According to water.org every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related illness, women spend 200 million hours a day collecting water, more than three times more people lack water than live in the United States, the majority of illness is caused by fecal matter, more people have a mobile than a toilet and lack of community involvement causes 50% of other projects to fail.
Rotary Clubs around the world observe World water day. In CROSSVILLE — The Fairfield Glade Rotary Club and the three Rotary Clubs in Oak Ridge have collaborated to expand on a pilot program to provide biosand water filters for rural Haitian families that started in Leogane, Haiti.
"The pilot project produced and installed 103 water filters. The expanded project will add 630 more filters," according to Pete Peterson, president of the Oak Ridge Breakfast Rotary Club.
Villages in four regions of Ghana are being equipped with ventilated pit latrines, showers, and boreholes featuring hand pumps and mechanized pipes through the efforts of dozens of Rotary clubs in Latin America, North America, and Ghana.
The effort is part of The International H2O Collaboration, an alliance between Rotary International and USAID, a centerpiece of Rotary’s emphasis on water and sanitation issues. Launched in 2009, the alliance works to implement long-term, sustainable water, sanitation, and hygiene projects in the developing world. The first phase of the partnership has focused on three countries: Ghana, the Philippines, and the Dominican Republic. Source: www.orbrc.org/CleanWaterProjects.cfm
The Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania, Ohio, recently received a grant for $4,680 from the Toledo Rotary Club Foundation to purchase portable water-purification devices for residents of Haiti in the mountains where the Catholic sisters minister.
Clean drinking water is an ongoing problem for the people of Haiti and is a major cause of death of children under the age of 5. This grant will allow the sisters to purchase 100 water-purification units for residents in five villages above Pestel, 90 miles west of Port-au-Prince, where they have served since 2000.
And so on St. Maarten while we are fortunate that this basic commodity is not as scarce as it is in many countries, The Rotary Club of St. Maarten continues to observes this day and the fact that we too on St. Maarten can give content to this subject by providing water fountains to schools. As such as a result of a collaborated effort between the Ace/Liteline and the Rotary Club of St. Maarten will be distributing and connecting 12 water coolers in several primary schools on the island.