Archive for category: Water

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Water for South Sudan Inc.

Spearheaded by founder and former “lost boy” Salva Dut, Water for South Sudan Inc. is dedicated to providing the people of South Sudan with “access to clean, safe water and to improving hygiene practices in areas of great need.”

After the Sudanese civil war in 1985, millions of people were displaced. Salva Dut was able to lead 1500 “lost boys” to Kakuma, a refugee camp in Kenya. He was able to move to the U.S. in 1996, and founded Water for South Sudan Inc. in 2003 in an attempt to help those still living in Sudan.

While Salva holds dual citizenship between the U.S. and South Sudan, he spends most of his time in South Sudan supervising drilling expeditions. He also travels throughout the U.S. in order to fundraise for this non-profit organization.

Becoming a country in 2011, South Sudan is the world’s newest country—and it’s also one of the poorest. In an effort to help this developing nation, as of May 2014, 217 borehole wells have been successfully drilled by Water for South Sudan Inc. These wells are responsible for providing thousands of people with clean water in South Sudan. The drilling teams work west and east of the White Nile River in villages in the two surrounding areas. (The White Nile River is a river that bisects Sudan.)

Water for South Sudan operates on the basic principle that “the ethical and moral way to create lasting change is to respect and empower people’s capacity to transform their own lives.”

The effects of the wells are enormous. Having greater access to water means that children can go to school instead of searching for water, women are not forced to spend days journeying long distances to bring back water for their families, and that businesses have a greater chance of being successful.

– Jordyn Horowitz

Sources: Water for South Sudan, Social Work and Society International Online Journal, Global Giving
Photo: Global Giving

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Zambia Sees Positive Water Delivery

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As 2014 nears its halfway point, the capital of Zambia recently reported positive water delivery to its residents inhabiting much of the city.

The Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company, the water company that services the nation’s capital, promises a number of additional water projects to be undertaken in the months and years ahead.

“Now it is time to offer solutions because we believe that only through actions will we be judged and our actions can now tell a positive story of how we are transforming the city of Lusaka with improved service delivery,” LWSC public relations manager, Topsy Sikalinda, said.

Lusaka’s Strategic Revenue Improvement Report Programme noted the need for corporate and residential areas to see improved water reticulation, the commissioning of boreholes and an increase in water supply throughout the city.

Other incomplete projects include water supply upgrades in the surrounding parts of the city. Surrounding cities and areas expect to increase yields of cubic meters of water per day through the installation of additional infrastructure.

While Lusaka and its surrounding areas have witnessed positive water services, other parts of the country continue to struggle with their water infrastructure and services.

Recently, Devolution Trust Fund manager, Sam Ng’onga, stated that nearly 2 million Zambians inhabiting low-income housing do not have access to adequate drinking water. A larger number of Zambians do not have access to legitimate sanitation services.

According to UNICEF, nearly 25 percent of Zambian schools do not have access to clean water and sanitation facilities. Among both genders, the primary education completion rate is only 72 percent.

Even though the number of Zambians who have access to water and sanitation services continues to increase, the number will need to climb further in order for the nation to meet its goal of supplying nearly all of its residents with consumable drinking water in the coming years.

– Ethan Safran

Sources: allAfrica, UNICEF

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Arsenic Poisoning in Rural Asian Waters

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Reawakening the global health problem of unclean, polluted drinking water, rural Asian villages have been plagued with arsenic-ridden water. Most of these rural villages are near mines which leak and pollute local water sources with the carcinogen arsenic. In the past decade, the Heshan village in China has seen nearly 20 percent of the population get cancer from the polluted water.

The arsenic has been traced back to runoff and residue from a local mine that was closed in 2011. The 190 living cancer patients have petitioned the local governments for monetary compensation and aid, but the $1,600 reimbursement is insufficient for even one round of chemotherapy or radiation. For many of these poor rural villagers, the cancer diagnosis from arsenic poisoning is nothing less than a death sentence because of the unaffordable cost of treatment.

Tests of the ground water have resulted in arsenic amounts 15 times the safe amount of arsenic. The water is so toxic that many of the agricultural staples are not viable in the region, stripping these people of their livelihood and reinforcing the cycle of poverty in the area.

Similar cases have been reported throughout China and India. With water security being of the utmost importance, cancer patterns have sprung up around villages with arsenic in the water. Local medical professionals have denied the correlation between the high arsenic levels and the cancer hotspots, despite the fact that arsenic has been recognized by many health institutions as a known carcinogen.

The lack of transparency between health officials and the villagers coupled with insufficient cleaning methods has resorted in the outbreaks of cancer caused by arsenic. The toxicity of the element, both for humans and agriculture, has stunted the regional economies and has restricted the employment pool. A needless tragedy, the arsenic-laden drinking waters have destroyed families and the economies of the rural villages afflicted by the toxic water.

– Kristin Ronzi

Sources: American Cancer Society, Reuters, Times of India
Photo: Trip Advisor

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Using EDM to Fight Global Poverty

Philanthropist Hugh Evans, co-founder of the Oaktree Foundation and Global Poverty Project, organized an electronic dance music festival on June 26 named the Thank You Festival. This benefit show is working to engage the millennial generation in the fight against global poverty.

The show will feature one of the most popular electronic DJs in the world, Tiesto, as well as Above and Beyond and a Maryland local electronic DJ by the name of Alvin Risk. The festival will utilize a 15-foot inflatable toilet to bring awareness to water and sanitation issues around the world. Electronic dance festivals, which are commonly associated with drug use and experimentation, may not seem an ideal place to speak about global poverty.

However, Evans notes that to reach the millennial generation it has to be done through the people they listen to, in this case through electronic dance artists. His previous work with the Make Poverty History concert in Melbourne, Australia was highly successful. The concert, which occurred simultaneously with the G20 meeting, was responsible for Australia doubling its foreign aid efforts. Other concerts Evans has been involved with include the 2012 Global Citizen Festival for which Evans secured the Great Lawn in Central Park, N.Y. The New York festival also occurred simultaneously with another international meeting, this time of the United Nations General Assembly.

The concert raised $1.3 billion in programs to aid the global poor. The June 26 concert is aimed at getting the United States to continue its aid efforts for child survival services as well as double the U.S. government’s funding of the Global Partnership for Education, which would total $40 million. Previous concert efforts of Evans have been associated with rock and pop music. This will be his first effort utilizing electronic dance music.

The festival will feature DJs, Evans and top U.S. Foreign Aid officials who will speak about the cause of eliminating extreme poverty and encourage fans to get involved. Tiesto expressed in an email that the festival provides a unique possibility to produce effective change. “I know that my fans are thoughtful, generous and caring and this festival is a great opportunity to show Washington D.C. what our community is really about.” The festival, which is partnered with Club Glow, the World Childhood Foundation, The Global Poverty Project and Global Citizen, will begin at 4 p.m. on June 26 at Merriweather Pavilion in Columbia, Md.

– Christopher Kolezynski

Sources: EDM, Spin, Washington Post

Photo: Oh So Fresh

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Pure Water for the World

Pure Water for the World (PWW) is an international nonprofit organization helping end the world water crisis. The organization currently works in Haiti and Honduras, bringing “water filtration, safe sanitation and hygiene education” to struggling communities.

Almost 1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean water, and according to PWW, “Lack of clean water, lack of sanitation and unfamiliarity with good hygiene practices kill more people every year than all acts of war and violence, auto accidents and HIV/AIDS combined.”

It is clear the state of water is dismal, and PWW is doing something about it.

The organization has a community-based approach, with 90 percent of its employees operating on the ground in Haiti or Honduras “changing lives by empowering people to be a part of the solution.”

Functioning mainly in rural areas, PWW first scouts out potential communities by meeting with community leaders and assessing which areas need the most improvement.

In order to maximize the number of people that benefit from its work, PWW identifies key locations, often schools and health clinics, where it installs its water filtration technology and sanitation facilities.

While installing new technologies to create clean water is a useful strategy, educational training is the backbone of PWW’s programs.

In target communities, an individual is chosen by the locals to be trained to maintain and fix PWW’s systems. This allows for the region to become self-sufficient, so that when the organization leaves, the improvements can be maintained.

In addition to recognizing one community member as a sanitation leader, hygiene education is also given to communities at large.

If just one person misuses a central water source, contamination can occur; PWW makes efforts to ensure that all are educated about how to properly sustain hygiene. Education is essential to create long-term improvements.

The organization epitomized the importance of education when it said, “PWW can deliver safe water to a village, but without the knowledge of how and why this improves their lives, and the tools to reduce disease, water will be temporary medicine at best – treating the symptoms without rooting out the underlying causes.”

To ensure that all installations have gone as planned, PWW returns to communities three months after the initial work is finished to ensure that everyone has received proper training, and again after seven months to assess the overall effectiveness of its program.

These final evaluations allow for the organization to adapt to new challenges and to learn how to better tackle water crises.

As stated by PWW, “Improved water, sanitation and hygiene practices saves lives and has significant implications in reducing poverty.” By installing technology to create clean water, and by educating people about how to maintain clean water and prevent water-borne diseases, Pure Water for the World is helping eliminate poverty, and is making a difference in people’s lives.

— Emily Jablonski

Sources: Classy, Pure Water for the World
Photo: Pure Water for the World

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Clean Water From a Box

As of 2005, one in six people are without access to clean water. Perhaps they spend a huge fraction of their income to gain access to a truck that distributes clean water to them, which, ultimately, might not even be clean. They might simply drink available water that holds dangerous bacteria, or that is laced with chemicals. Slightly less than 1 billion people wake up knowing that their first demand of the day is to find any source of water at all.

It isn’t as if water purification hasn’t been perfected in a number of other contexts. Drug companies purify water in huge quantities to produce medicine. The U.S. Navy found methods by which drinking water could be desalinated.

But both of these methods lack the level of portability needed to address the issue of water deprivation in impoverished regions. Methods like chlorine tablets exist, along with reverse osmosis plants. Yet problems of portability persist. It’s possible only some pollutants get purified, and others remain. Sometimes parts are too expensive to replace or are difficult to find.

The struggle with water purification for those in poverty has obviously been a long one, but it looks like the end might be in sight. It comes in the form of a plain-looking box, no larger than a mini refrigerator. Behind its design is a unique story, and its benefits have been a long time coming.

Dean Kamen has been working on what he calls the Slingshot for over 10 years. The inventor of the Segway, Kamen came to the project when Baxter International asked for his help. They had built a device to perform a procedure called peritoneal dialysis, which uses sterile saline to filter a patient’s blood. Kamen’s job was to refine and improve the machine.

It required huge amounts of purified water, or what amounted to multiple gallons a day for each patient. Kamen and his team turned to a simple scientific principle to solve their problem: they recycled the energy used when water evaporates. Now, Kamen has a device that he says can “take any input water, whether it’s got bioburden, organics, inorganics, chrome and… make pure water come out.” Kamen explains that the Slingshot could provide perfectly clean water using less power than a typical hairdryer.

Kamen’s last challenge is getting the Slingshot where it needs to go. Alongside Coca-Cola in October of 2012, Kamen announced plans with the company to bring the Slingshot to remote regions of Africa and Latin America. The partnership had already sent 15 of the machines to Ghana in 2011. Also involved in the process were the Inter-American Development Bank and Africare.

But Kamen has even bigger plans. His next project will work to reach even more people in need of clean water with his energy-efficient Stirling generator, solving the lack of electricity that could inhibit the use of the Slingshot. In the near future, Kamen has made it quite possible that millions of people will no longer face water insecurity.

— Rachel Davis

Sources: Popular Science, HowStuffWorks, Coca-Cola
Photo: Business Week

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Chemists Develop Solution to Water Crisis

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If you think back to your days as a kindergartner, you may remember the first time you learned the water cycle. Equipped with a blue crayon, you replicated what your teacher described in a simple picture: rain falls, people drink it, the water evaporates and the whole thing repeats. You learned that water is renewable.

But renewable does not mean unlimited, a fact constantly recognized by the 780 million people who lack access to clean drinking water.

Freshwater, the largest source of our drinking water, makes up only 2.5 percent of the planet’s water. Only 1 percent of freshwater is actually available, as most of it is frozen. This leaves 0.007 percent of the Earth’s water left for an ever-growing population that exceeds 7 billion. This is a water crisis.

“Why can’t we use ocean water?” one might ask. The answer is, well, we can.

Desalination, the removal of salt from saltwater, makes the use of ocean water possible. But breaking the strong bonds that salt forms with water molecules requires a lot of energy, and this energy is expensive.

As Peter Gleick, president of the environmental think-tank Pacific Institute, says, “It can cost from just under $1 to well over $2 to produce one cubic meter (264 gallons) of desalted water from the ocean.”

Considering that 99 percent of water-related illnesses occur in developing countries, desalination is simply an unrealistic option for most who suffer from the water crisis.

But what if there were some way to desalinate without such steep energy requirements?

A team of scientists believe they know how to do so.

Martin Bazant and Daosheng Deng of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a process that they believe will more efficiently and effectively desalinate water. They call it “shock electrodialysis.”

Today, the two cheapest methods of desalination are reverse osmosis and electrodialysis.

Reverse osmosis works by pumping water through a membrane that does not allow salts to pass. Although it requires less energy than older methods, it works too slowly.

Building on reverse osmosis, electrodialysis tried the opposite: pumping salts through an electrified membrane until only pure water is left. This process is significantly cheaper than reverse osmosis but is not without shortcomings. It fails to decontaminate water of dirt and bacteria without additional filtration methods.

Bazant and Deng say that shock electrodialysis can produce clean, bacteria-free drinking water in one step. How? They placed an additional filter made of porous glass near the electrified membrane. Based on Bazant and Deng’s observations, dirt particles and bacteria are unable to fit through the tiny pores in the glass material.

If it turns out that this MIT development can be produced at a low cost on a large scale, shock electrodialysis could provide millions of people with access to drinking water.

– Shehrose Mian

Sources: UNICEF, National Geographic, Scientific American, Technology Review
Photo: Technology Review

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Water NGOs that Make a Splash

In industrial nations with established water purification and sanitation systems, people often take their ability to turn on the tap and drink a glass of clean water for granted. The reality is that nearly 1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean water and this is a serious problem.

Eighty percent of disease in developing countries is due to bacteria, worms and other organisms found in the unclean water that one-eighth of the world uses. Water-borne diseases are one of the top killers of children under 5, causing one in five deaths worldwide. In addition, an estimated 433 million school days a year are lost to sickness, caring for the sick or fetching water, all of which further perpetuate the poverty cycle. Fortunately, water is a solvable problem.

With the work of dedicated and forceful water NGOs and local governments, clean water has the potential to reach everyone around the globe. Here are some organizations that do particularly effective work.

1. Charity: water

Charity: water was founded by Kevin Rose in 2006 as a way of putting some direction into his life. Its overall mission is to bring clean drinking water to rural areas of developing nations. Charity: water also recognizes that women in developing nations may have to walk miles to get water for their families, and that the water they bring back often has disease carrying organisms. With this in mind, Charity: water aims to build water purification and gathering systems in local communities so that clean water is readily available.

Charity: water achieves its goals by appealing to the local needs and skills. The organization fully funds, supports, trains and aids the target community in building sustainable, easy to run and simple to maintain water collection projects. In addition, Charity: water does extensive research on the target community to establish which project would be most effective for the locals’ needs. The organization then helps design plans and builds systems, including hand-dug or drilled wells, rainwater catchments and water purification systems. Charity: water gets clean water to needy communities by establishing a system for water collection, building it and teaching the locals to use it. The organization then monitors its success and maintenance. Charity:water has found great success, with thousands of projects in Africa alone, and others in Central and South America and South Asia.

2.  Global Water

Global Water is based off the understanding that a lack of access to clean drinking water is the cause of much of the world’s hunger, disease and poverty. Its goal is to build permanent and sustainable sanitation facilities and clean water access to promote health, knowledge and hygiene in developing nations.

Global Water takes several approaches to reach its goals, most of which rely extensively on partnerships with local NGOs and governments. The company realizes that it is most effective as a support for the local installation and implementation of programs rather than a group that parachutes in, builds a system on its own and leaves.

Therefore, Global Water works with local groups to design an effective project, provides equipment, expertise and assistance in the building process, and inspects and monitors the project. This significant partnership with local groups makes Global Water unique and its projects lasting and effective.

Global Water has been involved in successful well drilling projects in Africa, building everything from hand washing stations to spring catchments in Central America.

3. The Water Project

The Water Project aims for better water programs rather than a large number of unsatisfactory ones. The campaign believes that the local community should dictate what method is used to ensure that the program is enduring and life changing. As a result, The Water Project insists on taking community feedback every step of the way.

The Water Project has worked in Burkina Faso, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Sudan and Uganda. While this is a more limited range of regions than other organizations of similar type, The Water Project focuses on sustainability and success rather than creating a vast array of defunct programs, and a limited range supports this work model. On top of building structures like wells, sand dams and rainwater catchment devices, The Water Project also aims to educate the local community on water safety and hygiene.

In fact, education is a fundamental part of the organization. The Water Project process starts by teaching local people about how proper sanitation and hygiene relate to health. In addition, The Water Project focuses on getting the community involved by providing support for the project, either through labor, money, food for workers, etc. Then comes the installation of the project, during which The Water Project helps get permits and dig wells. Lastly, the company conducts a final education on the new system and proudly hands over a new water system and chance for a better life to the local community. Throughout the following years, The Water Project continues to monitor and maintain its projects to ensure their lasting success.

Overall, NGOs and campaigns that provide clean water to developing nations are often the same in their final product, like the wells and lavatories they install. But each has its unique outlook on the problem and its own reputation in local communities. Without the combined efforts of these organizations and more like them, water safety around the world would be an insurmountable challenge. But because of the success of companies like Charity: water and The Water Project, it is becoming more and more possible for the  world to have access to clean water and effective sanitation.

 — Caitlin Thompson 

Sources: The Water Project, Global Water, Charity:water
Photo: Charity:water

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TaiwanICDF Provides Clean Water

April 11 marked the official opening ceremony commemorating the completion of a new, groundbreaking water supply system made possible by the Haitian government, the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China and the International Cooperation and Development Fund of Taiwan (TaiwanICDF.) The new water system will reportedly supply safe and clean domestic water for over 90 percent of the area’s inhabitants.

In January 2010 a magnitude seven earthquake devastated Haiti and rendered about 1 million Haitians homeless, a number of which relocated from its capital, Port-au-Prince, to New Hope Village in Savane Diane. As a result, the need for accessible and clean water  increased exponentially, and the new system accommodates this need and serves as a sustainable, long-term solution. TaiwanICDF reportedly showed residents how to maintain and fix the system in the event that it breaks down.

The Taiwanese ambassador to Haiti, Peter Hwang, attended this special celebration, as did TaiwanICDF’s Secretary General, Tao Wen-lung. Wen-lung said the system would provide enough water not only for over 200 homes, but additionally for the village’s health facility, school and nearby agricultural irrigation needs. He described it as “a real godsend for local residents.”

In a video on the TaiwanICDF website, a local resident describes the arduous three-hour process he formerly endured to transfer water from a far-away source back to his home. Now, he has a quick and easy water source practically in his backyard. In the video, the resident also thanks TaiwanICDF for their instrumental role in developing and maintaining the system in his village.

China and Taiwan are hosts to numerous humanitarian organizations. TaiwanICDF is particularly focused on infrastructural and economic development for long-term stability in needy nations and regions, as well as technical cooperation, humanitarian assistance and international education and training. This type of maintainable, long-term investment in developing nations has provided a model by which helpful contributions in such countries can make significant long-term differences.

– Arielle Swett

Sources: ICDF, Taipei Times
Photo: Taiwan Today

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WaterAid Shows Africa’s Growing Access to Water

The nonprofit organization WaterAid released a new interactive map revealing that 14 nations in Africa are scheduled to have clean drinking water by the year 2030. This map was released as part of Africa Water Week, which took place from May 26 to May 31, to promote the idea that the accessibility of clean water in developing countries should have a central role in the U.N.’s post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals.

Since its establishment on July 21, 1981, WaterAid has worked to address the serious health, sanitation and hygiene issues that currently exist in a number of countries. This organization also realizes that education and a change in both policies and practices are needed so that an increase in hygiene and sanitation practices can help reduce global poverty. For more than 30 years, WaterAid has provided more than 19 million people with both clean and safe water in multiple countries, and it was even honored with a Top-Rated Nonprofit Award in 2013.

WaterAid hopes that the release of this map will encourage the U.N. to include global access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene by 2030 in their list of Sustainable Development Goals. This new set of goals is expected to expand on the Millennium Development Goals, which will reach their deadline Dec. 31, 2015. Before this deadline, the General Assembly is scheduled to confirm the Sustainable Development Goals in September. According to Water.org, water-related diseases are the cause of approximately 3.4 million deaths each year, confirming that this is a major global issue that needs to be addressed.

This map produced by WaterAid serves two very important purposes because it offers evidence that this is not only a worthy cause, but that it is also realistic and attainable. According to the map, 65.2 percent of people in Sub-Saharan Africa had access to water as of 2013, meaning that approximately 45 million people need to gain access to water per year to reach the 2030 goal. Although this is certainly a large amount of people, only 1.4 percent of the 2030 population needs to gain access to water every year in order to reach this goal.

– Meghan Orner

Sources: UN, WaterAid, WaterAid 2, Water
Photo: SAB Miller