Water is Life

As many know, I've been involved in a lot of water projects in my community and others. I've seen groups come in and do a not so great job of helping the locals get clean water and I've seen other groups come in with open minds and work with the locals and doing a good job. Unfortunately most of the groups that come in and try to help actually do either nothing or make the problem worse. The main problem is that many of these groups come in and set up a water catchment system for a house to get clean rain water and don't take into account how they are doing it. Some come with power tools and never even really talk to the home owner. It's like if you were living at home and a plumber came to fix your plumbing and never talked to you, never told you what the problem was, used tools you've never seen before, and left without telling you how to fix anything if something went wrong. This is the reality of most water projects here in the third world.

There is an organization that does it right and I happen to be part of that organization:) Thats right, the good ol Peace Corps knows what the hell they are doing. Because we live in these communities and work side by side with these people we are able to make sure everything goes right and that they know how to build the systems and fix them when needed. We also know how to save money when purchasing the materials as many of these systems can be supported by local free materials that the owner has. Saving money means more water for more people. And that means less child death.

You wouldn't believe how many child deaths there are here just because of water. I have people in my community that have lost half their children. It's sad to say the least. Even the ones that live have a constant worm and or amoeba problem which slows down everything from being able to learn to being able to work. Some figures say that a person can increase their income by 30% a year by just being free of parasites. That's a lot of money to these people. After seeing so many sick and literally dying babies at the last doctor clinics I translated for I decided to make a video. Please take the time to check it out. Most of the video is shot in my community and I know most of these kids. Peace...