PCI Fights for Clean Water in Tanzania: The Babati Health Through Water & Sanitation Project

By Janna Smith, PCI Intern

“We shall not finally defeat AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, or any of the other infectious diseases that plague the developing world until we have also won the battle for safe drinking-water, sanitation and basic health care.”

Kofi Annan, former United Nations Secretary-General

Lack of immediate access to water can have adverse effects on the health and development of a community, and especially affects the women and children of the community. In many parts of Tanzania, women and children spend an average of 6-8 hours per day accessing clean water. This can prevent some children, especially girls, from attending school, since water is usually collected by girls. Traversing long distances also leads to more danger for women and girls- including sexual assault, and rape. Children also frequently miss school due to illness, stemming not only from water-borne diseases, but also from walking long distances without shoes.

PCI has been working for many years in the area of water, sanitation, and environmental health. We have found that freeing up time for women and girls who spend hours each day collecting water positively impacts their health, education, and overall well-being, which in turn leads to positive community development and capacity building.

We firmly believe that community involvement is crucial to the success of our programs. Collaborating with community leaders is an essential part of the process to assess local needs and make decisions that would best benefit the local people. To this end, PCI has teamed up with the district council in Babati, a region in north-eastern Tanzania, and another community-based organization called ADRA/Tanzania to implement our newest water and sanitation project, called the Babati Health Through Water and Sanitation Project, funded by the Starbucks Foundation-Ethos Water Fund. This project will provide safe water for at least 30,000 people in the Babati region of Tanzania, as well as education programs for better sanitation and hygiene practices to mitigate the incidence of water-borne diseases. The project will also build rainwater harvest systems in schools within the area, so that children will have access to clean water while they are in school.

PCI has carried out successful water and sanitation projects in Central America, India, and Indonesia, and hopes to add Tanzania to the list of sustainable water projects in which women and children especially reap the benefits.

WATER IS LIFE

Access to basic water supply and sanitation services are increasingly acknowledged as fundamental for health and development, and are being increasingly accepted as a fundamental human right. In observance of World Water Day on March 22, 2008, I thought I’d share some interesting facts about this basic necessity that can help translate the global problem into terms that are a bit more easily digestible:

• A person can live about a month without food, but only about a week without water.


• A human being needs about .5 to 1.5 gallons of drinking water - which weighs from 4.5 to 11 lbs - per person per day to maintain health. Imagine carrying enough water to meet your family’s needs every day.


• Did you know the average girl/woman in Nicaragua spends 6 hours a day obtaining water? By bringing water to her household, 10 years of her life (6 hours day times 365 days times 40 years) can be freed up to be much better spent on other things such as education, economic development, and improving health.


• A third of the Earth’s population lives in “water-stressed” countries and that number is expected to rise dramatically over the next two decades.


• We use an average of nearly 40 gallons of water per person each day in our homes; our great grandparents managed with under 5 gallons.


• Many people in the world exist on 2.5 gallons of water or less each day. Our toilets can use that amount in one flush.

So what can you do??? Here are a few concrete ways you can immediately get involved:

• Join PCI and other organizations to participate in the Walk for Water that will take place in LA, Seattle and NYC on Saturday, March 22.


• Join the Virtual Walk for Water and your name will be included in a symbolic water jug to be carried by a participant in one of the local Walk for Water events.


• Create a Water Advocate page and tell the world why the cause matters to you.

Over one billion people on the planet lack access to clean, safe water. Let’s take this opportunity to effect change and make a positive contribution toward addressing the problem – one family, one village, one community at a time.

A Grandmother Finds WORTH in Zambia

Maweta Tembo sits among her four small grandchildren in the village of Chiwala, part of the Chongwe District outside of Lusaka, Zambia. A 72-year-old widow, Maweta has already raised six children of her own but now must care for her grandchildren, whose parents were killed by AIDS.

Before the PCI-led WORTH program, each day was a struggle for the grandmother. With little money, her grandchildren often went without food and she could not afford the fees required for them to attend school. But now, there is hope for Maweta.
In the Chongwe district, there are currently 5,000 women enrolled in the WORTH program. Combined, these women provide care for 11,550 orphans and vulnerable children. WORTH empowers these women by providing them access to literacy classes and economic training. With help from local organizations, women are encouraged to form self-managed community groups and taught how to manage and save money. The savings are used to create village banks that can provide local women with microenterprise loans.

After attending a WORTH community orientation, Maweta began mobilizing women in her village to form a group. After nine months, Maweta has learned how to read and write and gained basic math and accounting skills.

In January 2007, Maweta sold mangoes and managed to save $60. She used the money to buy school requisites for her grandchildren so they can continue with their education. She also received a loan from the village bank in order to start a business. Maweta is currently buying fast selling food items and re-packaging them into smaller and affordable sizes for her customers. The profit realized from the business goes towards meeting her grandchildren’s basic needs and she no longer feels the worrisome financial burden she once did.
"If WORTH had been launched years back in my area I would have been rich and my own children could have been educated!" Maweta said.

For more information on PCI’s work in Zambia, visit http://www.projectconcern.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Responding_to_the_AIDS_Crisis_in_Zambia.

Teaching by Example: The Story of Mariel

Like every morning, in a warm sector of the municipality of Santibáñez in Bolivia, anxious students of the Luís Guzmán Araujo School sit outside and wait happily, expressed through their small smiling faces. It is the beginning of a new school day and the boys and girls of the fourth grade, with their typical childhood curiosity, anxiously await the beginning of the day to learn more about the problem of environmental contamination, which days before their professor, Norma Cabas, taught them, using the knowledge imparted on her by Project Concern International.

Mariel Rodríguez Antezana, a lively and highly observant nine-year old girl who attends this school daily, tells us that her greatest aspiration is to become a teacher. With her high level of intelligence, she was quick to realize the harm that the plastic bags and bottles strewn about her community were causing to the environment.

Conscious of this harm, Mariel quickly learned to recycle this material and converted herself into a teacher's helper, telling her classmates to transform the same harmful material into pretty and useful crafts, like beautifully knit tablecloths, placemats, and bags.

This young but great teacher, with hope lighting up her face, now works laboriously together with her classmates that consider her their leader in the war against plastic.

Upon asking her what would be her greatest wish if she could have anything in the world, without a doubt in her voice Mariel answered, "I want to keep studying."

Just as it does in the Luís Guzmán Araujo School, PCI works to promote the recycling of plastic bags in more than 1,200 schools in Bolivia, and has educated to date many children like Mariel, who learn to take action in order to care for our environment.

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To learn more about PCI's work in Bolivia, please visit http://www.projectconcern.org/site/PageServer?pagename=Combating_malnutrition_and_poverty_in_Bolivia.

Project Concern and the International Year of Sanitation
- Katrina Lee
As an intern for Project Concern International, I’ve noticed that many of the topics on this blog deal with predominantly poverty and health issues. A topic that really interested me of late was PCI’s involvement with the UN’s International Year of Sanitation. Backed by the UN’s Millennium Development goals, member nations will report back to the UN on May 2008 to update on their progress in improving areas such as access to water, adequate drainage systems, housing quality, and waste management.

Access to clean water and adequate sanitation for developing communities is a major aspect of PCI’s programmatic focus and is a critical component in improving overall health for families in need. Since 2004, PCI has been implementing in a project called CASCADA, which promotes the creation of regional and national water sanitation systems that work to improve sanitation in some of the poorest areas of Central America. In Nicaragua, CASCADA has helped reorganize the country’s National Water and Sanitation Network and created four additional networks as well as community-based sanitation organizations such as community water boards.

While Project Concern International operates various other programs, I believe that CASCADA is unique in its ability to address sanitation issues at the government level while fully involving the local community. In a greater context, I believe that the International Year of Sanitation is one of the most significant milestones in progressive development. Today, simple issues such as the availability of clean water and waste removal seem far-fetched to many because of the reaches of modernization. It is important to realize that many communities to this day still lack these basic amenities.

We at PCI are committed to providing access to these basic needs, and look forward to seeing increasing progress on this front during 2008, the International Year of Sanitation.

A New Year Bring New Challenges, New Opportunities

Most folks tend to begin a new year with the best of intentions, feeling hopeful and optimistic, ready to take on new personal and professional challenges. It’s often a time to take stock and identify those lingering (and sometimes annoying) things we’ve pushed aside for one (usually good) reason or another and tackle them head on.

Well, the same feeling applies to life at a nonprofit agency – especially PCI, an organization near and dear to my heart.

There is so much to be excited about if you’re a supporter of PCI’s work. Because we’ve been recognized for all of our important work addressing the HIV/AIDS pandemic, we’ve established new programs in two more African countries, Botswana and Malawi. PCI has also expanded its role in responding to crisis situations around the globe. Last year, we helped communities hardest hit by floods in India and Mexico, Hurricane Felix in Nicaragua, an earthquake in Peru, and the Southern California fires. And PCI continues to adopt an innovative approach to its core philosophy of helping people help themselves with microcredit and other economic development programs in impoverished communities around the world.

One exciting way we plan to spread the word about PCI’s efforts in the coming year is through our Seeds campaign (www.ProjectConcern.org/Seeds). The heart of this awareness effort is a simple pledge: "You have the power to change the world. By adding your name to this pledge, you'll be joining Project Concern International in planting seeds of change to help thousands of children in need escape generations of poverty."

We think and believe that collectively, we can change the world. PCI’s programs are planting these seeds of change to create a new life and to empower individuals to be self-sufficient, healthy, and hopeful. We have the resolve to effect that change – one child, one family, one community at a time.

And now that we’re at the beginning of a new year, there’s no time like the present!

Response to Flooding in Mexico

(First person account by Mark O’Donnell, PCI’s Vice President for Program Operations and Humanitarian Assitance.)

I just returned from a trip to Mexico City to meet with PCI’s Emergency Response Team for the flooding in Tabasco and Chiapas and wanted to share a few impressions.

First, I think it is important keep in mind that while the water levels have been reduced in many areas, the rains continue, causing additional damages to homes and creating obstacles to the response. Thousands of people are still in shelters and in need of ongoing assistance, especially outside of Villahermosa and in Chiapas that have not received the same amount of attention.

Second, the Mexican government and its citizens are doing an excellent job of responding to the disaster. They were on the ground very quickly, worked very efficiently, and have provided PCI access to air, water and ground support that has great assisted our efforts.

Third, our team has just been tremendous, dedicating themselves day and night to the response. In addition to some of the initial assistance with water and hygiene kits, PCI will also be providing food.

We will complete a second household survey to identify additional needs that we will be providing with the support of the US government’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA/USAID). Longer term, we will be working with individual families to provide livelihood support to help get them back on their feet.

Finally, while challenges still remain and thousands of people continue to need support, I’m proud of PCI’s involvement in this important effort to assist the people of Tabasco and Chiapas, Mexico.