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CLEAN
WATER - AFRICARE
Visit an African village and ask the
people what they need more than anything
else. Based on Africare's nearly four
decades working with thousands of rural
African communities, they will tell you:
Water! "Our well has gone dry," they may
say. That is, if they have a well. The
nearest water may be a muddy stream, an
hour's trek for the women and children who
fetch and carry Africa 's water. It may be
an unprotected spring, where cattle and
goats drink and defecate, where women do
the laundry, children bathe and buckets
are filled with muddy water for the trudge
home.
More than
a billion people worldwide lack sanitary
drinking water. More than 300 million live
in sub-Saharan Africa . Improving access
to clean water is a simple and
cost-effective means to reduce water-borne
sickness. Diarrhoeal diseases are an
underlying cause of Africa 's high infant
and child mortality. They undermine
adults' productivity because of time lost
to illness or spent getting water. Where
there is a lack of clean water for
domestic use, there is poverty. Unless the
challenge of water is met, the challenge
of poverty will not be. That's where
Africare comes in.
Africare
focuses on integrated water and sanitation
programs. Digging a well or protecting a
spring is straightforward. There is a
collateral need, however, to conduct
health education within the community and
promote use of latrines. Without proper
sanitation, increased water supplies can
actually lead to more disease.
Water is
life, the people will tell you. It is
central to their community's continued
existence. That is why they are prepared
to work hard to improve and safeguard
their water sources, if they have the
material and technical assistance needed.
Africare has provided that assistance in
thousands of African villages since 1971.
But still, there are thousands more to
assist.
How you
can help through the American Express
Members Project?
Africare's
initiative to bring clean water to
Africa is one of the TOP 50 project
ideas being promoted through the American
Express Members Project. Starting July 3,
2007, American Express® Cardmembers
are being asked to log onto the web and
vote for their favorite project
idea&emdash;the winning project will be
funded up to $5 million.
Visit the
link below:
http://www.membersproject.com/intro.htm
If you're
an American Express Card Member, log onto
the site using your on-line banking
sign-in ID and password.
Scan the
Top 50 projects for Africare's project
idea: "Need for Wells and Clean water"
Project ID: 223
Vote and
Spread the word!
The
Watered Down Truth: Africare tells
all on World Water Day
Washington, DC.> One day a year,
advocates from every corner of the globe
unite to remind the world just how
important clean water is for human
survival. Next to food and shelter,
water is considered one of the essential
elements of life. And while every
person needs it, just over 60 % of the
world has access to it on a daily and
consistent basis. Leaving the
consequences of water-born diseases like
cholera, as well as poor sanitation on the
shoulders of more than 2.9 billion
people&emdash;300 million of which are
concentrated in Africa. More
New
Hollywood film digs up international
debate; Africare stands ready to connect
the past to present and future efforts in
Sierra Leone .
Africare
has backed recently inspired discussions
to increase aid and awareness in Africa 's
Sierra Leone through several local and
national partnerships. On Thursday
December 14, 2006 from 5:30 &endash;
8:30pm , the Africare House in Washington
DC will open its doors to one of DC
Metro Area's premier non-profit
organizations, the Sierra Leone Fund, and
host a community discussion about Sierra
Leone 's newfound international buzz
sparked by Friday's release of the film
"Blood Diamond." Confirmed attendees
include representatives from actor Isaiah
Washington's Gondobay Manga Foundation,
ABC Channel 7's Sam Ford, and
award-winning Sierra Leonean filmographer,
Sorious Samura. The event aspires to
unite a community in its efforts to
increase aid and awareness to Sierra Leone
.
"It
speaks to Africare's mission in general,"
comments Travis Adkins, Program Manager
for East and West Anglophone Africa.
"We help in Sierra Leone … but also
there's a way for us to give assistance
here; Even if it's something as small as
lending our space in this case. It
helps in terms of grass roots assistance,
in terms of capacity building, in terms of
people helping people."
That
same helping hand first entered Sierra
Leone in 1984 when Africare was requested
by the Ministry of health to replicate a
similar program they had developed in
Gambia . Their goal, in partnership
with UNICEF and the World Bank, was to
improve management distribution of
essential drugs to rural areas. Alan
Alemian was a member of that team, and a
key player in the emergency relief
programs developed to aid refugees when
civil war erupted in 1991.
"We
should be very, very proud of what we did
in Sierra Leone ," comments Alemian.
"We saved lives and we kept people
productive."
The
emergency camps, in addition to food
distribution and medical assistance,
developed agricultural relief programs
that provided land for displaced refugees
to produce their own subsistence crops and
reduce dependence on food aid. These
programs continued throughout the duration
of the war before transitioning into
post-conflict programs like
CORAD.
"CORAD
stands for Consortium for
Rehabilitation and Development," notes
Adkins. "It focuses on health and
revitalization of livelihoods…
because a lot of people lost their
livelihoods during the
war."
Sierra
Leone is one of twenty-five countries in
Africa currently benefiting from self-help
programs like CORAD set up by Africare
staff. Jeneba Ghatt, co-founder of
The Sierra Leone Fund, says her non-profit
aims to develop similar programs in Sierra
Leone that specialize in health,
education, sanitation and
nutrition.
"I
co-founded the Sierra Leone Fund with
another expatriate who wanted to finally
do our part to help out our native country
rather than passively wait for others to
do it for us," said Ghatt.
Ghatt
will use Thursday's debut of the Sierra
Leone Fund as an opportunity to reach out
to international awareness, philanthropic
and giving communities to garner support
for aiding change in Sierra Leone . The
Africare House proudly hosts the event,
harboring a 36-year legacy of community
and global partnerships. An
invitation is extended to members of media
organizations to meet emerging and past
leaders of development work in Sierra
Leone . The reception begins at 5:30pm at
the Africare House in Washington DC
on Thursday, December 14th.
Africare
is leading a non-profit organization based
in Washington D.C. , currently
providing over 150 development programs to
25 nations in Africa . The
organization has delivered over $480
million in assistance to the continent
since it was founded in
1970.
Africare
440 R
Street, N.W. Washington
, D.C. 2001-1935 USA
Telephone:
202.328.5362
Fax:
202.387.1034
E-mail: neley@africare.org
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