The Cost of Dirty Water

{photo by Barbara Goldberg}

The Millenium Development Goals and Wells Bring Hope

                                  

by Jessica Isaac

Millennium Development Goals -- How Safe Water Can Help

Millennium Development Goals - the phrase may sound complicated, but the motive behind it is simple and straightforward. MDGs, as they are referred to, are eight international development goals established by the United Nations following the Millennium Summit of 2000. All 193 United Nations member states have agreed to achieve the following eight goals by 2015:

1.   Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2.   Achieve universal primary education

3.   Promote gender equality and empowering women

4.   Reduce child mortality rates

5.   Improve maternal health

6.   Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases

7.   Ensure environmental sustainability

8.   Create a global partnership for development

The World Health Organization has reported some promising statistics regarding the progress of some of these goals, but we are a long way from achieving success. The three goals listed below are near and dear to us here at Wells Bring Hope because, as we know, access to safe drinking water is often the solution. Each well that is drilled in Niger not only brings Nigeriens one step closer to achieving goal 7 (environmental stability), but also helps reduce child mortality (goal 4) and makes it possible for women to become educated, thereby improving maternal health (goal 5). Each goal listed below has a minimum specified target that will satisfy the MDG as well as estimated statistics from the World Health Organization, which is tracking international progress. 

1. Reduce Child Mortality (Goal #4)
Target: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

                         

{photo by Barbara Goldberg}

Progress via WHO.int: 

-In 2011, 6.9 million children under five died, compared with 12 million in 1990-Between 1990 and 2011, under-five mortality declined by 41%, from an estimated rate of 87 deaths per 1000 live births to 51

-The global rate of decline has also accelerated in recent years – from 1.8% per annum during 1990–2000 to 3.2% during 2000–2011

Projection via WHO:

"Despite this improvement, the world is unlikely to achieve the MDG target of two-thirds reduction in 1990 mortality levels by the year 2015."

How Wells Bring Hope can help:
In West Africa, the most common cause of death and disease comes from contaminated water. Babies often die from diarrhea, an ailment that can be cured by replacing this contaminated water with clean, safe water. 

2. Improve Maternal Health (Goal #5)
Targets: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio and achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health

Progress via WHO.int:
-a significant reduction in the number of maternal deaths – from an estimated 543 000 in 1990 to 287 000 in 2010

Projection via WHO.int:
"Despite a significant reduction in the number of maternal deaths the rate of decline is just over half that needed to achieve the MDG target of a three quarters reduction in the mortality ratio between 1990 and 2015. To reduce the number of maternal deaths, women need access to good-quality reproductive health care and effective interventions. In 2008, 63% of women aged 15–49 years who were married or in a consensual union were using some form of contraception, while 11% wanted to stop or postpone childbearing but were not using contraception."

                      

{photo by Gil Garcetti}

How Wells Bring Hope can help:

Women and girls bear the burden of walking 4-6 miles a day to reach a water source, usually contaminated. The task is labor intensive and prevents girls from going to school. Women spend most of their day getting water, having little time to do anything else. They suffer chronic pain from this physical burden and constant stress from having so little time to complete other tasks. When they have access to safe water, women are healthier and less likely to suffer complications during pregancy. In addition, when girls have the opportunity to go to school, they tend to marry and bear children later, drastically reducing the likelihood of maternal death as well as the chance of obstetric fistulas, a frequent consequence of early childbearing.

3. Ensure Environmental Sustainability (Goal #7)

Target: By 2015, halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

Progress via WHO.int:

-In 2010, 89% of the population used an improved source of drinking-water compared with 76% in 1990

-Progress has been uneven in different regions.

Projection via WHO

"With regard to basic sanitation, current rates of progress are too slow for the MDG target to be met globally. The number of people living in urban areas without access to improved sanitation is increasing because of rapid growth in the size of urban populations."

How Wells Bring Hope can help:

The most important aspect of drilling a well is to insure its sustainability. When a well is drilled, we begin the process of teaching villagers how to maintain it and take ownership of it. Ownership of the well belongs to the village and they are responsible for its maintenance. This is very important for building pride and a sense of responsibility. 100% of the wells drilled by Wells Bring Hope have been sustained and are fully functioning. In addition, WBH is well aware of the importance of sanitation. In every village where we drill a well, we also build latrines and educate the villagers about the importance of using them. We also provide ongoing education on hygiene, and we teach mothers and children the value of hand and face washing.

When you support Wells Bring Hope, you are supporting the progress of the Millenium Development Goals.

                   

Happy Valentine’s Day

{photo by Gil Garcetti}

The Basics

by Christine Eusebio

{source: Nasa Goddard Photo and Video}

The ever-increasing presence of the internet in the day-to-day lives of people all around the world gives us the sense that our massive globe is not so big after all. However, even as our knowledge of the world expands, our physical existence is necessarily limited, and we can really only see the world through the prism of our own experiences.

The more we learn about ourselves, the more we realize how dependent we have become on the internet and technology. Checking emails is as much a part of our morning routine as brushing our teeth. Without our gadgets, we feel naked -- like something is missing.

                                                                    {source: blaircook}

With this intense focus on technology and connection, and with all of the convenience of our modern society, it is easy to forget that our actual, primitive needs are really very few. While we worry about the hustle and bustle of our daily schedule, while we panic about misplaced smartphones, the people of Niger worry about how they will get what we have in abundance: safe, clean water.

We are just minutes (even seconds) away from our water coolers at work and the filters on our faucets at home, so it easy to understand why access to water something that most Americans never worry about. The situation is quite different in West Africa. The women and girls of Niger have to walk many miles to get water, water that is often contaminated. As a result, they have time for little else, education is an unlikely dream, and 87% of Nigerien women are illiterate.

When a well is drilled, women’s time is suddenly free to pursue other productive activities like farming and raising livestock. These activities allow the women to earn money and provide for their families, an example which creates a positive, healthy atmosphere for their children, especially their daughters.

                  

{photo by Gil Garcetti}

Support our cause. Don't let your compassion well run dry. Fill it with water.

                      

Help Save a Life

by Pete Brach

Can You Give Three Minutes A Week To Save A Life?

Of course most of us want to save a life, but who has the time?  Wells Bring Hope has an easy answer:  by simply broadcasting our messages to your social network you can help save lives, empower women, educate girls, and change a village for generations to come.  That is a powerful and meaningful contribution you can make toward improving our world!



Imagine 

What would happen if one thousand people on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere sent out or retweeted our messages three times a week?  We would reach at least half a million people a month. Multiply that by twelve!



Facebook Users:  Please begin by liking us on Facebook.  Our postings will then show up on your news feed; then it's as simple as clicking the “share” icon to add our posts to your own Facebook wall.

Twitter Users:  Begin by following us on Twitter.  Then please retweet our messages, reply to postings and/or recommend us on Follow Fridays.

That's it! By adding us to your social network and inviting your friends to do the same, you can help us spread the word about the water crisis in West Africa and everything that Wells Bring Hope does to help.

An African Reflects on Clean and Dirty Water

by Hadiara Diallo

Recently, I looked at pictures of clean and dirty water taken during my last trip to Niger, West Africa.  

There were a few shots of the surrounding village of Tchibarey.  These photos remind me that while much of Africa struggles to find clean water sources, during the wettest season, the ‘marigaux’’ encircling the village was high enough to force us to get out of the car and walk through the water embankment so we could get to the village.  Although locals were happy for the rain, one can’t help but wonder why countries throughout Africa are not taking better advantage of methods to recapture water for future use.

By sharing my pictures, I thought you might get a clear idea about what water looks like in my part of the world, which is further described by Pete Brach in his blog: Why Clean Water for Africa?  Certainly, the adage: ‘’A picture speaks a thousand words” truly applies in this situation.  So, while my blog Struggling To Find Clean Water In West Africa describes dismal conditions, pictures of the muddied murk of dirty water drive the point home most directly. Please take a quick look at them and see what people in Tchibarey and many West African villages use for cooking, bathing and drinking!  Do you not agree that everyone living in Africa and elsewhere has a right to clean drinking water?

In Niger, the consumption of unsafe water is the source of many ills for the population in the areas of health, employment and education. By donating money or time to Wells Bring Hope, you are helping Africans move out of poverty and into jobs.  Please join us in our fight to bring clean water to Niger, West Africa, the third poorest country in the world.

Reducing Death and Disease with Safe Water

 by Kristin Allen

My entire house is a germ-ridden nightmare.  Both my 11-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son have the miserable stomach flu that is terrorizing everyone.   It is not pretty here right now, to say the least.  I am pumping them both full of liquids to keep them hydrated, and I am washing my hands about every 45 seconds, to try to keep myself from getting sick.   It is no fun, but it made me think about the time I spent in Niger, West Africa, in January 2012.  The trip broadened my understanding as to how having water – safe water – is essential to staying healthy, and how and, believe it or not, WHY people die when it is lacking. 

                                                              {photo by Gil Garcetti}
The one thing I didn’t understand prior to my trip, is that when there is no safe water source in a village, the people do not die of the type of dehydration that is depicted in movies:  lost in the desert with no water at all.  Instead, what happens is that the villagers find a water source – however, contaminated – and use it to “survive”.   Women and girls walk hours and miles a day to disgusting, disease-ridden water holes.  One time, I saw a water hole that was simply a pit dug deep enough into the earth that water would simply seep in.  The water that was pulled out was brown from the mud and other debris in the hole.   At some point during the day, all of the water would be taken out, and there would be no water to be had until more seeped back in – typically the next day.  Another time, I witnessed women fetching water from a small lake.  It seemed like a better alternative, until I saw the livestock that were defecating and urinating into it as they drank from it themselves. 

{photo by Gil Garcetti}

When water is such a scarce commodity, it takes women and girls hours a day to carry it back to the village, that it is used for one thing only: consumption.  But consumption is a double-edged sword.  Frequently, the contamination in the water causes terrible intestinal problems and diarrhea that then leads to severe dehydration.  How can you possibly combat dehydration from diarrhea, when the only thing you can drink is the poison that caused it in the first place?  This is why diarrhea is the second leading cause of death in children under 5 years of age in Niger.

What about prevention of disease?  When there is no safe water source in a village, the water is too precious to use for hygiene.  It is second nature for me to wash and rewash my hands to try to prevent the flu from knocking me down, but this simple habit of hygiene is not an option for villagers in Niger who do not have a safe water source.  However, once a village has a safe water source, the villagers can start to learn about the importance of hand-washing to eliminate and reduce illness and infection.   Simply washing hands can cut the risk of diarrhea up to 50 percent.

                                                                {photo by Gil Garcetti}

Trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness, is spread from person to person.  It is a huge problem in Niger.  Trachoma is caused by bacteria, and one of the best ways to prevent it is by washing your face and hands – an impossibility when water is scarce.  However, a village with safe water has the “luxury” of using water for hygiene.  Diseases can be virtually eliminated by the villagers, simply because they are able to wash their faces and hands.

                                                            {photo by Barbara Goldberg}

Safe water creates an avalanche of benefits:  Girls can go to school and avoid the permanent, crippling deformity and injury that results from the weight of water carried on their heads.  Trachoma can be virtually eliminated in a village; and diarrhea doesn’t have to be so deadly. All of this from one, simple well.

                                                                                                                                                                      

                                                            {photo by Barbara Goldberg}