Wonderland or Not

Des­pite my uncha­llen­ged matu­rity I’m a 20 something, and con­se­quently a mem­ber of 20 Something blog­gers. 20 Something Blog­gers has tea­med up with Hand­sIn to raise $5,000, the cost of a well or the cost to res­tore a well, for Cha­rity Water.

I know my cyni­cal friends are going to be clic­king off about now, but please bear with me. Though their site, lin­ked at the bot­tom of the page so don’t get impa­tient, looks all “I’m a hips­ter, pop cul­ture, flash in the pan acti­vist, out to save the world this week, on to something else the next”, don’t let the fact that the guy has made spec­ta­cu­lar use of social media and cyber tech­no­logy deter your cyni­cal selves.

“Cha­rity Water” digs fresh­wa­ter wells, rain­wa­ter catch­ments and sand fil­ters, or res­to­res older wells. That they show it off in a flashy for­mat might be a turn-off to some, giving the illu­sion that they aren’t serious, more flash than anything else. Be wary though, as we go for­ward even the most via­ble of pro­jects will have a pretty lively cyber facade, and it is not likely you’ll be able to judge a cha­rity base­less just because they are more media and inter­net savy then the rest.

I was loo­king for some indi­ca­tion of com­prehen­sive forethought about after­care. What I found was that Cha­rity Water and part­ners have imple­men­ted, and this is sig­ni­fi­cant, a pro­gram to main­tain the wells. As many of you know something that makes peo­ple wary of dona­ting to pro­jects such as this, and rightly so, is the fact that many of the pro­jects out there lack of a pro­gram to sus­tain the pro­ject after it is com­plete, a fact which can lead to a solu­tion beco­ming a non solu­tion, and large waste of money, pretty quickly. In this case, after the well itself is dug or res­to­red each com­mu­nity forms a water com­mit­tee. These com­mit­tees are edu­ca­ted about the impor­tance of hand washing and pro­per sani­ta­tion, and are res­pon­si­ble for ensu­ring that the well stays clean and maintained.

That there is also some pro­lo­gue to their aid — as shown below in this piece about a pro­ject they were on with one of their part­ners, Gram Vikas — bodes well for them.

Engreda was one of those pro­jects, but the water run­ning from their taps came at a higher price than our funding.The peo­ple had peti­tio­ned our imple­men­ting part­ner Gram Vikas to help them with the water pro­blem. But before brin­ging clean water to Engreda, Gram Vikas asked villa­gers to give a year of their time to cons­truct toi­lets and bathing rooms on faith. For over 30 years, Gram Vikas has taken a uni­que approach to deve­lop­ment work. For them, sani­ta­tion is the key to good health, and com­mu­nity par­ti­ci­pa­tion is the key to sustainability.

“Sani­ta­tion” meant toi­lets and sho­wers here; “participation” — a year plus of hard work. Junash said Gram Vikas’s pro­po­sal was ini­tially met with some resis­tance, as each of Engreda’s 130 fami­lies would have to do a “lot of work” that would cost “a lot of money.” For Gram Vikas to work in a com­mu­nity, 100% of the peo­ple must agree and con­tri­bute, and after a short time, they did.

Taken from Orissa, India. 58,345 hours for clean water.

Check it out, and do what you can, a dollar goes a long way when mul­ti­plied by 5000, so pass it on.

All pro­ceeds (100 per­cent of the money rai­sed) is direc­ted to pro­ject costs, and fun­ding sus­tai­na­ble clean water solu­tions in areas of grea­test need. The cha­rity also works to raise awa­re­ness of the water cri­sis through events, fun­drai­sing exhi­bi­tions, and other public awa­re­ness campaigns.

You can join the 20 something cam­paign no mat­ter what your age by dona­ting at our spe­cial page at cha­rity water.

title cons­trued from an Albert Szent-Gyorgyi quote

peace