water 4 everyone
Initiated by Jack & Jon Rose, Water 4 Everyone is a campaign that believes safe drinking water is a basic human right. To put this goal into action, Jon started the non-profit Waves For Water, for the purpose of partnering with individuals, corporations, humanitarian organizations, United Nations, and government agencies around the world to provide a variety of clean-water solutions . . .
Solutions include: the distribution & education of filtration & chlorination programs – rainwater harvesting systems – water-well restorations . . . “A point-of use, hollow fiber filter, installed in an ordinary 5 gallon bucket immediately relieves suffering, and dramatically reduces the risk of death, caused by water-borne disease. A point-of-use solar electric chlorinator brings safe drinking water to 5,000 people a day”.
The most practical awareness I’ve gained from years of service is how simple it is for a curious & concerned world traveler to throw a few filters in their luggage and completely change lives, in a matter of minutes, upon arrival in any remote region of the world.
Detailed stories with photos & videos appear on www.wavesforwater.org
On this site I’ll continue to post a variety of subplots and outtakes, musings and discoveries, that naturally spring from long walks down dusty roads in the middle of faraway lands. Life for me is a jigsaw . . . with no edge pieces. Countless human stories interlocking and disconnecting daily, forming a living, breathing puzzle never to be complete, and seen in totality, by no one.
no need to fear the future
Speech for the Youth Environmental Summit in Japan.
Written by Jack Rose . . . Delivered by Dennis Haysbert.
Read more: children, Dennis Haysbert, environment, Japan, Kenya, Kobe, Kokichi Nakata, Shigeo Ohmori, Youth Summit Environment
The Crazy Ones – by Steve Jobs – one minute story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
‘Splinded Torch’ by George Bernard Shaw
“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.
upside down umbrella
When people ask me what a rain catcher is, I answer, “An upside down umbrella”. For centuries, architecture and municipal planning leaders have always considered rainwater to be ‘an-enemy-of-the-people’ – and design our cities and homes with one overriding purpose: to get rainwater away from all buildings as fast as possible. This one minute video from India turns that old paradigm of fear and ingratitude on it’s head.
Read more: umbrellaA simple story: rainwater belongs to each of us – why don’t we collect and share it?
let it rain . . .
small mountains
A World Bank/United Nations Development Program report called “Learning What Works” strongly criticized mega-projects and called for small technologies and community control of water.
People in the United States drink over 2.5 billion gallons of bottled water each year, an amount equal to a single days’ rainfall on the side of one mountain in Hawaii. California has the Sierra Nevada to catch & release fresh water each year for tens of millions of Californians. But, most people don’t have a big mountain in their backyard, so I began playing with the idea of small mountains.
Everywhere in the world, the resource and the need exist side by side. By placing small mountains (rain gutters & water tanks on houses & schools) in the path of the coming rainy season, thousands receive home delivery of the best water on the planet. Instead of one big mountain, the idea is to scatter thousands and thousands of little ones over an entire continent. All these small efforts add up to the same result: billions of gallons of life-giving water.
Simple rain catching systems are set up in a day by the people who will be harvesting the water. The cost is minimal. For a while, more rain will fall than we will be able to catch, but our goal is to catch enough in each region so that everyone can enjoy, year round, the simple pleasure of a clean glass of water.
Read more: Africa, AIDS, HUB, Kenya, orphanscatching fire
To fulfill its design a car needs fire, a boat, an airplane, a train, each needs fire to move through the world. When the car ceases to run and the airplane is decommissioned, the boat mothballed, it’s because the fire is gone. We call this death. Same goes for us, we die when our fire goes out. So, for as long as we’re here, we need fire to move through the world. When we catch fire there is unlimited energy, creativity and resources. Pierre Teilhard de Chadin said it this way :
“Some day, after we have mastered the winds, the tides, and gravity we shall harness the energies of love. Then for a second time in the history of the world we will have discovered fire”.
My “catching rain” presentations always begin and end with a conversation about the importance of “catching fire”. If we catch fire, water will be plentiful, new opportunities and possibilities will suddenly become obvious, and we will have the energy to implement new solutions to old problems.
Happy Birthday Jon
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
The RainCatcher story
August, 2009 – Reporter Jarrod Holbrook and RainCatcher Fred Mango document the installation of rainwater harvesting systems on rural schools across Kenya.
CREDITS
the RainCatcher story
narration – Dennis Haysbert . . . . . . . .cinematography – Jarrod Holbrook
schools in Kenya – Fred Mango . . . . . . . . . . . .music – Wabake by Samite
editing – Zak Hudson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . sound – Tom Evoniuk
writer + stills – Jack Rose