Safe Water saves
Children ….
Ron Denham
Chair, Water & Sanitation Rotarian Action Group
Jim Goodrich, President, Rotary Club of Groveland, CA
March 2011
The Background:
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900 million people (one in six) lack
access to safe water
•
2.5 billion have no sanitation
This lack of access has profound
implications for the children:
Disease & Health
Child Mortality
Primary Education
Safe Water &
Sanitation
Child Mortality
Gender Equality
Poverty & Hunger
Water borne disease is a major cause
of mortality among children:
• 8000 people die every day from waterrelated disease; 5000 of them children
• 150 children of every 1,000 born in
Africa die before the age of five, 25%
from water-related disease
Largely from a small number of water
related diseases:
Disease
Estimated Ann. Mortality
Diarrheal disease
2.2 to 5.0 million
Intestinal worms
200,000
Schistosomiasis (Bilharzia)
500,000
Guinea Worm
100,000
Sleeping Sickness
150,000
Trachoma
6 million blinded*
*Few direct deaths, but thousands of indirect deaths
Economic consequences are equally
serious:
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•
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40 billion hours spent, per year, in Africa
alone collecting and hauling water
Women and children (usually girls) spend up
to six hour per day fetching water
Families often spend up to 25% of their
income to purchase water
Water access was the only Millennium
Development Goal (MDG) agreed on by all
countries
Goal #7: By 2015 reduce by 50% the
proportion of people without access
to sustainable safe water and
sanitation
But the challenge is formidable;
too many lack access:
Sub-Saharan Africa
47%
East Asia
29%
South Asia
28%
Middle East
18%
Latin America
18%
Water & Sanitation is an RI strategic
area of focus, it implies:
•
Rotarians should be aware of world water
issues
•
Rotary clubs should implement a water
and/or sanitation project or program
Rotarians are striving to meet the challenge:
Country
India
212
Indonesia
35
Philippines
50
Thailand
38
Other
90
Country
Country
Projects
Projects
Projects
Burkina Faso
5
Bolivia
12
Cameroun
9
Dom. Rep.
17
Ghana
25
Ecuador
32
Kenya
55
Guatemala
25
Malawi
10
Haiti
27
Nigeria
21
Honduras
51
South Africa
27
Mexico
55
Nicaragua
11
Tanzania
15
Peru
18
Uganda
58
Other
57
Zambia
29
Other
100
They are responding to every
imaginable need:

Drilling boreholes, digging wells

Implementing rainwater harvesting

Installing household filters and purification

Building earth and concrete dams

Installing pipelines/distribution systems

Protecting ponds

Building latrines and toilet blocks
But, together we can do much more:
• BIGGER
• BETTER
• BOLDER
We should be BIGGER, have more
impact:
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Water is the #1 humanitarian challenge
But only a small number of clubs are active
Little leverage with other organizations
Limited use of Rotary Community Corps
Few opportunities to scale up to the larger
community
• Too small to attract outside financing
We should be BETTER:
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•
•
•
•
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Too many projects are unsustainable
Much emphasis on activity, too little on
humanitarian outcomes
Projects “owned” by foreign Rotary clubs
Little consideration of life-cycle implications
Software, training, behavior change, ignored.
Failure to get community/host ownership
No monitoring and evaluation
Millions of dollars, hours of investment - wasted
We should be BOLDER:
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Create “programs” not “projects”, e.g. “WASH in
Schools”
Scale up to the region, watershed, river basin, etc.
Focus on humanitarian and economic outcomes
e.g. children’s health, education, poverty etc
Leverage other organizations: local authority,
NGOs, government agencies
Appoint and pay a professional team
Ask for “big” money—$$$millions
Wasrag can help you become
Bigger, Better, Bolder:
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Assist in preparing “Needs Assessments”
Show how to find a project and get started
Create a compendium of best practices
Design training programs
Evaluate alternative technologies
Match with clubs and NGOs
Facilitate partnerships, attract sponsors, to
match club, district and TRF grants
Wasrag is Rotary’s resource for WASH.
You can help Rotary clubs everywhere:
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Volunteer your expertise
Become a link in the Rotary-wide network
Report your successes, share your experience
Become a member of Wasrag
Persuade your friends to support Wasrag
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•
Go to: www.wasrag.org
Click on “Sign Up”