Category / Tag: Partners
“This is the true joy in life – being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one – being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for it’s own sake.
Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations . . .”
Jon with Rose – orphanage clean-water project in Haiti.
http://www.wavesforwater.org
We transform water that takes away life . . . into water that gives life.
On Tuesday, February 22, we spent Jon’s 33 birthday traversing the rugged landscape of Haiti – from ocean to ocean, over tall mountains and through dense jungle, from Port de Paix to Port au Prince to Petionville to Leogane to Jacmel, into the ocean, under the waterfall. Our trusty guide, Fritz G. Pierre-Louie, carried us to and through ancient hidden treasures of Haiti.
And even while celebrating Jon’s birthday we completed two clean-water distributions and trainings, from the northern most city in Haiti to the southern most village, crisscrossing the entire country via airplanes and off-road machines and finally by foot on jungle trails.
This is what we love to do: Bringing clean water and having fun, celebrating the fact that when we arrive we meet people suffering from the consequences of drinking from a water source that takes away life and when we say “Farewell’ and disappear down a dusty dirt road these same people are now drinking water that gives abundant life.
Happy birthday Jon . . . www.wavesforwater.org
Emergency Response – Haiti
Waves For Water in Partnership with United Nations & Humanitarian Organizations
Example: By plane, truck, boat and foot, the Waves for Water team has completed the distribution & training for 56,000 Sawyer clean-water filter systems to the most remote regions of Haiti. These have been donated by Compassion International.
1-Fritz & Jon flying to north coast to meet trucks for big Compassion International distribution and field operations training. 2-Jack & Zach delivering to Mirebalais. 3-Boat carrying our filters & buckets to La Gonave, an island near Port-au-Prince. 4-Jack & Zach in St. Marc. click images to enlarge
June 2011 Game Changer Haiti
Hurley – Waves For Water – Nike
in partnership with Nike & Hurley, launched the first Game Changer project:
sport + safe drinking water = Have fun staying alive.
watch the video:
www.wavesforwater.org/2011/08/gamechanger-project-haiti-phase-2/
RainCatcher delivers donated Nike soccer balls to schools in Kenya & Uganda – July, 2011
I was fortunate to be involved recently with the Waves For Water Game Changer Project in Haiti: Three partners, W4W, Hurley and Nike, joined forces to bring clean-water systems and 800 new soccer balls to schools across the country. This effort turned out to be a game changer not just for the kids who received, but also for all of us working, from inception to completion, for the past year on this idea. The result: kids get to stay alive and have fun at the same time.
Shortly after this effort I was getting ready for a big RainCatcher / Beachbody Clean-Water project in Kenya & Uganda. I asked Tom DeBlasis, of Nike, if we could bring Game Changer balls to our school projects in Africa . . . and he just happened to have 80 bright orange, rubber soccer balls sitting in his office. I carried 44 in my luggage. The rest is history. What a difference a ball makes. Thanks to the collaboration of RainCatcher, Beachbody, Nike and many NGO partners throughout East Africa (including the Catholic Church), thousands of students have replaced homemade soccer balls with real ones.
RainCatcher + Beachbody + Nike = fun and long life for many.
www.raincatcher.org
Kogelo, Kenya – July 2011
Martha McBride & Malik Obama with Fred Mango
RainCatcher’s collaboration with Malik Obama, our president’s brother. Malik, born and raised in Kenya, graduated university in Nairobi, then spent many years in America. Thanks to Malik, and the extensive work and travel of the entire RainCatcher team, schools in Kogelo (the Obama ancestral village) now have rainwater harvesting & filtering systems . . . and thanks to Nike they also have new soccer balls.
RainCatcher + Peace Corps =
August, 2011 – Dennis of RainCatcher Uganda teams up with Peace Corps Volunteer, Brian Kobick to restore a dead well and bring clean-water filter systems to schools in Kacumbala village in eastern Uganda . . . cost = $100.
RainCatcher Uganda
While in the field we develop relationships with other humanitarian organizations. Supplies are left with Dennis – RainCatcher Uganda country director – so that after we return home, our work of bringing safe drinking water to remote villages continues.
Here’s just one example: Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) flew Dennis and water filters to several islands in the Sesse archipelago in Lake Victoria, including Bukasa Island. The families on these islands get their drinking water from the lake, which is polluted and extremely life threatening. Now, thanks to the partnership of RainCatcher and Mission Aviation Fellowship the people on these remote islands in the middle of Africa no longer have to risk serious illness and death from their drinking water.
Mark Armfield receiving a $150,000 donation from Carl Daikeler.
RainCatcher and Beachbody join forces to bring rainwater harvesting systems to twelve schools in Kenya / Uganda and our clean-water filter systems to 150,000 people. More stories soon.
Our Kenya/Uganda Project is a joint effort between Water 4 Everyone, Beachbody & RainCatcher.
1-kids @ traditional water sources in Kenya & Uganda (looks like chocolate milk) 2-Carl Daikeler & Father Kizito deciding to do something about this death sentence. 3-by installing rainwater harvesting & filtration systems on 12 schools in Kenya & Uganda. 4-end result of their decision will be thousands of students having their own source of safe drinking water right at school.
