines for water distribution.
After discussions and working out details the council approves her plan and allocates funds for the project.
Successful Implementation
Setting: The village outskirts.
Sarah and the volunteer villagers work together to construct new wells. The best water is found in sandy layers, which takes considerable time to reach with hand digging, but it is accomplished and they install pumps and lay water pipelines.
The village now has access to a reliable water supply.
Failure to Maintain Systems
Setting: A few years later, near the village outskirts.
The villagers neglected maintenance and annual testing of the water table by the geological survey office due to expenses. The wells began to run dry more and more often.
With their water supply diminished, and pipelines damaged due to lack of attention, the village is again in need of a solution for reliable water.
Exploring Alternatives
Setting: Sarah’s home, with her researching solutions.
Sarah discovers after online research and contacting people by phone that a neighboring village is successfully using desalination technology to convert seawater into freshwater.
She shares the idea with the villagers.
Scene 7: Financial Constraints
Setting: Village council office.
Sarah convinces the council to explore desalination technology.
However, the drought stricken village struggles to gather sufficient funds to purchase the required equipment workers and consultants. After trying various ways, they let Sarah know that the money is unfortunately not available for this plan.
Scene 8: Collaboration with NGOs
Setting: The village community center.
Sarah reaches out to various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) focused on water conservation.
She has a few failures, but learns how to give better presentations. With a great sense of accomplishment, she manages to secure financial aid and technical support to implement desalination technology.
Scene 9: Successful Implementation of Desalination
Setting: The village coastline.
With the help of NGO loans and expertise, the village installs a desalination plant and begins converting seawater into freshwater.
The water scarcity issue is resolved, and villagers resume their regular lives, paying off the NGO over time with village profits.
Win: Long-Term Sustainability
Setting: A community celebration event.
Many years later the town has grown and thrived and it is unrecognizable thanks to Sarah who improved the water situation and emphasized the importance of consistent maintenance, water conservation, and continuous efforts to combat future issues. Sarah lived happily, having fulfilled her life purpose to make a lasting difference.
A Happy Ending
** NOTE: This is a fictional representation. Real-world solutions will differ based on geographical and socioeconomic factors. Feedback to improve this story game is welcome. Leave a comment.
Alternative: Water Purchase
Sarah looks at how much water her entire savings would buy for everyone in the village.
Huge water jugs could arrive on trucks and people would rejoice, but then, with no new continual source of water, the purchased water would just run out.
She realizes this is not a solution for the long term.
Alternative: Confronting Local Authorities
Sarah meets with local authorities.
The female mayor of the city, which calls itself a village, tells her that they have a long term plan involving many people simultaneously praying for rain and using less water for crops.
When confronted, however, she admits that this hasn’t worked and things are worsening.
Alternative: Drink Sea Water
Sarah remembers that sea water is much too salty to drink by humans.
She is told by the villagers that it kills both animals and crops, as well.
So the sea water, although available, it is too salty!
In its natural state it can not help with the village’s water scarcity.
Alternative: Relocate Village
Sarah suggests that the village relocate to a better location with more water.
When she investigates, however, she finds no good nearby locations. For the closest available location, the cost to relocate the entire village would require even more loans which the villagers would have no way of paying back. While some individuals might move with the help of personal loans, moving the entire village at once was unlikely to succeed. Still, Sarah would not give up.
Alternative: Seeking Government Funds
The nearest local government already has many outstanding loans to this area which have not been paid back.
It, therefore, requires that the village pay its overdue loans before getting any new loans.
Alternative: Pay off Loans with Loan
Sarah gambles and decides to use the funds she obtained for installing the desalination plant to pay of the villages loans due to local government. She does this, but the government is now broke and can not give out more loans. They thank her for the money.
Sarah, with no money and no water for the village, is about to try to skip out of town when the NGO tells her that they stopped the payment to the government with their loan, because that was not permitted in the contract.
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Credits: Newsi8 Interactive Fiction can teach action needed on human survival issues