Update from the Field | Azacualpa Centro, Honduras
¡Viva, Azacualpa!Clean water is flowing in Azacualpa Centro! We just returned from Honduras where we were joined by over 1,000 people in Azacualpa Centro to cut-the-ribbon on their new water system. The full-day celebration was planned by the community and filled with original songs, skits, speeches, and poetry conveying gratitude, happiness, humor and stories to […]
Update from the Field | Kumira, Bangladesh
Meet the indigenous Tripura peopleWater1st staff recently traveled to Kumira, Bangladesh with a group of supporters and students from our Global Fellows program. The Kumira community is a settlement of displaced Tripura people. As the urban population grew, this ethnic minority was forced to migrate to extremely undesirable circumstances without access to water, electricity, or […]
Bangladesh Reflections | Sophia Dettweiler
In December, I had the opportunity to travel to Bangladesh as a Water1st Global Fellow and see the tremendous impact of clean water and sanitation on the health, happiness, and dignity of slum communities. I saw the huge difference in quality of life between communities with and without clean water and sanitation. When we visited densely populated […]
An Update from Bangladesh | More complex than just clean water
It’s more complex than just clean water. In Bangladesh, Water1st is working in communities with some of the highest population densities in the world. Disease spreads rapidly in these environments, increasing the importance of a comprehensive solution to water and sanitation challenges. Our local colleagues, Dushtha Shasthya Kendra (DSK), provide access to clean water and toilets […]
Update from Mozambique | Cyclone Recovery Efforts & Water System Progress
Following the cyclone that struck the region around Bilibiza, Mozambique this past April, residents have returned to rebuild their homes and are beginning to resume normal daily activities. With Water1st’s financial assistance, the community is engaged in cooperative efforts to plant gardens with short rotation crops, primarily vegetables. The sooner they can harvest the crops, […]
Update from San Gabriel | 12 years later
In 2006 Water1st embarked on the construction of its very first community water system in rural Honduras. The isolated mountainside village of San Gabriel began by digging five miles of pipeline trench and constructing their own 6,500-gallon storage tank. This past March, during a routine monitoring visit, we returned to the community of San Gabriel. We […]
June visit to our India projects
With the late arrival of the monsoons, Water 1st’s June visit to our projects in the Sundarbans of West Bengal, India went more smoothly than we expected. In between brief, intense cloud bursts, we were able to check up on the 2009 projects and see two of the more distant project sites in Uttarkashiabad, all […]
Tubewell Maintenance in India
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Making a water project sustainable has many components. One of the primary concerns is the physical maintenance of the water pumps themselves. This short film, shot in December 2009, shows the women of the water committee in Gangadarpur, India performing routine maintenance on their tubewell pump. They perform this maintenance every two weeks. This pump […]
Day 1 in India: Cyclone Aila Recovery
We are back home from our trip to India and able to post news of our visit there. Unlike Bangladesh, in India we don’t have internet access in the rural town south of Kolkata where we stay while visiting our projects. The first day of our visit with our local partner, APS, we were shown a […]
The true origins of Mother’s Day
I’m always looking for a way to link the global water and sanitation crisis to our everyday lives here, but even I was surprised when I first learned about the origins of Mother’s Day. I always thought it was a holiday invented by Hallmark. It wasn’t, but we’ve certainly allowed it to be taken over […]
University of Arizona students Walk for Water & raise $3,500!
The Arizona Daily Star has a great article in today’s paper about yesterday’s CARRY 5 event at the University of Arizona in Tucson. About 50 people participated in Tucson’s CARRY 5 event, raising $3,500. A local bluegrass band played to entertain the walkers, who each carried water – from 1 to 5 gallons – for 5 […]
“Thirst Quencher” – Tucson Weekly Story about CARRY 5
The Tucson Weekly is helping us get the word out about this weekend’s CARRY 5 Walk for Water at the University of Arizona. UA hydrology senior and event organizer Michael Barnes is quoted in the piece: “The walk represents the daily struggle to obtain water, and through participating, we can help end it. Participants carry (5 […]
Celebrating Día Mundial del Agua
I just returned from a great visit to Honduras with three Water 1st board members, a hydrology student from the U of A and an engineering grad student from MIT. We were there to visit completed water and sanitation projects implemented by our local partner organization, to see how the projects are functioning one or […]