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Turn Social Chatter into Water!
WHEN: Tuesday, October 27, 2009
TIME: 6:30 – 8:30 pm
WHERE: Tantric India Bistro
123 Stuart Street
Boston, MA 02116
Get informed, inspired and engaged. You are invited to a discussion on the global water/sanitation crisis. Did you know, 1.1 billion people lack access to clean water 2.6 billion people lack access to toilets … and of course this is leading to a huge health crisis!
Yes, we can all do something to change the status quo. Come spend a social evening with Water Centric at Boston’s Tantric India Bistro. Water Centric’s founder Lotika Paintal and other team members will be there to share an insider perspective on the global water/sanitation crisis and what Water Centric is doing about it. Read more at: http://www.watercentric.org
Cost: $20 – includes a drink, hors d’oeuvres, and a great evening! Feel free to bring friends.
“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!
Water Centric finished renovation on a water station for school kids at the Julaina MCD School in Delhi. The old and decrepit station was no longer functioning properly. It leaked, the drains were easily clogged, the foundation area was moldy and unhygienic, it lacked a suitable shelf to collect the water, and there were insufficient taps.All that is in the past. Thanks to funds raised by H2O For Life and Water Centric, and for supervision of the project by its local partner Sakshi, the children have good access to clean water with a renovated and fully functional station. Now, the kids don’t have to get wet in order to get a drink of water and the station is no longer a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The kids are proud of their new facility!
You can follow the progression of this project in our photo journal below. Water Centric was launched in February 2008. Its first initiative is to help provide clean water, functional toilets/sanitation and hygiene education to 10 Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) schools. This project serves the needs of 10,000 students, most of whom come from the poorest and most deprived communities.
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.
Although the global economy is suffering, Asia continues to urbanize and industrialize, increasing their demands on water and waste treatment systems. The Asian governments, however, are failing to meet the demands efficiently and provide significant infrastructure.
Ranajay Dasgupta, an Asia-based environmental and buildings technology consultant with Frost & Sullivan, an industrial research and consulting firm, discusses the situation in an e-mail exchange.
Changi Water Reclamation plant in Singapore
He answers questions such as “How much of a priority are water and wastewater treatment projects in Asia?” and “Which are the fastest growing regions and how do they compare to the rest of the world in terms of environmental awareness and waste processing infrastructures?”
Dasgupta also talks about international players getting involved and developing projects in Asian nations:
Industrialization, urbanization, and shortage of water and waste treatment facilities in China are attracting international players from the U.S., Japan and Europe.
At a sanitary latrine distribution ceremony in Bangladesh, speakers said the government could significantly reduce the number of water-borne and all other common diseases with full sanitation coverage throughout the whole country.
They urged all stakeholders, educated and conscious sections of people, public representatives, politicians, civil society members, teachers and students to sanitize every house throughout the country for making a healthy as well as wealthy Bangladesh.
A total of 46 sets sanitary latrine materials were distributed among 46 distressed families of Khoragach union of the upazila under the financial assistances of Bangladesh NGO Foundation as part of the government’s ongoing sanitation programme.
Read the full article here.
The Kathmandu Solid Waste Management Service (KSWM) recently initiated a mobile public toilet program. The toilets, which look like big vans, are convenient as well as eco-friendly.
Basu Upreti, executive director of KSWM said:
“Nearly 800 people are using the mobile toilet daily since we installed it. It’s our effort to address a rather real problem that people are facing.”
The waste from the toilets is treated to destroy harmful contents and in the future KSWM plans to recycle the waste as compost and biogas.
Did you know that diarrhea kills more children than Aids or malaria? Diarrhea is a serious issue in developing countries.
Because human feces can carry 50 communicable diseases, they are an efficient weapon of mass destruction. Half of the hospital beds in sub-Saharan Africa are filled with people suffering from what are generally known as water-related diseases.
Clean water supplies are only part of the solution. Solutions need to include more sanitary systems, vaccines for rotavirus as a standard for children in the developing world, and less open defecation. Author Rose George emphasizes that sanitation is the most cost-effective disease prevention tool we have.
In Nigeria, the sanitary situation is critical, yet the government is not taking action to solve the issue. Austin Nwangwu expresses his opinion of the situation. He includes details about the problem, common throughout the country.
Wherever one goes the storyline is the same – a daunting souvenir of open refuse dumps, sometimes mountains of them, displayed in odious visual ads.
He is distressed by the lack of government attention to the issue:
There is, without a shred of doubt, systemic failure in waste management, with morbid consequences gnawing away at our public health status, aesthetics, self-worth and individual well-being. It appears that most governments and regulators in Nigeria see issues of waste generation and safe disposal as intractable.
Water Centric believes that better hygiene education is at the core of reducing water borne diseases in school children thereby increasing their performance and attendance in school. A Hygiene Education program also helps change behavior, such as making washing of hands before eating and after going to the toilet routine. Children carry many of the key messages home, slowly improving the quality of lives in their homes and communities.
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Working closely with our partner NGO, Sakshi, Water Centric has formed hygiene clubs in all 10 Municipal Corporation of Delhi schools that it has been involved in so far. At each school, Sakshi met with teachers and instructed them on how to organize and involve school kids in these clubs. |
| The children in the hygiene clubs are learning fundamentals of hygiene and the importance of following good hygiene practices. The children in the club have roles and responsibilities for keeping their peers informed and their school clean. |  |
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Recently teachers from five of our schools published a joint newsletter with contributions and articles written by the children. |
| We view these clubs as an effective way to involve the children and to teach them responsibility for their hygiene and the maintenance of the facilities. |  |
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