WaterLog

Over 400 Seattle area residents gathered on Saturday to walk for water in solidarity with the 1 billion people who make a daily trek for water. 

This was easily my favorite Water 1st event ever.  It was moving to see everyone making such a sincere a effort to carry the water.  There was a group of about seven women (Tizita & Fekadu’s Team) who carried the entire 5 gallons in one container.  They passed it to each other and each team member carried it as far as she could. 

I saw one young girl with a small container of water on her back fall to her knees at the end of the 5k walk route with a big ‘phew.’  Her mom, Jill Jago, said she was really determined to carry her half-gallon container the whole way. 

A group of students from the Edmonds School district were also there as a team.  Their parents are originally from Mexico, and they said their mothers used to carry water when they lived there.  They were participating in honor of them.

At Water 1st, we truly believe in the power of the grassroots. We believe it is important for us as individuals to join together in addressing this issue.  When people here are aware of the millions of preventable childhood deaths annually and the billions of hours spent daily by women and young girls carrying water, they are motivated to take action, like the CARRY 5 participants did here on Saturday.  Thank you to everyone who participated in this event!

Full story here.

Photo gallery here.

Musician Feliciano dos Santos in Mozambique has been awarded the 2008 Goldman Environmental Prize because of his work campaigning for water and sanitation through music.

Full story here.

More than 300 guests braved the Seattle weather on Friday night and gathered for the 3rd annual Water 1st – Beer 2nd fun(d)raiser at Hale’s Palladium on Friday, April 18th, where they enjoyed live music, food, and dancing in support of the work of Water 1st International.  The winner of the Hawaiian vacation was also announced.  Congratulations and aloha to Ty Cramer!

Over $30,000 was raised to support water, sanitation and hygiene education projects in Ethiopia, Honduras, India and Bangladesh.  Thank you to all who supported this event, especially Hale’s Brewery and the event committee and volunteers!

Full story here

Photos from the even here

The work of Water 1st International in Ethiopia was featured on the front page of the Seattle Post Intelligencer today, March 22 - World Water Day.

The article was written by Sarah Stuteville, a Seattle reporter for The Common Language Project, a Seattle-based media nonprofit, who chronicled the Water 1st 2008 Water Tour to Ethiopia. She describes how communities in Ethiopia are receiving clean drinking water thanks to the support of Water 1st.

Full Story in the Seattle P.I here

The United Nations General Assembly has designated March 22 of each year as the World Day for Water. The theme for World Water Day 2008 is sanitation, in recognition of the 2.6 billion people in the world who lack access to a hygienic toilet.

On Saturday, March 22, people around the country and the world will join together to draw attention to the global water and sanitation crisis, the most important public health issue of our time, and do something that makes a difference in the lives of people in need of these most basic necessities. Consider doing something with your family, friends, or co-workers on this special day.

Download and print this flyer and hang it in your favorite restroom as a reminder to everyone of how fortunate we all are to have a safe and dignified toilet.

Share this great Jim Borgman/Cincinnati Enquirer cartoon!

 Show the Water 1st DVD with family, friends and co-workers.

Here are a variety of other ways you can take action and make a difference.

Sanitation may be an embarrassing word. Something we don’t like to talk about. Something people in the communities we try to help are also embarrassed to talk about. But access to water and sanitation is the foundation of development.

Unfortunately the toilets that we take for granted are considered a luxury by the 2.6 billion people on earth who lack them. Without toilets, people are forced to defecate on the bare ground, or in urban and peri-urban areas, to stand in line to use a filthy public latrine. The result of this can be summed up in one lethal word: diarrhea. Diarrhea thrives in the absence of basic, hygienic conditions and is the number one killer of children in the world.

This is why November 19 was designated as World Toilet Day, by the World Toilet Organization (or, the other WTO).

Water 1st is working hard to change this.  A donation of $50 is all it takes for Water 1st is all it takes to provide one person with water, sanitation and hygiene education for life using simple, low-cost solutions. 

Water 1st is a member of The End Water Poverty coalition which has produced a film to promote political action in bringing improvements in sanitation around the world. The Japanese Government is hosting next year’s G8 summit. Help us to take action this World Toilet Day. Watch the film and sign the petition lobbying the Japanese Government to put sanitation on the 2008 G8 agenda.

Also, please check out the World Toilet Summit blog of Dave Praeger, author of Poop Culture, a new book from Dave (which he also generously donated to our auction last Friday). 

On Friday, November 16th, at Benaroya’s elegant Samuel and Althea Stroum Grand Lobby, 560 guests gathered for a silent auction and benefit dinner to support the work of Water 1st International’s projects in four of the world’s poorest countries. $443,000 was raised to benefit people in need of clean water in Bangladesh, Honduras, Ethiopia and India.

Full story here.

I couldn’t resist sharing this video of a house under construction in South Korea.  This is no ordinary house.  It’s shaped like a large toilet!  It’s not for sale, but it can be rented at a whopping $50,000 per night.  Proceeds from the rentals will benefit the Korean Toilet Association, whose goal is to help the 2.6 billion people on earth who do not have access to safe sanitation.

Closer to the headquarters of Water 1st in Seattle, we are proud to be home to The Crapsters Soapbox, a soapbox racer that competed in the September race in Seattle.  If anyone knows the owners of The Crapsters, it would be great to have it make an appearance at our Water 1st Beer 2nd event in 2008!

At Water 1st, we believe access to water and sanitation is a basic human right.  It also makes good economic sense.  According to a recent WHO report, the global return on investing in water and sanitation is projected at roughly $10 for every $1 spent for universal coverage. 

There are many potential benefits associated with improved water and sanitation, ranging from direct economic benefits of preventing diarrhea, indirect economic benefits related to health improvements (such as fewer missed days at work or school) and non-health benefits related to water and sanitation improvements (such as time-savings from water collection).

The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set specific targets for access to water and sanitation: to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people who currently lack these facilities.  The failure to meet these targets - which only get us halfway to our final goal of universal coverage - will cost $38 billion annually in health care costs and missed economic opportunities for the world’s poorest. 

When evaluated separately, sanitation coverage yields even more economic benefits than water.  That’s one reason why our projects always combine water, sanitation and hygiene education.

Dr. Stephen Commins, a lecturer at UCLA’s Department of Urban Planning, summed it up very well:   “Investments in the provision of sanitation more than pay for themselves. The international community simply can’t afford not to address the global sanitation crisis.” 

While riding into work this morning, a short NPR story on the UN building renovation project just got to me and I had to respond.  My commentary won’t change their plans, and I’m not about to go to New York City and stand in front of the bulldozers, but I feel better having said it and hopefully my letter will be read on the air.

Listen to the NPR story here.

Here’s what I sent:
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have much sympathy for the 4,000 UN workers who will be inconvenienced during the $2 billion makeover of the UN headquarters in New York City.  July 2007 was the midpoint in the agreed timescale for achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, and the UN in its own status report said the world was failing in the battles to cut infant mortality and put every child in school. How is it that we have money to spend on remodeling when half of the world doesn’t even have a simple toilet? The UN anti-poverty declaration adopted in 2000 said that we would ’spare no effort’ to eradicate extreme poverty in our world. I guess that statement doesn’t apply to new air conditioning systems for the world’s wealthiest.”