| | Welcome to the October, and very late issue of News and Notes. We are in the process of migrating the newsletter to a new system and have encountered a hurdle or two along the way. Then our website went down. We're hoping bad luck doesn't come in threes. Or fours.
In this months issue we take you on a journey with the women of Mahuge, explain how bricks can make water, encounter some speakers of Narsi-Parsi at our Lucknow training in India, and visit with the Maasai of Tanzania. As always, these efforts couldn't happen without incredible supporters like you. |
| | | | | In September 2019, Friendly Water for the World held a training for 25 people in the fabrication, distribution, installation, and maintenance of BioSand Water Filters in the town of Kasunyu, in South Kivu Province of eastern Congo-DRC. On the very first day, 26 women turned up unannounced and uninvited from the village of Mahuge. The women demanded to be trained, and refused to leave until we had done so. Food and extra materials were found. And under the leadership of our area representative Herman Chirihambali, the training was expanded.
Their needs are very real. Cholera is an infectious disease that is deadly if untreated. And every year, more than 5 million Congolese are at risk of contracting it. Those people who are most vulnerable are usually the people we serve. Among the women of Mahuge, they had 18 children who had died of cholera in the past year.
This journey by these daring women is unprecedented. They left behind their communities and families for multiple days just for the opportunity to maybe, just possibly, find a path to clean water and better health for their community. It was a sacrifice and risk for them all.
We are finding funds to equip the women of Mahuge fully, and are engaging their community to build relationships and determine how we, and you, can help. New materials and additional training are on the way to their village.
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We have partnered with CaringCrowd, a crowd funding platform created by Johnson & Johnson to advance global public health. This is the same platform we used this year to help ensure clean water for the Maasai of Tanzania. CaringCrowd will match 50% of each donation up to $400. That's up to $200 free dollars for the women of Mahuge and communities like them.
Even better, we have generous donors who are matching the match so you can receive more than twice the impact for every dollar given. Click or tap the button below and join the women of Mahuge. The journey to better community health starts with you. |
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CLEAN WATER, ONE BRICK AT A TIME |
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| What do water and bricks have in common? Quite a lot it turns out. Bricks form the foundation of water catchments, microflush toilets, and lots of opportunities. But some bricks also have significant drawbacks. Fired bricks or clay bricks, the kinds you’ll find most often, need expensive infrastructure. For instance, you’ll need:- A kiln to fire them
- Plenty of wood and charcoal to build the fire
- A vehicle to transport the bricks to their home
- Extensive labor for the whole process
Enter the Interlocking Soil Stabilized Brick Making machine. That’s a bit of a mouthful, so we’ll call it ISSB for short and explain why it’s such a breakthrough.
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| | An ISSB is a kind of brick that only requires soil and a stabilizer. You check the soil using an easy water bottle test to determine the level of clay and sand. Based on that result, you then add a stabilizer like cement or lime to the soil to create a batch. That mixture is then placed into a brick mold in the machine. The mold is a key part of this smart solution. It has grooves so that the resulting brick can interlock with another brick, much like a Lego block. This interlocking element reduces both the amount of cement you need to build and the amount of time you need for building. The mold is then compressed by one or two people.
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| | Out of the mold pops the ISSB. The compression has bound the ingredients and also created a uniquely smooth brick that looks much nicer than rough fired bricks. The bricks are also much more uniform in size, shape and properties than fired bricks, which use less consistent molds and fire unevenly. The bricks are then left outside to cure for seven days. Four men can make 300 bricks a day. And then the machine, which is portable, can be moved to a different part of the community. What’s left behind are bricks, security and trees - because there’s no deforestation when you make ISSBs.
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| | We have delivered 10 ISSB machines to communities most in need. And those communities from Uganda to Tanzania are using them to increase their water security, enhance their sanitation, and build homes, schools and clinics. You’ll even find a chicken coop or two. And perhaps the best part, many communities are selling their bricks for profit. These are the building blocks for self-reliance, better health and local solutions to local needs.
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| | DO YOU SPEAK NARSI-PARSI? |
| | If you do, you're probably a Gihar (or Kanjar). Gihar people originated in Rajasthan, India and like many smaller tribes, developed their own language, in addition to the four or five others they speak, to maintain their group and protect them from others. Narsi-Parsi consists of animal and bird sounds, gestures and coded words. What a rich and beautiful language. They may be without means, but they are not without their own culture and humanity.
Gihar people, like most communities we serve, are amongst the most marginalized. They are a low caste and historically characterized as a criminal tribe, as are many of those who come from little physical wealth. Being part of the community carries significant social stigma. Most Gihar men are wage laborers or hunt in the forest. And the women beg with their kids or are often sold or traded into sexual slavery. So how fortunate we were to have members of that community participate in our Lucknow training.
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| | 34 people attended the training, many making the journey from hundreds of kilometers away. In addition to participants from the Gihar community, there were Gadaria, Yadav and Badiak. All these people live in communities with unsafe water. Water is becoming a critical issue in India with plummeting water tables and severe droughts. Much of the available water needs to run through a filter. Preferably a BioSand Water Filter!
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| | | Binyamin Khristi of Life for all Society led our group training. Mic McDaniel from Global Helps Network and the local (to us) Rotary Club of Tacoma South supported him. We shared our knowledge of water, waterborne disease, and water filtering. The group split into several smaller groups that constructed four fantastic looking filters. They all now have the expertise to build more. And the camaraderie of an experience that brought people together from across Northern India.
No matter our language or community, we all speak for good health and clean water.
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| | IT'S OFFICIAL. YOU'RE A PART OF A 'GREAT NONPROFIT' |
| Have you heard? After a year of support and providing reviews, our supporters say that Friendly Water for the World is a great nonprofit. And not for the first time. You're the best!!!
Thanks to all our fans who voted and made us your choice. Recognitions like these help open doors and build a community committed to our goals.
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| | ANOTHER STEPPE WITH THE MAASAI |
| | The Maasai Steppe in north-central Tanzaia, to the southwest of Mount Kilimanjaro, is a broad savanna home to 180,000 people. Most of them are Maasai pastoralists who traditionally graze livestock. But they are turning to subsistence farming as changes to climate threaten their habitat and way of life.
For many, usually women and girls, their lives are endless walks of many kilometers to find water. They start as early as 3:00 in the morning and are gone for hours. What water they find often has waterborne diseases that take lives young and old. And those that survive have debt, miss school or miss work.
Two years ago the Maasai invited us to help. Friendly partnered with six groups of Maasai. They learned how to build BioSand Water Filters for their homes and communities. That helped improve their water quality and their health. But the long walk remained. We stayed in contact and together identified new opportunities to help change their journey to community health.
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| | | This fall you funded a new project with the Maasai to help improve the health of the community. Our Tanzanian partner, CLAO, has now visited multiple villages on the Maasai Steppe to build water catchments to catch and store precious rainwater, microflush toilets to improve sanitation and non-palm oil soap for hand hygiene. We couldn’t do this without you and we hope you will continue to support the Maasai as they build lives of better health and prosperity.
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| | WELCOME, WAYNE MEDRUD a word from Curt Andino, Executive Director |
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In August of 2018 most of the PNW was covered in smoke. Smoke from Siberian wildfires, smoke from the Gilbert Fire near Twisp and smoke from the Maple Fire on the Peninsula all contributed to making 9AM on Anacortes look like sunset while the tops of the older Doug Firs vanished into the amber haze.
I was on Anacortes with a dozen or so other trainees to learn the basics of building a BioSand Filter, which, in 2018, was the primary product of Friendly Water for the World. The first question asked by a trainee was, “Is the air quality too bad to be outside?” A number of other trainees nodded in concurrence with the question. “Well,” came a measured reply, “the air here today is probably better than the air you’ll find in much of India anytime and even parts of Africa depending on the time of year. Now, let’s get started.” The person talking was a volunteer, Wayne Medrud, and he should know, he had been to India seven times as a lead trainer for Friendly Water, to Africa eight times (including Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Liberia), twice to Mexico and was heading out to Bolivia that fall. I, by contrast, had recently driven, all by myself, to Bremerton (and back!).
As the new Executive Director, I had a number of purposes being in Anacortes: get some training, assess our training program, look for best practices, analyze challenges. After a few days the standout best practice was Wayne himself. A gifted hands-on trainer, Wayne also served as Friendly Water’s technical advisor on questions related to our products including the BioSand Filter, our recently introduced Micro-Flush Toilet and our Water Catchment system. Never flustered, or at least never showing it, Wayne’s comfort level with tools, our technologies and with people were qualities I could only hope to emulate, if never achieve.
Fast forward to May 2019, I was en route to Rwanda to perform a much needed and overdue assessment of our work in the field and then to Zambia to undertake a feasibility study for future work. Two seats forward and a couple of seats over was Wayne Medrud, a person as integral to mission success as the wings on the plane we were in. After several challenging days, a pretty sleepless night and with the input of Eric Lijodi, now our Programs Manager-Africa, on the morning of our fifth day in Rwanda I asked Mr. Medrud if he would be so kind as to consider becoming my Projects Manager. Wayne accepted!
Since then, Wayne has assumed the helm for all projects performed by Friendly Water. For a quiet man who didn’t have a passport until 2014, Wayne’s competence, earnest demeanor and deceptively unassuming approach has made him a most valued asset for Friendly Water for the World, and for those who don’t already know him, a privilege to introduce to you.
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| | | The Friendly Water for the World board meeting is open to the public. We next meet at Olympia Friends Meeting house, 3201 Boston Harbor Rd NE, Olympia WA on Tuesday, November 19, 4:30pm. Visit us, all are welcome.
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| | | Create a gift of clean water that will travel across the world!
Friendly Water for the World is now part of the matching gift programs at Expedia, Microsoft, Boeing, Intel, Google, Oracle, Kaiser Permanente, Pfizer, and Bristol-Myers Squibb. We are also part of the Washington State Combined Fund Drive (CFD #1480794). If you have an employer that has a matching gift program, please help us become part of their system.
As the end of the year nears, remember that we are increasingly recognized by Donor Advised Funds, are part of the Fidelity Giving Program, and can accept IRA distributions. We can also help you with estate planning! |
| | | | The impact and great stories we share in this newsletter only happen because our supporters make it happen. Every time you take action gives hope to the people we serve, like Maman Ndoole Nyaweza Kabera and Riziki Bulalo from Mahuge. Click or tap the button below and join them in their journey to better community health. It starts with you. |
| | FRIENDLY WATER FOR THE WORLD |
| 1421 West Bay Drive NW Olympia WA 98502 U.S.A. |
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