As the summer blockbusters debut, here are some movies on water and sanitation that you might want to catch and some from the recent past that you might remember.
“Insights into Women in Africa” – UCLA African Activists Association Conference
UCLA’s African Activist Association held a conference on May 21st, “Women Agency in Africa: Role, Motivation & Voice.” As a speaker, I was happy to have the opportunity to let African activists know about the dramatic impact of drilling a clean water well has on improving the lives of women. Not many people make that connection. We tend to assume that providing a well helps everyone in a community, and while it does, the positive impact on the lives of women and girls is so much more dramatic.
A Hard, but Joyful Journey
Two weeks ago I returned to the West African country of Niger—one of the three poorest countries in the world. I was there to take more photographs, gather more stories, and to accompany the father and 25-year-old brother of a remarkable 14-year-old girl, Kevin Kilroy. She had seen and read my book, WATER IS KEY that focuses on the issue of women, water, and wells. She read and saw the photos of the rural villagers who did not have safe water: the terrible health issues, the unnecessary deaths, and the absence of much hope. But she also saw what happens to a village when a bore hole well is drilled and brings the village clean, safe water: the general health of the villagers dramatically improves, women often become successful small entrepreneurs through micro credit loans that we give them, and girls go to school, sometimes for the first time in the history of the village.
Transforming the Lives of Women in West Africa
What is the easiest way to transform the lives of women and girls in West Africa? Drill a well and give them safe water. Giving a rural village safe water as our non-profit, Wells Bring Hope does in West Africa, accomplishes more than saving lives from contaminated water. Drilling a well transforms the lives of women and girls for generations to come. When women no longer have to walk many miles every day to get water, their time is freed up to work more productively.
The Impact of the Financial Crisis on Financial Flows to the Water Sector In Sub-Saharan Africa
Here are highlights of a report published in late 2010 on the impact of the global financial crisis on financial flows to the water sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. The goal of the study was to analyze how the water sector is presently financed and then trace the impact of the crisis on these financing sources. The lead author was John Joyce of the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI). Jakob Granit (SIWI), Emmanuel Frot (Stockholm University), David Hall, Public Services International Research Unit (PSIRU) and David Haarmeyer (Independent Consultant) were co-authors.
Drilling Wells Helps Reduce Number of Early Marriages
Somewhere in a village in Niger, Amina is giving birth to a boy whose father already abandoned the family. The girl got married at the age of 12, now she suffers chest pains that prevent her from eating and sleeping. If it was not for World Vision’s workers coming to her village, there would have been no one to take care of her baby.
Abandonment and depression are only two of many negative aspects likely to develop when girls get married too young, in fact when they are still children. This phenomenon, however strange to Westerners, is common in many developing countries. Fifty-one million girls in the developing world have been married before legal adulthood. Over one-third girls in Niger marry before the age of 15, according to World Vision’s report “Before She’s Ready.” Three out of four brides in Niger are younger than 18. Only Bangladesh notes more under age marriages; in over half of them, brides are under 15.
World Hand Washing Day in Chadakori, Niger
World Hand Washing Day was observed on October 15, 2010 in a region known for its high population density and high population growth, one of the highest in the world at more than 6% annually. The Chadakori Area Development Program, which hosted the World Hand Washing Day ceremony, covers a population of 44,881. The departments represented at this ceremony were: Primary Education, District Health, Water Services along with the schoolteachers, students, parents, and various youth groups and women’s associations of Chadakori and vicinity.
U.N. Millennium Development Goals Appear Out of Reach in Africa
With only five years left to meet the targets of poverty reduction and healthcare improvements set for 2015, most of sub-Saharan Africa lags behind amid the lack of aid and political will.
Devastating Floods Sweep Niger After Months of Drought
Excerpted from: http://breakingnews.ie/world
Drought-stricken Niger has been struck by devastating flooding, aid agencies said today. Crop failure combined with a severe drought had already thrust tens of thousands of people into a perilous state in Niger and neighboring Chad in the Sahel region of central North Africa.
What Our Partner, World Vision Is Doing To Ease The Famine
“The situation is escalating and we aren’t even at the peak of the hungry season between harvests yet,” said Sarah Carr, a World Vision nutritionist serving in Niger, West Africa.
