Vision for Clean Water
With clean water sources virtually non-existent in the rural communities, children are charged with the responsibility of walking miles to a stream in the neighboring town and lugging it back to their homes. More often than not, families have to spend their hard-earned money to buy untreated water in overwhelmingly populated communities with poor sanitation and unsafe drinking water.
For example, Cholera is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. People become infected after drinking water that has been contaminated. As a result, we have devised two solutions for providing treated potable water.
GOH Vision for clean water
Solution #1
We envision launching a water purification program, where we would ship filters that could process 50-60 gallons of water a day for up to a year.
These filters will not be the ultimate solution as people still have to get water from untreated sources, however, we believe when the water is processed, it will be an effective, affordable and simple alternative solution to our current delivery method.
Solution #2
A more effective solution would be to build wells to provide clean water to the people in the community.
A water well Project
Building a well in a small town where access to clean water supply is almost non-existent will lower the risk of diseases among adults and of microbial contamination (bacteria, viruses, amoeba) of water which causes diarrhea and infections in children. Through our observation, we found that children who suffer from diarrhea often become weak, lose concentration and eventually drop out of school. Those health conditions not only impact their learning abilities, but also render them vulnerable to other diseases.
Having an adequate water supply and sanitation would start to reverse the disease cycle, encourage children to attend school regularly and help them achieve much better performance. Imagine a town without sanitation and clean water where children have to carry water buckets on their heads for long distances. The water is often exposed to pollution in the air, dirt, bacteria and is unsafe to drink by the time it reaches home. The situation gets worse because households do not treat the water, even though it could be bacterially contaminated.
Today, we filter the water before we line-up the children to be served. Our bold vision for tomorrow is to have a well to provide the children and the community with clean drinking water. It is only a vision, one that we believe will one day become reality. Our initiative for this year is to partner with other organizations to make it possible. We will keep you posted on this development.
Haiti Water Crisis
According to the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, 70% of Haitians do not have direct access to potable water. With the adults of a household tirelessly working to earn every single meal, the burden of walking miles to the water source and then carrying it back home falls on the children.
(Ref: 2012 Data from WordBank.org website)
The children we serve drink an average of 1 to 2 cups of water a day; double that amount on hot summer days. To cope with this major challenge, we have a 5 gallon drinking bottled water delivered to the us on a weekly basis.
As the number of children we support continues to grow, we will have to find an alternative source of clean water to satisfy the demand and control cost.
If you know of agencies that can assist us with filters, drilling fresh well water, provide sanitation and hygiene, please contact us today, we want to hear from you.
Contact us at the address below
Call (215)298-2722
