haiti
Haiti faces the enormous task of rebuilding from countless disasters, both political and natural.
Sustainable, clean water is crucial for their recovery, and charity: water has delivered it to more than 30,000 people here.
May 14, 2010
Each Friday, we’ll recap the week’s news relative to the water sector. Have news to add? Email us.
Oil in the water — take a look at the Gulf of Mexico, post-oil spill.
It’s been three weeks since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana, but oil leaks are ongoing. The Associated Press says at least 210,000 gallons of oil continues to seep into the ocean each day.
Photos of the spill are captivating. Take a look at how The Boston Globe captures the tragic (yet in some ways, beautiful) aftermath of the disaster on The Big Picture.
Keeping our focus on Haiti: many areas are still in a state of emergency.
CNN is reporting there are still two million people living in tent cities in Port-au-Prince. Relief efforts have helped, but many are looking for jobs so they can provide for themselves.
Also, did you catch Soledad O’Brien’s documentary RESCUED, about Haitian orphans? Watch one of the stories here.
Lastly, after ten years of negotiations, four East African nations have signed an agreement for more access to water from the Nile.
For the past 13 years, Egypt and Sudan have legally owned 90% of the Nile’s water use. But upstream nations have been vying for more access for years; and this week took a bolder step to get their share. Ethiopia, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda met up in Entebbe on Friday to sign a formal agreement to redetermine each country’s legal share of the Nile.
The four nations have access to the Nile’s upstream tributaries but little control over how they can use them. One of the biggest concerns is crop irrigation, especially in arid regions like Ethiopia. If water access isn’t shared soon, the chance of conflict between the nations will increase with expanding populations (and more need for food).
The agreement was signed today, but doesn’t take effect for a year — and any actual change in permissions will likely take much longer. Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi are also considering signing.
Anything we missed this week? Leave us a comment and let us know.
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April 20, 2010
We dropped off a heavy $6,809.09 at the bank today, all from our “Wishing Well” at Chelsea Market. The well has collected loose change since our exhibition there last May. (Learn more about the event here.)
Last spring, we installed a three-month exhibition at Chelsea Market. We used photos, videos and facts to share the gravity of the water crisis. We collected loose change in a “wishing well” to fund clean, safe water projects. The exhibition came down in May but our wishing well stayed up — and we just received a new shipment of coins today at the charity: water office.
The total?
$6,809.09.
In loose change.
Every penny counts — but Michael Somoya has to clean them first to make sure the bank will accept them. 100% of donations will fund clean, safe water projects in Haiti. Visit the Unshaken campaign site for more info on our work in Haiti.
A big thanks to everyone who contributed! 100% of donations will fund clean, safe water projects in Haiti.
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March 26, 2010
The World Water Day momentum carried on throughout the week — we’re thrilled to see the water issue splashed all over headlines, viral campaigns and social media. Here are some of our favorite posts and campaigns highlighting the world water crisis since Monday:
UNSHAKEN: helping Haiti recover by providing long-term clean water solutions.
We launched our campaign for clean, safe water in Haiti on World Water Day! 100% of donations directly fund water projects in 11 areas in Haiti. UNSHAKEN has already raised more than $10,000 from individual donors — join us!
Annie Leonard started sharing the consequences of our material-loving culture with The Story of Stuff in June 2008. More than 8.5 million have since watched her online animated videos. For World Water Day, The Story of Stuff took on the bottled water industry. Take eight minutes to see how bottled water has made us the fool for fearing water from the tap:
Citizen Voices Award from the Pulitzer Center
The Pulitzer Center — as in the esteemed Pulitzer Prize for journalism — used World Water Day to ask, “What should we do about the 4,500 who die each day from lack of safe water and sanitation?” This is the prompt for their writing contest, which has received more than 70 submissions in the last month (and counting — you have until March 31 to get yours in!).
See Pulitzer-sponsored reporting on the water crisis at Downstream, a multimedia project of stories and investigations on water’s effect on communities, environments and economies in developing nations.
National Geographic’s Water: Our Thirsty World
“In much of the developing world, lack of water is at the center of a vicious circle of inequality.”
– Tina Rosenberg, The Burden of Thirst
Nat Geo covers the water issue periodically and we always get pretty excited when we see a new story or study on water. But for World Water Day this year, the magazine put their entire April issue — which focuses almost entirely on water — online for free until April 2.
You’ll learn how much water it takes to make a pair of blue jeans; how new desalination technologies work; the price of tap water in cities around the world; and all about the burden of water collection in developing nations. (But you already knew about that last part from us, right?)
One Week for Water
ONE and water.org teamed up for an innovative online canvasing strategy: they asked Twitter-users and Facebookers to give up their status for the week. Surrendered profiles have been updated with water facts and calls to action for the last five days.
The Big Picture (The Boston Globe)
photo: AP via The Boston Globe
A collection of photos showing the importance and beauty of water around the world (the first 15 photos are from the National Geographic issue mentioned above). Some people emailed or DM’ed us to say the baby bottle picture (right) reminded them of charity: water. This picture was from a demonstration in Switzerland on Monday.
Have any ideas for demonstrations we could do here in NYC? Have you held one yourself for your campaign? Leave us a comment to get the discussion going.
A pretty successful week for water crisis awareness-raising and fundraising, right? But we don’t have to wait for WWD every year to speak up about the water crisis. Water-related illnesses and lack of sanitation take more lives every year than any form of violence, including war. Shouldn’t this be a prominent issue all year, every year, until everyone on the planet has access to safe water?
We can make it that way. Keep spreading the word. Learn more about those living without clean water and tell their stories to everyone you know. You can even start a campaign of your own to help build water projects.
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March 23, 2010
World Water Day + UNSHAKEN launch + more supporters on Twitter than we could have imagined… what better way for charity: water to start the week?
Here’s a little glimpse at some of our favorite Tweets… and a glimpse at the other (sweet!) encouragement we received throughout the day:
Thanks to everyone for all the support. World Water Day was the start of UNSHAKEN, but most definitely not the end. We won’t stop until all 11 projects in Haiti have funding — so that more than 40,000 people have access to clean, safe water and sanitation.
