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- Start of the ride …
With the success of Water Centric’s first ever bike-a-thon last year, enthusiasm was high among the organizers and participants. The bike-a-thon 2011 did more than live up to the expectations!
On a beautiful Saturday morning on July 30, just under 100 enthusiastic participants arrived at the Great Brook Farm in Carlisle, MA geared up to ride, walk or volunteer for Water Centric. The scenic 54 mile “Apple Pi” route, was not for the faint of heart, as it wound its way up and down through the towns of Carlisle, Concord, Littleton and Harvard, MA. The shorter 18 mile ride was closer to the venue and a walk along the beautiful park trails was yet another option.
After a light breakfast of fruit, donuts and munchkins provided by Dunkin Donuts and coffee from Starbucks, the bicyclists headed out on their ride. Rest-
- Registration and Breakfast
stops had been arranged for them to freshen up, stretch and fuel up with water and fruits, some of which was donated by Verrill Farms. The Carlson Orchards in Harvard, MA, one of the designated rest stops, was a gem of a spot with several trees, picnic tables and a cool breeze thoroughly enjoyed by the bicyclists and volunteers alike.
- And then they’re off…
All bicyclists and walkers accomplished their respective challenges and arrived in high spirits at the barn of Great Brook Farm where a barbecue cookout awaited them. Pulled pork and pulled chicken from Redbones, salads from Bertucci’s and veggie burgers were just some of the items on the lunch menu. A raffle of items from ATA cycles, Bikeway Source , Belmont Wheelworks and Dunkin Donuts added to the day’s fun and activities. During lunch, the event further spread awareness about the lack of clean water and sanitation in the developing world by projecting a video about Water Centric’s activities addressing the situation.
- Some of our smiling volunteers
We are grateful to all of you for your participation in supporting this important cause and we hope that you will continue to support us in our endeavors. We look forward to seeing you at our next annual Bike-a-thon!
Water Centric is coming close to completing work in its initial ten schools, steadily delivering water, sanitation, and hygiene education to more and more school children in need. To take a look at our latest accomplishments…
If you have not already registered for Water Centric’s “Bike-A-Thon and Cookout” here are several more reasons to do so. Water Centric is pleased to announce that it will be raffling off several valuable items that were generously donated by its sponsors. You need to be there at the Bike-a-thon for a chance to win one of these fabulous gifts worth $$s.
Here are some of the wonderful raffle prizes
A bike repair kit valued at $80 from The Bikeway Source of Bedford
Two Bicycle Helmets from Pietzo Electric Bikes
Citizens Bank
From Citizens Bank:
- 14 Tickets to the Aquarium valued at $18 each
- 4 Tickets to the Museum of Science
- 4 Tickets to the Museum of Fine Arts
- 4 Tickets to the Boston Children’s Museum
A 1 lb bag of coffee From Peet's Coffee and Tea
A $25 gift certificate from Shaw’s Supermarket
A $25 gift certificate from Verrill Farm
We have been making steady progress at Water Centric with just over 2 years under our belt! Here is a look at what we have accomplished in the past few months…
One of the things I most like to do at Water Centric, is inform and engage the next generation on global problems and challenges related to getting a staggering 2.6 Billion people access to sanitation and 1.2 Billion access to clean water.
This spring, I had the pleasure of visiting four great New England universities: Boston University, Tufts, Brown, and Brandeis to talk to students about this issue and tell them about what we are doing here at Water Centric. I was invited to be a guest lecturer for students focused on a range of interests from Non-Profit Management (at BU), to International Conflict and Coexistence (at Brandeis), the Economics of Urbanization (at Tufts) and a discussion on Careers in the Common Good (at Brown).
One thing I’ve learned for sure: if the critical challenge of delivering clean water and sanitation to the world’s most impoverished people is ever going to be solved, we will need the energy, enthusiasm, can-do attitude and smarts of this current generation of students.
This week , one newspaper article put the challenge this way:
“In 1950, fewer than 30 percent of the world’s 2.5 billion inhabitants lived in urban regions. By 2050, almost 70 percent of the world’s estimated 10 billion inhabitants – or more than the number of people living today – will be part of massive urban networks. … As these megacities evolve in the developing world, many groan under the weight of a sudden, massive, and unprecedented demand for services never seen in the West. The basic necessities of clean water [and] sanitation systems to remove megatons of garbage and human waste…are creating one of the greatest logistical challenges ever seen in human history.” The Christian Science Monitor, May 10, 2010
We, at Water Centric, look forward to young people rolling up their sleeves to tackle the problems the world has been struggling with for decades. I am convinced that they may also be our best hope for success!
Lotika
Lotika Shaunik Paintal
Founder and Executive Director
Water Centric, Inc.
Diwali, also known as “Festival of Lights,” is a time of celebration and thanksgiving in India, for victory of good over evil. This year, in honor of Diwali, on November 5 2010, Water Centric is hosting a six-month Twitter Diwali campaign – “Twiwali” - so that people can express their gratitude for the essentials of clean water and sanitation - while helping others to have the same - by making a simple donation and creating awareness through social sites like Twitter. What follows is one Water Centric volunteer’s account of why he is grateful for toilets. We encourage you to submit your stories on why you are grateful for toilets to our blog as well
A surreal bathroom experience!
By Bhaskar Koukuntla
On a cold November evening, my wife and I decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary by having dinner with a few of our family friends at the Mantra restaurant in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Mantra is very close to our respective work places and is conveniently nestled on a side street between the Theatre district and Downtown Crossing. We had heard a lot about this place as the only restaurant in Boston serving Indo-French cuisine, and that it is located in a building that was previously a bank constructed in the 1800’s. Their décor is unique and in fact their bar is a former “Teller’s cage.” Details of the décor include marble walls and floors, silk drapery, and exotic mirrors with beautiful lighting.
Upon arriving at the restaurant, I paid a visit to the Men’s Room. It was stunningly beautiful with elegant mirrors, very clean and exotic sinks, and elegant glass stalls. The doors to the individual stalls were made of what looked like translucent glass and looked beautiful. Once I stepped in, I was shocked that I could see the outside! My friend was at the sink washing his hands and he suddenly turned around, looked towards my stall and pointed his finger towards me and started laughing. I was shocked!!! I felt embarrassed and wondered how the restaurant could have not thought about this. I suddenly felt very vulnerable and awkward for such lack of privacy.
When I emerged, pretending that I had not noticed anything, my friend explained that you cannot look in from the outside, however the user can see out from inside the stall. This was trick décor with no compromise to privacy at all!! But just the illusion that my privacy was compromised had made me sick to my stomach.
Putting this surreal bathroom experience in perspective, millions of underprivileged families and kids around the world do not have access to the most basic sanitation facilities. They sit outdoors every day exposed to prying eyes and the elements! Water Centric is currently working towards constructing functional toilets for a school for 1433 girls in India. With a small contribution from all of us who are privileged and take such necessities for granted, we can make a change in the lives of all these kids! So this Diwali, spread some light by making a contribution at www.watercentric.org/Twiwali.html
Greetings! We just finished working on an introductory video that will tell you a little more about our 10 school initiative in Delhi. Let us know your thoughts.
Greetings!
I recently got back from visiting our schools in Delhi, India. While there, I admit I toggled between being overwhelmed by the desperate need in some of our large urban slum schools and experiencing a renewed zeal to tackle what we have set out to do at Water Centric. I reminded myself that to make any difference, given the 2.5 billion people in the world lacking access to basic sanitation, you always have to start with a first small step in the right direction!
The good news is that we have made significant progress in our goals these past 18 months. Take a look at our new December newsletter which highlights this progress and touches on some ways you can get involved. We hope you enjoy the video clip where young girls sing in their colorful scarves about hygiene education: yes, washing their hands is important. Enjoy!
Warm wishes for this holiday season,
Lotika
Link to newsletter
“I would get permission to lock all but one of our school toilets and then charge kids at school 10 cents every time they had to use it, so they would realize how important toilets are to kids who don’t have them,” said one creative middle schooler. “Then I’d donate the money to Water Centric to build a toilet for kids in slum schools in India.”
Kids from all over Metrowest Boston learned about “flying toilets” * and water stations during three presentations by Water Centric, as part of the Education and Leadership for a Nonviolent Age (ELNA)’s Annual Leadership Conference of middle schoolers on October 9, 2009. The kids then brainstormed creative ways to organize fundraising events from pumpkin festivals to tag sales so that kids in other parts of the world could have clean drinking water and toilets.
ELNA member middle and high schools are in Natick, Lincoln, Maynard, Shrewsbury, Hudson, Harvard, Westborough, and Lunenburg, Massachusetts in an initiative to encourage children to demonstrate leadership skills, social awareness, and civic responsibility. To learn more about ELNA, click on http://www.elnacollaborative.org/ELNA/Welcome.html
* A ‘flying toilet’ is a plastic bag that gets used as a toilet and is then thrown out the window into the street!
In February 2009, the Principal of the Molar Band MCD School in New Delhi, explained to Lotika Shaunik Paintal, founder of Water Centric, how the construction of a small septic tank can make a huge difference in the lives of a 1000 young school girls:
“I am so grateful that Water Centric will be building a septic tank for our school. Our toilets, although constructed four years ago are unusable, as the city sewers still do not extend to our school. The new septic tank will allow our 1000 students to maintain their dignity and get some privacy by using toilets –instead of squatting outdoors as they currently do every school day to relieve themselves!”
Water Centric wasted no time. The septic tank was completed in less than 2 months while the school was closed for summer recess. Funds were raised in the USA with help from H2O for Life and the Asian Club at Chelsea High School. The Molar Band School in New Delhi also made an in-kind contribution. Meanwhile, Water Centric’s NGO partner in India, Sakshi, made sure that the construction process went smoothly on the ground.
The facilities are now operational. The 1000 students have resumed classes after vacation – and are finally able to access functioning toilets for the first time ever.
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