Safe Water for the "Other Half"

Invest in Girls Education with Water and Sanitation

Access to safe and near water and basic sanitation promotes more girls going to school. Educated girls will change the world especially in developing countries like Congo and Zambia.

http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=25172

ACCORDING to UNICEF, investing in water and sanitation is deemed smart economically as every US$1 spent on water and sanitation generates the equivalent of US$8 in saved time, increased productivity and reduced healthcare costs.

UNICEF states that an average of 4,100 children die every day from severe diarrhoea, which is caused by poor sanitation and hygiene worldwide.
"Women and girls in developing countries including Zambia (and Congo) spend most of their days gathering water for their families, walking 3.5 miles on average each day to collect water. Girls often drop out of primary school because their schools lack separate toilets and easy access to safe water," according to UNICEF.

"Access to clean drinking water and basic sanitation facilities could transform the lives of millions in the world's poorest countries. Universal access to water and sanitation could prevent thousands of child deaths and free up hours each day for women and children to go to work or school.

This is especially true for girls as studies show that 12 per cent more likely to go to school if water is available within a 15 minute walk rather than a one hour's walk."

Green Latrine Purifies Human Waste and Turns It into Electricity

In the developing world, sanitation is a taboo subject. We just don't talk about it. And we are even doing less about it.
I like this green pit latrine. Composting the waste and protecting the water aquifer is standard. But it will product electricity, too.
This latrine could supplement a solar water pump!

http://cee.umass.edu/news/green-latrine-purifies-human-waste-and-turns-it-into-electricity

Environmental Engineering Professor Caitlyn Butler from the University of Massachusetts Amherst has designed and developed a green pit latrine that can purify domestic waste for a small village of subsistence farmers in Africa, while also churning it into healthy compost for their fields, and turning it into enough carbon-neutral electricity to provide some lighting in the village. The multipurpose new invention is called a Microbial Fuel Cell Pit Latrine. Dr. Butler will travel to Ghana this May to install a pilot latrine in one village. But her long-term goal is the deployment of her inexpensive privies throughout the developing world.

Pay-as-you-go solar power lights up rural Africa

Mobile phones have proved the rural poor African will sacrifice and pay for items we consider luxury or nice-to-have items. But will they for items like solar lighting and clean water.
Ultimately, we plan to implement a pay-as-you-go water dispensing station. However, we plan to test sell of household water filters at near cost.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/16/world/pay-solar-africa/?hpt=hp_c3

"Pay-as-you-go solar is a good system as we now have light inside," says Nyungura James Ode, a farmer from Mantarra Village in South Sudan and one of the first to sign up to the project.
"(We) can do more work at home and be more productive farming. Light is better (and) mothers can tend to baby at night more easily, give medicine, change clothes and diaper," he adds.
The system -- which can light two small rooms for seven hours at a time and charge small portable devices such as mobile phones --has been designed and manufactured by British based solar technology company, Eight19.

It works in a similar fashion to mobile phone top-up cards. When users want to purchase electricity produced by their solar pack they buy a scratch card from a local vendor.
The card costs roughly $1 and reveals a code that grants access to the electricity for a week when dialed into the battery. This allows users to keep a close eye on the amount they spend and consume.

Study quantifies impact of unsafe water and poor sanitation on child and maternal mortality

In Congo, almost five times as many children under five years old die due to the lack of safe drinking water. It's even worst in the area of sanitation.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-02/unu-sqi021312.php

Dividing the 193 countries into four tiers ("quartiles"), they found that countries ranked in the bottom 25% in terms of safe water had about 4.7 more deaths per 1,000 children under five years old compared to countries in the top 25% tier.

The researchers estimate that, when related to safe water access, the difference in mortality between each 25% tier is 1.17 deaths per 1,000 children under five.
Worldwide, an estimated 1.4 million children die each year from preventable diarrheal diseases and some 88% of diarrhea cases are related to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation or inadequate hygiene.
Earlier World Health Organization (WHO) reports have stated that almost 10% of the global disease burden could be prevented by improving water supply, sanitation, hygiene and management of water resources. Another estimate reports that 4.0% of all deaths and 5.7% of total disability-adjusted life years can be attributed to water, sanitation and hygiene.

Water and Sanitation is Critical to Eradication of Polio

Clean and safe water along with basic sanitation is an important ingredient to promote better health. Eradication of polio requires clean water, basic sanitation, and nutrition.

http://www.looktothestars.org/news/7836-mia-farrow-to-visit-chad-and-congo-this-weekend

UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow will travel to Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a 10-day trip starting Sunday to support a global push to make polio a part of the past.
The visit comes at a pivotal time in the global fight against polio. In January, it was announced that India for the first time reported no new cases of the crippling disease for a full year. Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan are among the last four polio endemic countries, down from 125 in 1988.

Farrow, who had polio as a child, carries the message that the world can learn from the experience of India and further strengthen the collective push for polio eradication – especially following outbreaks in countries that were once polio free, including Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Experts fear that gains made from a massive global health push – which has included 20 million volunteers immunizing 2.5 billion children since 1988 – could be lost, just as the world is on the brink of eradicating the disease.

An important part of fighting polio is to ensure that children have access to clean water, basic sanitation and proper nutrition for them to absorb the vaccine and avoid contracting polio and other diseases.

Indianapolis Colts Guard Seth Olsen Sees First Hand How Lifewater International brings Clean Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Hope to the World’s Poorest People

The sustainability of water, sanitation, and hygiene projects depends upon training and working with local people. It takes more time to train and educate then just to do it yourself. Remember teaching someone to drive, initially it may have been easier to just take him from place to place.

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2012/s12020042.htm

According to UNICEF and the World Health Organization, diarrhea alone kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
But by training their local partner to dig a new well just outside their community, Lifewater has provided the people of Alyet Village in northern Uganda with sustainable access to safe water that will not only improve their health, but reduce their exposure to rapes, assaults and kidnappings.

With access to safe water, women and children will no longer have to walk long distances alone to fetch water. Having water close by also increases the ability to Alyet Village children to attend school, since they no longer have to spend entire days walking long distances to obtain the water they need.

Se According to UNICEF and the World Health Organization, diarrhea alone kills more young children than AIDS, malaria and measles combined.
But by training their local partner to dig a new well just outside their community, Lifewater has provided the people of Alyet Village in northern Uganda with sustainable access to safe water that will not only improve their health, but reduce their exposure to rapes, assaults and kidnappings.

With access to safe water, women and children will no longer have to walk long distances alone to fetch water. Having water close by also increases the ability to Alyet Village children to attend school, since they no longer have to spend entire days walking long distances to obtain the water they need.

Water, the poorest and most marginalised are being left behind

The gap between the haves and have-nots widens in the access to safe water. The have-nots are the poor and the rural people.
Congo is one of the poorest counties in Sub-Saharan Africa. And the disparities in access to safe water are the worst.

http://www.unicef.org/media/media_61057.html

UNICEF and the World Health Organization today release a report showing that the Millennium Development Goal of improving access to safe drinking water will likely be achieved considerably ahead of the 2015 target date.

“The good news is that almost 1.8 billion more people now have access to drinking water compared to the start of the 1990s,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF associate director and water and sanitation chief. “The bad news is that the poorest and most marginalised are being left behind.”

The report, Drinking Water Equity, Safety and Sustainability, by the UNICEF/WHO Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, found that the richest 20 per cent in Sub-Saharan African countries are more than twice as likely to use an improved drinking water source as the poorest 20 per cent. In addition, poor people in rural areas have the lowest access to safe drinking water, with the greatest burden in collecting water falling to women and girls.

Waiting on Mobile Money Transfer in Congo

Our Congo Water projects are depending upon mobile money transfer in Congo.  Initially, we plan to offer water filters, Life Straw Family and Bio-Sand, under a microcredit plan via mobile money transfer.  In the end, we would like to offer Grundfos LIFELINK or a microcredit version.

We are waiting on M-PESA to come to Congo.  Hopefully, the owners of Vodacom Congo can reach agreement soon.  If not, we hope the Vodacom Group buys out Congo Wireless Network.

Therefore, we are betting that mobile money can transform Congo!

Declaring Victory for the Congo Water 'project'

The Congo Water project will declare victory when:
1. Our trained Congolese water team can go into a village and bring safe and near water in a sustainable and a economical manner.
2. Our trained Congolese water team can properly install and maintain a water well and pump, a water filter, and a rain and ground water catchment system.
It may take a decade or more but hopefully, in my lifetime.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/01/declaring-victory.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fsethsmainblog+%28Seth%27s+Blog%29

A project might last a decade or a generation, but if it is to be a project, it must have an end.

Microfinance is Key to Access to Safe Drinking Water

Congo! Mobile banking and microfinance is unheard of in Congo. It's an opportunity and a challenge.

Microfinance is key to our water projects in rural Congo. We have the advantage of every one else failures and successes.

http://mobilemoneyafrica.com/the-role-of-messaging-in-driving-banking-services-forward-in-africa/

Africa has traditionally led the way in mobile banking. Due to a largely dispersed population and a limited retail bank presence, the majority of the people are ‘unbanked’ (i.e. without a bank account). Research from Gallup (2010) shows that across the entire continent, only 19 per cent of individuals have bank accounts, with the number falling to as low as one per cent in countries such as Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo. As traditional banking remains out of reach for the majority, mobile phones are fast becoming the best way to extend financial services to the unbanked.