Five Weeks Until Departure

Hello once again, friends. It's hard to believe that we are only five weeks away from getting on a plane and heading to Managua, Nicaragua, but it's true! A lot of hard work has gone in to getting this far, but this is only the beginning. We are thrilled to be heading to Nicaragua to study the efficacy and sustainability of the Tulip Siphon Filter. This first study will lay the ground work for all of our future studies around the globe, and we are looking forward to keeping you informed along the way. While in Nicaragua, we will be blogging and posting videos and photos daily so that you can see exactly where your support is making a difference. Remember, none of this is possible without the support of people such as yourself, and we thank you for that.  Our trip will be taking place from March 17th to March 24th.

In the mean time, we are working to solidify PWAP's long-term future. Establishing chapters at various Universities through our Educational Outreach Program remains a priority, as does increasing our marketing and outreach. We are excited to announce we will be working closely with Students Consulting for Non-profit Organizations (SCNO), a student-led initiative through Ohio State University's Fischer College of Business, over the next few months to help define and reach these goals. Needless to say, this is a very exciting time for Pure Water Access Project and we are so glad to have you along with us.


Stay tuned on facebook and twitter for more updates throughout the week. Also, your feedback is always appreciated, so don't hesitate to continue to reach out to us on any of these platforms!

Have an amazing week, and think about how you can be a part of something bigger.

PWAP

T-minus Seven Weeks...

Hello once again, friends! A lot has been happening in the past week with Pure Water Access Project, and we are excited to see so much support coming from the community. Our facebook page and twitter account continue to grow, as does our list of donors. With only seven weeks left until we depart for El Bejuco, Boaco, Nicaragua, we are working hard to ensure that your money and our time and effort is being put towards conducting the most thorough and efficient study as possible.

Many of you have been generous in offering contacts who may be able to help us grow as an organization, and we are also busy pursuing those. In addition to these various people, we are reaching out to local businesses and church groups for potential endorsements. Again, the response has been incredible, and we are so glad to see how many people believe in the cause!

Overall, things are progressing smoothly. We are finalizing approval of the study through the International Review Board, and that will be one of our final matters of business to attend to before departure. Stay tuned on twitter (@ThePWAP) and facebook (www.facebook.com/ThePWAP) throughout the week.

Til next time,
PWAP

Progress, progress, progress...

Happy Saturday, people! As we move into the latter half of January, I want to provide you all with some much needed updates on what we have been doing to prepare for our trip to Nicaragua. We will be traveling to the rural town of El Bejuco, in the state of Boaco, to carry out our first case study. This trip will focus on the sustainability and success of the Tulip Water Filter. Our target population will be the small rural demographic that resides in El Bejuco, and we will educate these people on basic hygiene and sanitation knowledge. Once they demonstrate a set level of understanding on this, we will distribute one Tulip Water Filter per household, and educate the recipients on its use and care.

But our mission doesn’t stop there, and this is where our organization differs from so many others. We will perform follow up surveys after three months, and then again one year post-distribution of the filters.  The design of our surveys and the information we will be gathering will allow us to really examine what cultural hurdles we must overcome in establishing a sustainable model of water filtration for people on a large, international scale. The Tulip Water Filter Study is just one of many studies that we will be carrying out, and is focusing on one of just many filtering options available.

From a long-term standpoint, this is the first step in a ongoing process to objectively analyze cultural factors that hinder the sustainability of water sanitation projects. However, there is immediate impact here from your donations, as we are providing approximately one hundred water filters to families who otherwise would never have such sanitation conditions.

With your help, we can make this happen. Please, be a part of something bigger and donate here. Your support means everything to us.

Thank you, we will be updating you on our progress in a week on this blog.

Best,
PWAP

Continuing Our Mission

The Pure Water Access Project has been hard at work expanding our contacts and continuing to raise funds for our first field study on the Tulip Water Filter. In order to help achieve our dream of solving the water crisis we have teamed up with Global Water. Global Water is an international, non-profit organization who shares our vision of a world without thirst, and we are very excited about working with them. The water crisis is a problem that will only be solved with widespread cooperation across all levels of involvement, including you. If you have any comments, questions, or general suggestions, please feel free to contact us. You can make an impact in this crisis. Donations can be made at our website.

The Return of the Blog

Hello again, followers. Summer is over and Pure Water Access Project has been hard at work pursuing opportunities to conduct our first field studies. We are thrilled to announce that we will be traveling to Nicaragua in spring of 2012 to carry out a study of the Tulip Water Filter! To read more about the Tulip Water Filter, please visit our website. In addition to the Nicaragua project, we have been working to help create student organizations at high schools in Cleveland and Columbus that are focused on the water crisis. These organizations are a great way for high school students to learn about not only the water crisis, but also the functioning of non-profit organizations, public health, and research before they even begin their college careers. These are only a few of the projects that we are working on right now, and there is a lot of effort being put in by everyone here at PWAP. Needless to say, we are really excited about the direction that PWAP is going.

But we are only getting started, and we need your help to fight the water crisis. Donations are very much appreciated, tax deductible, and utilized in this manner. Please consider being a part of something bigger and making a donation before you are done visiting the website, every dollar makes a difference. 

The Impact of Lack of Access to Safe Drinking Water

Thanks to the tireless efforts of organizations and advocates throughout the world, like the ones mentioned in our previous blog post, the water crisis has risen to the forefront of the human rights platform in recent years. At times, it may be hard for us to truly appreciate the plight facing nearly one billion people world-wide, and what conditions these individuals are forced to live in as a result of poor water sanitation. However the effects of this lack of safe drinking water can not be understated. 

From a health perspective, the numbers are staggering. Microbiological contamination in drinking water leads to widespread disease, most commonly diarrheal disease. 1.8 million people, 1.5 million of which are children, die a year as a result of such diarrheal disease. 43% of the global population is deprived of household safe piped water, with the majority of these being in sub-Saharan Africa. In these areas, the constant threat of water-borne disease combined with the large population of HIV infected individuals is a recipe for disaster. These immunocompromised people cannot afford to be deprived of access to safe drinking water. Affordable, reliable, and practical filtration systems would make drastic improvements to these regions, something that is absolutely imperative and the ultimate goal of Pure Water Access Project. Studies have shown that household water-quality interventions can reduce diarrheal morbidity by 40%

The education systems and economies of these impoverished areas have been affected as a result of these health-related issues as well. It is estimated that  443 million school days are lost each year from diarrheal disease as a result of water-borne illness. The amount of time that would be saved by not having to search out “clean” sources of drinking water would be utilized in a variety of ways, including work and education.

§  While there are many current models for filtration of contaminated water, most of these models are too expensive or impractical for the impoverished areas in which they would need to be implemented. Research has shown that point-of-use household intervention is twice as effective as point-of-source intervention in preventing diarrheal disease. Many of the established purification techniques, such as ceramic filters, bio sand filters, and chlorination, fail to meet the Environmental Protection Agency's protocol for removal of bacteria/viral particles/protozoan organisms in many instances.   A multi-purpose purification system that meets all of the necessary criteria must be developed and implemented on a wide scale to combat this water crisis. Clean water is a basic human right, and it our responsibility to ensure that right is afforded to the global population.

United Nations - Water For Life

As you may or may not be aware of, the United Nations is currently hosting a three day conference in Bonn, Germany. This Media Forum is designed to bring together members of the media and activists/experts on water management, while focusing on the basic human right to water and sanitation. As  outlined in previous blog posts, the issue of access to clean water is widespread and measures must be taken at every level of organization, from the international community on down to local volunteer organizations. This current conference is organized by various international organizations such as The UN-Water Decade Programme on Advocacy and Communication (UNW-DPAC) UN-Habitat, the UN-Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC) and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). 


These groups are doing their part to combat the water crisis, but they are not alone. The most intriguing group dedicated to the cause is a novel panel of former world leaders that has come into existence just this past month. Members of the InterAction Council, who meet annually in Quebec, agreed to form a panel dedicated to fighting what Former President Bill Clinton called an "impending water crisis." This group, which features former leaders of state from Mexico, Japan, USA, Kenya, Austria, and more, is unique in that their prominence in the international political community should afford them more credibility and leverage in implementing initiatives.


Here at Pure Water Access Project, we continue to research effective, reliable, and affordable means of water filtration to implement in developing regions throughout the world. We will continue to update this blog frequently with out progress, as well as other relevant insights into the growing water crisis.