Category / Tag: Photos
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.
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.
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
Christmas Card from Dennis Haysbert to fellow cast & crew members of the TV show The UNIT
Click on photo to enlarge, then click again to see full size.
“A new rainwater harvesting system (tanks, gutters & filters) will be installed on several schools in Kenya in our name – The cast & crew of ‘THE UNIT’. As a result of this gift thousands of students are benefiting from having their own source of clean drinking water for years to come.
I am happy to make this happen with you . . . Snake Doctor” – Christmas 2008
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.
