April 9, 2011 – WATER today announced the addition of Dr. Andrew Seidu Korkor and Lamisi Mbillah to its Board of Directors.  Dr. Korkor, a medical doctor, is the National Program Manager for Guinea Worm eradication in Ghana and has been working with WATER in Ghana for the past several years.  He brings his considerable skillset with eradication and control of neglected tropical diseases to the WATER board.  Ghana plans to announce the break in transmission of guinea worm in July, 2011.  A feat accomplished under the leadership of Dr. Korkor.  His addition is consistent with WATER’s desire to couple the provision of water and sanitation with disease control.   Lamisi Mbillah became the first African woman to ever be named as Miss World Beauty With a Purpose, at the 2006 Miss World pageant in Poland.  She was Miss Ghana in 2005.  She won the award and was named a semifinalist in the pageant as a result of her work with the Ghana Health Service, Carter Center and UNICEF of the eradication of guinea worm and promotion of the distribution of iodized salt during her reign as Miss Ghana.  The award is given to the contestant who contributes the most to humanity and society during her reign. 

In the letter, GHS requests that WATER, in conjunction with Lamisi Mbillah and Rocky Dawuni to seek funding on a larger scale, than previously attempted, to combat the disease.  Rocky Dawuni is Ghana’s most recognized international musician and Lamisi Mbillah was the first African woman to ever win the Miss World Beauty With a Purpose title in 2006 at the Miss World pageant.  Both were instrumental in the fight to eradicate guinea worm in Ghana and will now take their considerable capabilities to this new cause with WATER.

Download the latest  parish donations list.

November 8, 2010 Update

Life Teen 's Give It Away Now campaign "Thirst for Change" continues to blast the $50,000 goal "INTO THE W.A.T.E.R!" 204 parishes have now reported to W.A.T.E.R. and Life Teen a new total of $178,000. Of that amount, $134,000 is already in our W.A.T.E.R. bank account ready to go to work. We are counting on the rest of those pledges arriving soon so Catholic Relief Services can start the village application process for our 2011 drilling. Thousands of thirsty people in Ghana will drink clean water because of you. Many parishes are still raising funds or yet to report. Stay tuned to this site for regular updates on what has turned into an outstanding effort thanks to thousands of incredible Catholic youth. 

Check out our new promotional video. It was 100% Made in Ghana by a small marketing firm that has donated their time and talent for us:

Water in Africa through Everyday Responsiveness from Christopher Dube on Vimeo.

The first of our 2010 Wine into W.A.T.E.R. parties has been a great success.  Deep gratitude to all who attended at the Kline's house in Kirkland.  We brought in $4427 not counting matching donations! For more information, see the donors section.

Almost all our brand new logo design shirts were already sold!  It is never to late to donate!

Wonderful Ghanaian food was served...

...along with excellent African wine.

Courtney Plummer and Jan Kline presenting on our mission and impacts.

Thanks to everyone who came for making our first party such a success!

Thomas Awiapo takes Chris Dube's motorcycle for a joyride.

Watch the 2010 Trip Video

W.A.T.E.R. Trip 2010 from Christopher Dube on Vimeo.

View PowerPoint presented at the party - View Online | Download

These past few weeks I’ve been busy out in the villages where boreholes have been drilled and where CRS/Ghana implements its various community programs. I had the chance to visit 6 communities (Kpemale, Gbangu, Dindani, Nanyier, Kolinvae, and Wawa) where WATER drilled from 2007 to 2009. I’m happy to report that all boreholes are pumping water and that the local Water and Sanitation Committees are working to support the water sources. And I wanted to share one quote from Kpemale’s committee chairman Duut, where WATER and CRS drilled a borehole near the primary school in 2007.

He said, “We needed water and couldn’t get it, so when someone offers you it’s your job to ensure that it’s well managed. And that’s a job we can play.”

I think that epitomizes what W.A.T.E.R. is all about, connecting everyday people with everyday people. Donors in the U.S. find themselves wanting to do what they can to support safe drinking water for their brothers and sisters, however far away they might be. Community members then volunteer their time as committee members to make sure that the water their village was given continues to keep them all healthy.

It’s certainly not easy. There are many challenges facing the communities I’ve visited: water, health, hunger, and education, among others. But instead of getting discouraged or overwhelmed by the task at hand to work alongside my brothers and sisters for a better future, I choose faith. I’m choosing to take one small step at a time, recognizing that we cannot do great things, but only small things with great love. I can see that everyday, people choosing compassion. We will find ourselves in a more just and humane world as people continue to act out that compassion in solidarity with others. I choose to have faith that everyone can do something and that we will.

I want to thank you for following me this summer as I spent time in northern Ghana where W.A.T.E.R. has sponsored borehole projects. I’ve enjoyed sharing my experiences with you all. All good things come to an end, and so does my time in Ghana. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to really get to know the work that W.A.T.E.R. and its partner Catholic Relief Services/Ghana is doing with rural communities in Ghana. I look forward to sharing more with you in person during our “Wine into Water” events soon.

Thank you to all of you who made my visit unforgettable!

Courtney

plummerc@uw.edu

Learn more about Buruli Ulcer: WHO, Wikipedia.

Learn more about cataracts. 

I hope that your summer is going well. I just had the pleasure to spend about 2 weeks with the group of WATER visitors from the U.S. and what a wonderful time it was. We had the opportunity to see almost the whole country in our two weeks, from the northern border to the southern coast.

As you might have already read we were able to visit with two of the four communities where CRS has drilled boreholes this year. The welcome at Datuko and Kanania (both located in the Upper East Region of Ghana) was quite amazing. Drumming and dancing by many members and associations of the villages and also speeches by district representatives, chiefs, and CRS staff. Water truly is life and clean water is health. Your support for safe drinking water for these communities, CRS’s integration of water with maternal and child health clinics, and community participation should mean sustainable improvements in living standards for hundreds of rural Ghanaians.

Aside from the water projects we also painted a school the Upper East Region in a village called Farinsah and participated in a Habitat for Humanity build just west of Tamale in the community of Tolon. In keeping with the overwhelming outpouring of graciousness and a strong welcoming spirit, our experiences in both Farinsah and Tolon were beautiful cultural exchanges.  I also want to personally thank the CRS staff for sharing their expertise about the different community programs they have in Ghana and receiving our group as friends and colleagues. 

On a more solemn note, our group also visited a former slave camp in Paga located on the border between Ghana and Burkina Faso. Here we saw the remnants of the trans-Atlantic raiding and trading of human lives. Walking the paths at the camp was as if walking back in time, a time when men, women, and some children were captured or sold from further north and taken to this camp. Here they would wait for two to three months before walking shackled 100 miles south to be bathed, sold, and then marched in chains again to the southern coasts. Our group toured the Cape Coast Castle where thousands of men and women were held in dungeons for two to three months in horrific conditions before corralled through the “Door of No Return” and shipped to the Americas. I can’t describe what visiting these two places of degradation and inhumanity meant for me. I know that those experiences will stay with me all of my life and continue to fuel my conviction to uphold human dignity everywhere.

Sitting on the bus heading south, I watched the shea trees give way to palm, orange, and cocoa; red earth turn a sandy brown; and opportunity and affluence grow. Spending just one week in the southern coastal towns of Cape Coast and the capital Accra, I could see that the disparity between the north and south is striking. In fact, on my way back north to Tamale I was sitting next to a young woman who was born and raised in Accra. She was on her way to spend one week in the northern part of her country, her first time outside of the capital. A few hours outside of Tamale, she grabbed my arm in a panic: “Do you see that!?” I looked out the window and saw a group of women and children washing and fetching water from a muddy stream on the side of the road. She had no idea that fellow Ghanaians faced realities like these. Ignorance of this water situation is not confined to our own communities in the U.S. How important that we take advantage of opportunities to see, listen, share, and act in order to improve access to the most basic human right: safe drinking water.

I have just one more month in Ghana and I look forward to spending much of that time in the communities where W.A.T.E.R. has just drilled boreholes and where they were installed in the last few years. I will be speaking with Water and Sanitation Committee members, representatives from the local schools, maternal and child health clinics, and other beneficiaries in the villages. Stay tuned for more information on the status of these water projects.

These last few weeks have been a celebration of collaboration and achievement as well as continued reflection on the past, present, and future of Ghana and our relationship with its people. Thank you for letting me share my experiences with you and please feel free to look through the W.A.T.E.R. website, our Facebook page, and/or contact me to continue the dialogue.

Courtney

plummerc@uw.edu

8 W.A.T.E.R. trip participants and our W.A.T.E.R. intern, Courtney, visited villages Datoku and Kwanania in the Upper East Region of northern Ghana.   Four communities now have clean water from boreholes very near to the maternity and newborn clinics.  One of the biggest challenges of these areas is infection and death of mother and/or baby during and following childbirth.  Clean water makes a world of difference.   Our celebrations were filled with gratitude on all sides;  we for the hospitality and welcome, our new friends for the gift of clean water.  Thanks to ALL of our donors;  this water's for you!  Jan Kline, W.A.T.E.R. board

The celebration at Datoku

Tom & Kathy Dube made a special donation to W.A.T.E.R. for painting a school.  The village of Farinsa was recipient.  Our group had 50 paint brushes varying in size.  Close to 200 people from the school community came to help paint and we barely touched our hands to a tool.  SInging and dancing and a soccer game all were part of the day.

Our group with some of the village members who showed up to paint the school in Farinsa.

Our group participants received many experiences.  2010 found us in Wiaga, home of Thomas Awiapo,

Paga,  a slave gathering site on the Burkina Faso border,

In Bolga at a women’s basket making NGO site,

Working 3 days in Tolon with Habitat for Humanities,

Touring the Ashanti king’s summer palace (now museum) in Kumasi, walking 40 feet above the ground at Kakum National Reserve.

Blair Howisey and Jan Kline at Datuko

Jan Kline receiving a a gift of gratitude from the village of Datuko. 

Our group with the cheif of Wiaga, hometown of Thomas Awiapo.

Each group member has a few words to say about their experiences so far.

Before I came to Ghana, I heard and believed that water is life.  But visiting villages, I really saw that a bore hole is cause for singing, dancing, and celebration.  A bore hole means that guinea worm is almost eradicated.  A bore hole means that women give birth safely in the maternity ward next door.  A bore hole means that clean water, a basic human right, is now available to hundreds of men, women, and children.  I will never look at water in the same way again.

-Jennifer Guterman

Before I came to Ghana we recieved a t-shirt with the logo "Water is Life" across the heart of the t-shirt. At that point it was just a logo, and now after a week in Ghana I see it's truth in so many ways. Water is a necessity to life in ways that I had never had to think about, and being here we learned that childbirth is one of them. Clara Weobong said it perfectly when she said, "Water is life, so what better way to bring in a new life than with clean water." Water has too often been a resource I have taken advantage of, and I know after this trip I see it's true value. Water is life.

-Hallie Hemmingsen

This trip has showed me once again that there are people in this world that are thirsty, and that is unacceptable. Water is a right, not a privilege. It is a humbling honor to be a part of bringing entire village communities the gift of life through water. I am forever changed and my life is filled with so much more beauty.

-Jennifer Reubish

The best part about Ghana are the people and their attitudes. For them, every day is a celebration with SO much singing, dancing, and drumming. Their constant smiles are like nothing I have ever seen and their gratitude is inspiring and something I consider a gift to experience. I hope that more people can witness and be a part of bringing them WATER!

-Blair Howisey

This first week in Ghana has been delightful, exhilarating and sobbering.  We spent a majority of the week in the northeast district where W.A.T.E.R. has been providing funds to drill boreholes for the past several years.  We had the honor to attend two dedications of the well.  At each we were greeted with drummers and dancers and seated and treated as dignataries.  The people were joyful and happy that WATER had provided the borehole.  They showed again and again their gratitude for receiving something that we all take for granted.  This has been a very special experience.

-David Meyer

Wow, what an amazing experience this past week has been!  This is my first time in Africa, and I have seen so much already.  The people of Ghana are more  loving, happy, and helpful than any other place I have been.  The dedication of the boreholes at the villages was an amazing outpouring of thankfulness towards us.  It has been humbling to see the impact on tens of thousands of this organization has made.

-Christopher Dubé, webmaster

We've had an incredible first week here in Ghana! My friends and I have had an amazing opportunity to connect with communities that W.A.T.E.R. has supported this year. The joy, gratitude, and friendship that each community has shared with us is SO much more valuable than what we have given them.  In the village of Datoku, we danced, sang and commissioned a new borehole. The image of David (lawyer and grandfather and one of my newest friends!) dancing with the drummers and women from the village, will stay with me forever. In the second village - Kanania - hundreds of villagers came to celebrate the comissioning of the borehole. My friends from Microsoft provided the funds for this borehole, and I was able to give a speech to the community on our behalf - what a transformational experience. More details and stories to come.....

-Bob Maher

This year's shirt has been extremely popular. We are even thinking of making it into batik. Stay tuned!

The I-WASH mid-year review was a chance to hear about the achievements and challenges facing the European Union and UNICEF funded integrated water, sanitation, and hygiene project in northern Ghana.  Both the government and organizations are involved in this project to improve rural water and sanitation in the area and it was great to start understanding how they work together to achieve that goal.  While this review was particularly for the I-WASH project, it is representative of how organizations and the regional, district, and local levels of government work together.  It was clearly important that in the end the water and sanitation projects are managed and owned by the government, with non-profits and other organizations supporting and coordinating within their infrastructure.

I also was able to sit in on the Guinea Worm Eradication Program’s quarterly review.  Staff members from all over northern Ghana came to share how their communities are doing with regard to guinea worm.  It was such a pleasure to see how all the hard work and community education and participation has paid off.  There are only 8 reported cases of guinea worm in Ghana so far this year.  They expect that the water-borne disease will be eradicated from Ghana by this time next year!  Unfortunately, while guinea worm is leaving Ghana there are still diseases affecting rural areas, including other parasites as well as diarrheal disease.

Attending the meetings gave me a chance to see an overview of the water and sanitation sector, but to really understand I know I need to spend time in the villages themselves.  Catholic Relief Services is working with CARE on the Global Water Initiative in the Upper West region of Ghana and one of the CRS staff invited me to visit 15 schools where they have been working to support the school health education programs (SHEP).  We drove to Wa, which is about 6 hours northwest from Tamale on a pretty rough road past one of Ghana’s national parks and oldest mosques.  For a whole week we traveled to the villages to distribute materials for the school health clubs to be able to clean up their grounds as well as build things like latrines.  I had a chance to talk with the school head teachers, health teachers, and representatives from the school health clubs.  While most of the students had just joined and had yet to receive training on what their roles would be exactly, they seem eager to beautify the school grounds and share with other students and the community members about better hygiene and health.  One of the most beautiful experiences I’ve had so far in Ghana was on the last day of our trip when I was able to interview two women on their community’s water and sanitation committee.  The treasurer and organizer, the two women shared with me their roles, achievements, challenges, and plans for the future.  What they said they have enjoyed the most about their participation is “exchanging ideas and learning new things”.  As I thanked the woman who translated for us I couldn’t help but smile at the children resting on women’s laps, soak in the shade from the trees in the courtyard, and recognize the unique opportunity offered to me at that very moment.

Lastly, I just want to share with you my most recent trip to the Upper East region of Ghana, where the boreholes WATER has supported through CRS have been drilled.  I went with one of the staff to do the final inspections on the boreholes and see the four villages where safe drinking water is now flowing.  They are:  Sakote, Dakoto, Gonum, and Kanania.  These villages have been part of another CRS project for maternal and child health clinics, and they were chosen to participate in the water and sanitation project because a lack of clean, nearby water was affecting the clinics ability to serve the community.  I will be returning to two of these villages shortly with the visitors from Seattle and look forward to having the two groups come together to celebrate and share life and community with one another.

Thank you again for your support and the next blog will feature the Seattle visitors as they relate their experiences,

Courtney

plummerc@uw.edu

I just finished my first week here in Ghana and I’m getting acclimated to everything.  I arrived in Accra Friday night and then made my way north to Tamale over the weekend.  What an incredible chance to see almost all of the country in just two days:  the lush coastal vegetation, bright red dirt, and the green savannah in the north provided by the recent rains.  The atmosphere has been very friendly and welcoming, and the people I’ve met are wonderful.

This week I’ve been stationed at the Guinea Worm Eradication Program’s office, located in the Ghana Health Service complex here in Tamale.  Before I start the process of gathering information on the impacts of the boreholes where WATER and CRS have partnered with communities, I need to get a general understanding of the water and health situation in the area.

My first day I was able to visit the World Vision offices where WATER is able to test for fluoride in the water from a recently-drilled borehole and will work together with the World Vision lab to figure out how to treat the source to ensure the water quality for the community.  I also had a chance to meet with an engineer from one of our Ghanaian water and sanitation sector partners, the local Community Water and Sanitation Agency, which works in rural communities to address issues of water and sanitation.  To finish the day, I had the opportunity to attend a weekly meeting with the staff at the Guinea Worm Eradication Program office.  In the meeting, I heard the great news there are very few cases left in the endemic areas, and that the disease is very close to being eliminated from Ghana.

The next day I met with the head of programs at the Tamale Catholic Relief Services office, where I will be spending much of the summer in order to go into the villages where they have been implementing the WATER projects.  They just finished drilling the 2010 wells and I am excited to go with their water and sanitation team to do the final inspections so that the communities can start using the new, clean water sources.

I’ve also been able to sit in on the mid-term review conference for the Integrated Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Program for the northern part of Ghana.   I-WASH, a four-year program funded by the European Union and UNICEF, is a collaboration of many NGOs and agencies in the area that work to coordinate efforts for water and sanitation projects.  It has been fascinating to hear about their progress toward improving marginalized communities access to these basic services.  They have been sharing the common challenges and successes in order for the whole sector to be more effective at working with communities to meet their needs.

The end of the week is something of a realization for me, when I am able to experience first-hand what the work of WATER truly means.  First, I went out to visit a couple villages close to Tamale, only 30 minutes from the city center to learn a bit about their water situation and needs.  The differences from Tamale city center are pretty stark, and the biggest difference to me was seeing the water sources.  Even in the start of the rainy season where there are more options than the dry season here in the north, the water hole is a stagnant pond.  The village’s health surveillance volunteer showed us where the community members were gathering their water, and I saw as they walked back balancing large pans on their heads full of their only water source to their homes.  The worst part for me was recognizing that this is unfortunately not a unique situation, but rather too common.  However, the next two days I was able to visit communities that have participated in a water and sanitation program and see that it is possible to attain safer drinking water for families.  I saw household filter systems, innovative pump and filter systems directly from the water source, as well as hand-dug wells and hand pump boreholes that have been drilled.  I really enjoyed visiting the villages and look forward to spending more time throughout the next couple months getting to know the community members’ perspectives on water and sanitation and finding out what the impacts of these programs can have on reducing guinea worm, diarrheal disease, and improving the chances that children will attend school.

I should also mention that the World Cup tournament has overtaken Ghana; every night we go for dinner a game is always on.  So it was no surprise that Wednesday when Ghana played Germany and squeezed by into the next round that everyone here was celebrating, cheering and waving their red, yellow, and green flags.  I cannot even describe to you the excitement on Saturday night in the restaurant where we watched the U.S.-Ghana game projected on a big screen.  Everyone was on the edge of their seats ready to jump up and cheer at any moment, and when that last whistle blew I couldn’t help but smile.  All of Tamale took to the streets Saturday night celebrating for hours with shouting, drumming, and dancing.  There was nowhere else in the world that I wanted to be at that moment!  The Ghanaian and African pride is running high right now, and it is an honor to be here and take part in their joy.

What a fantastic, whirlwind way to start my summer here in Ghana, and there’s much more learning left to come.  Thank you for letting me share this WATER experience with you and please feel free to email me (plummerc@uw.edu) or post to the WATER facebook page any questions or comments.

Courtney