20 March 2009
U.S. Navy Carries Filters to Haiti, Dominican Republic, Ghana
International partnership plans to distribute 300,000 water filters
Littleton, Colorado — The U.S. Navy is working with U.S.-based nonprofit International Aid during February, March and April to transport household drinking-water filters to the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Ghana. This assistance is part of a larger effort by International Aid and partner organizations, which aim to distribute 300,000 filters in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean in the next two years through a new network of filter distribution centers.
“The Navy’s role in transporting the filters is an example of a new outreach strategy to make humanitarian assistance and disaster response core elements of Navy operations worldwide,” Paul Brown, director of the Navy’s Project Handclasp, told America.gov.
“Through Project Handclasp — a unique public-private partnership — U.S. military personnel serve as ambassadors of goodwill on behalf of the American people, and provide humanitarian and educational materials donated by the U.S. private sector to overseas recipients, often along with conducting community-service projects, such as refurbishing schools, hospitals, orphanages and homes for the elderly,” Brown said.
“We focus on building partnerships between the people of the U.S. and overseas communities, and between the Navy and U.S. private sector,” he explained. “Our partnerships are based on long-term respect, trust and teamwork.”
For Project Handclasp’s next major event, the Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort will deliver 350 water filters to Haiti in April, in addition to more than 1 million high-nutrition meals, medical supplies and pharmaceutical products. The Comfort’s first stop in Haiti is part of a large-scale Navy effort in which medical personnel on the ship will provide medical assistance to six nations in the Caribbean and Central America.
WATER FILTERS
“As many as 4 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water,” Jim Bodenner, International Aid’s director of water initiatives, told America.gov. “Every day, 5,000 to 8,000 people, mostly children under 5, die from waterborne diseases.”
“Biosand filters are a very effective solution to bring basic water-filtration technology to households in different geographies,” Adam Muellerweiss, director of corporate water strategy at The Dow Chemical Company, told America.gov.
Portable, plastic HydrAid filters can treat water for drinking, bathing and washing for eight to 10 people daily, Bodenner said, without needing electricity. The filters are affordable, easy to use and designed to last 10 years or more without needing replacement parts.
International Aid is partnering with many organizations in this effort:
• Dow Chemical donated $2 million of plastic resin for filters, and funded a filter health-impact study in Africa.
• Cascade Engineering and Nugent Sand are engineering and producing the plastic filters and sand filtration media.
• Rotary clubs and Rotary International are providing project funding and help with filter distribution.
• U.S. and international nonprofits, including World Vision, Plan International and Adventist Development and Relief Agency, are bringing filters to households and schools via projects already established in developing countries.
• A University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill research team completed a large-scale health-impact study in the Dominican Republic and Cambodia showing that biosand filtration significantly reduced the incidence of gastrointestinal diseases.
• W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded a soon-to-be-completed filter health-impact study in Central America.
“Access to clean drinking water is key to both public health and economic development,” Muellerweiss said. When people are healthier and need less time to obtain clean water, more time is available for income-generating activities and for children to attend school, he said.
To create local jobs, International Aid is exploring ways to foster micro-businesses associated with the filters in developing countries, such as encouraging entrepreneurs to deliver and install the filters.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, HONDURAS
On February 27, Navy personnel delivered 100 filters from the USS Swift to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, for use in homes and schools.
Since 2002, the Children’s Safe Water Alliance — founded by Rotary District 4060 and U.S. nonprofit Project Las Americas — has installed nearly 4,500 plastic filters and 14,500 of the original concrete biosand filters in more than 300 rural communities covering all of the provinces of the Dominican Republic.
“Each day, nearly 100,000 Dominicans drink safe water from these filters,” Robert Hildreth, Children’s Safe Water Alliance founder, told America.gov. More than 150 U.S. and Canadian Rotary clubs and the Rotary Foundation have donated almost $1 million toward clean-water projects in the Dominican Republic, he added.
In December 2008, the first lady of Honduras donated $175,000 on behalf of the Honduran government to fund almost 11,000 filters jointly with International Aid. This pledge was made on national television during a speech from first lady Xiomara Castro de Zelaya that identified providing clean water as one of her top priorities, according to International Aid’s president, Myles Fish.
These filters will be distributed through existing projects operated by U.S. nonprofits Plan International, World Vision and Pure Water for the World, and the Honduran nonprofit Project Global Village.
The 11,000 filters are in addition to those previously installed in dozens of remote villages in the Honduran mountains.
More information is available on the HydrAid filter Web site.
