Your gifts make greatness possible!

Giving makes clean drinking water possible across Oaxaca and Chiapas in Mexico
 
Clean water is a basic human right. Not a perk. Your donation ensures the rainforest communities of Oaxaca and Chiapas have the access to clean water that they need and deserve. Please make your gift today. Your support means so much!
Gratefully,
Rick, Stan & the Water for Humans Team 

 

Fall 2015 Newsletter

As the year comes to a close, and a new holiday season begins, we at Water for Humans want to update you on our important achievements in 2015 and say THANK YOU! Our achievements were possible only because of generous donors like you, who help us bring clean water technologies to indigenous rainforest communities in Oaxaca and Chiapas.

OUR GEN2 COOKSTOVE PROJECT -
IMPROVING, EXPANDING, AND SERVING NEIGHBORING COMMUNITIES

Since 2012, we have been working to build clean cookstoves in the Mazateca region in the mountains of northeastern Oaxaca, Mexico, where over one hundred indigenous communities are nestled in the coffee-growing region of a remote rainforest. Our cookstoves help curtail deforestation and maintain freshwater ecosystems in rainforests that play a vital role in stabilizing the Earth's climate and are home to 1.6 million people who rely on them for their livelihood.

This year, we made great strides towards improving our first generation La Mazateca cookstoves, which have already been installed by 89 families in four communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, directly benefiting 600 individuals.

• Our engineers crafted 3-D computer aided designs for a second generation stove (Gen2) that improves on our previous design by including a more versatile combustion chamber and options for an oven, a room heater and a water heater.
• To aid in Gen2's development, our local partners at The Hunger Project - Mexico are using questionnaires and interviews to analyze additional stove improvement possibilities.
• And, we secured a grant to conduct onsite field testing of our stoves in Mexico with GIRA (Grupo Interdisciplinario de tecnologia Rural Aprolada).

In the upcoming year, we plan for our improved second generation (Gen2) La Mazateca cookstove to benefit families in Chiapas, Mexico, and to reach a greater number of indigenous households in Oaxaca.

• To achieve this, we will conduct certification testing of our Gen2 stove at Aprovecho (a cookstove research center in Oregon). This will be followed by design improvements and production tooling.
• Once our Gen2 stove has been tested, we will travel to Oaxaca and Chiapas to hold workshops that will train new, local stove builders to construct and maintain our Gen2 cookstoves.
• Working with regional professionals and community members, we will guide indigenous stove builders as they form a social venture enterprise to distribute our Gen2 stoves in a greater number of remote rainforest villages.

HOW CAN YOU JOIN US IN THE NEXT STEPS OF OUR COOKSTOVE PROJECT? Donate

Consider making a one-time or recurring donation. Your contribution will directly benefit underserved communities in Oaxaca and Chiapas, and help us ensure they have access to safe, clean water. Drop by drop, penny by penny, we are changing lives.

You can also do your online shopping at AmazonSmile. Select Water for Humans as your charitable organization, then every eligible item earns us 0.5% of the purchase price. (Click here for more information)

Kind Regards,

Today is World Toilet Day - UN Sanitation Update

Though the world met the MDG target for drinking-water, 768 million people do not use animproved source of drinking-water.

In developing regions, 87% of the population uses an improved source of drinking-water while 2.5 billion people, or almost one third of the population, do not use improved sanitation. Within the developing world (without counting India and China) in 2011,  870 million people have gained access to improved sanitation since 1990, but there is a 12% increase of population using unimproved facilities in this region for the same 21-year period. -more-

Please come and join us

Come to the annual Water for Humans
Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) kid-friendly donor appreciation party Sunday, Nov 8^th 3-6 pm
Two Dog Yoga Studio
12549 28th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98125
Enjoy tamales, hear a couple of new stories, and connect with friends old and new.
Register Here!!!

Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) donor appreciation party

Come to the annual Water for Humans
Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) kid-friendly donor appreciation party Sunday, Nov 8^th 3-6 pm Two Dog Yoga Studio
12549 28th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98125
Enjoy tamales and Mazateca food, hear about great people in Chiapas and Oaxaca, and connect with friends old and new.
Register Here!!!

Remember to Save the Date Sunday 8 November 3-6 pm

Please save this FUN date! Sunday, Nov 8^th 3-6 pm

For the annual Water for Humans Fall Fundraiser
Enjoy tamales and Mazateca food, hear about great people in Chiapas and Oaxaca, and connect with friends old and new.
Location: Two Dog Yoga Studio
12549 28th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98125
Sign up coming soon!!!

P.S. This is a kid friendly event and bring friends :)

Save the Date Sunday Nov 8th 3-6pm

Please save this FUN date! Sunday, Nov 8^th 3-6 pm

For the annual Water for Humans Fall Fundraiser

Enjoy tamales and Mazateca food, hear about great people in Chiapas and Oaxaca, and connect with friends old and new.

Location: Two Dog Yoga Studio
12549 28th Ave NE
Seattle, WA 98125

Sign up coming soon!!!

P.S. This is a Kid friendly event and bring friends! 

Water and Poverty

This is a great article about the correlation of water and poverty.

humanosphere.org/

Humanity's Most Problematic Attempts to Get All the Water

Survival shows are running amok. The contestants are naked; they’re two out-of-shape guys in the woods; they’re stuck on an island. Despite differences in attire or setting, one thing remains constant: For every survivor, finding potable water is the first order of business.…  Read More

Wetlands continue to reduce nitrates

Wetlands created 20 years ago between tile-drained agricultural fields and the Embarras River were recently revisited for a new two-year research project. Results show an overall 62 percent nitrate removal rate and little emission of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas.(more)

Book Review: "Rain" by Cynthia Barnett

There is something to be said for interpretations of the world from a singular point of view, such as the many recent popular histories of various commodities (Salt, Cod, Spice, etc.), food and drink (A History of the World in Six Glasses and more), and other perspectives. Some view them as reductionist, but I think these approaches allow the author to dive deep, (more)

World is using too much water, warns U.N

A very interesting post from Humanosphere about the worlds fresh water supplies.

"Nations. At current pace, only 60 percent of the water needed globally will be available. Major steps must be taken to reduce water usage to minimize the growing problem, according to the U.N.’s water body in a new report.

“Over the past century, the development of water resources has been largely driven by the demands of expanding populations for food, fibre and energy,” according to the report, Water for a Sustainable World. “Strong income growth and rising living standards of a growing middle class have led to sharp increases in water use, which can be unsustainable, especially where supplies are vulnerable or scarce.”

Practising the human right for safe drinking water and sanitation for sustainability

Everybody deserves access to water and sanitation. Acknowledging safe drinking water and sanitation as human rights is crucial in making this a reality. But how to do that in practice? The handbook on human rights to water and sanitation provides guidance.

(more)

Damming rivers doesn't always lead to more water resorces

Please see the attached link and article.

Report: Damming of Lake Turkana Could Leave Thousands Without Water, Provoke Tribal Conflict

GLOBAL: WEF Global Risks report places water crises at top of list of threats (19/01/15)

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2015 report has for the first time placed water crises at the top of the list of biggest global threats in terms of their potential impact.

Water crises have also been re-categorised as a societal rather than an environmental risk in this year’s report. Carl Ganter, from WEF’s global agenda council on water, pointed out that around a third of the world’s population now live in water-stressed areas.

Water crises beat the spread of infectious diseases, weapons of mass destruction and [more]

Volunteers from all over the globe

A few weeks ago I posted on Volunteer Match and Idea List an ad for a volunteer translator.  Our needs for translators comes and goes, so we like to keep several folks "on call" so when something comes up we can pass it out to our team.  Over the years volunteers come and go, and I noticed we really needed some new expertise in this area.

The Internet really amazes me.  From this simple request my inbox has been overflowing with interest. Over the past week or so I have spoken with folks in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Washington DC, Minnesota, Mexico City, San Francisco, and the list goes on!

What I find truly amazing is the talent and skills these folks all have and how they might be able to contribute to our work in many ways.  For example, One gentleman is an expert in Biology, and would like to help us with reforestation, and forest cover analysis, Another woman is a expert in Marketing (and lives in Mexico City).

Now the challenge is Stan and I is to incorporate their passion and expertise to keep us moving forward.

In addition, over the past few months I posted opportunities for Mechanical Engineering - CAD design help , and another post for "digital media" (video) help.  Again, the results have left me amazed with the interest and talent these folks are bringing to us.

We look forward to working with all our new volunteers and exploring new opportunities they help us discover.

From Poop to Potable Water

This Ingenious Machine Turns Feces Into Drinking Water

By Bill Gates 

on January 5, 2015

I watched the piles of feces go up the conveyer belt and drop into a large bin. They made their way through the machine, getting boiled and treated. A few minutes later I took a long taste of the end result: a glass of delicious drinking water. (more)