Support our Year end campaign

Consider making a year-end, tax deductible donation to Water for Humans to help provide water and sanitation to five remote, rural villages in the northern mountains of Oaxaca, Mexico. 

Water for Humans is working with THE HUNGER PROJECT (THP) in Mexico, which completed a yearlong process of developing community plans for each of the villages. Their top priorities are improving their water and sanitation conditions. We are providing technical expertise to complement excellent social work THP does to empower community members. 

During the dry season (Dec - March), villagers hike up to five hours a day (both ways) through mountainous, treacherous terrain to obtain water. For sanitation, they now use shallow pit toilets which risk ground water contamination and the spread of disease vectors. 

Our solutions include household rainwater harvesting, agricultural rainwater harvesting, water filtration (for drinking) and composting (dry) latrines. 

Your contribution today will benefit the residents of Cerro Alto, Cerro de Trueno, Piedra de la Luz, Rancho Pineda and Rancho Genova by bringing water and better sanitation to these villages. 

Please meet Maria Tejeda Garcia from Cerro Alto. She hikes over 1.5 hours in each direction to get her daily water during the dry season. She cooks on an open fire (three stone) and has a substandard latrine. 

Your donation will help Maria upgrade these outdated systems. 

• Your gift of $60 will provide the conveyance (gutters and downspout) & first flush filter for a household rainwater harvesting system;


• Your gift of $40 will provide a slow, biosand filter to purify the water for drinking;


• Your gift of $350 will provide a complete dry latrine;


• Your gift of $225 will provide a high efficiency long life clean cook stove.

You can make it happen with just a few clicks of your mouse!

  The villagers are looking to you to help with $40, $60, $225 or $350 by clicking here Donate Now. It's that easy.

Will you help us get to the next stage of this important project? We hope your answer is 'yes' and say MUCHAS GRACIAS!

Gratefully,
Rick and Stan

We hope you and your family are enjoying the holidays.


To learn more about Water for Humans and our work in Oaxaca please visit our website:www.waterforhumans.org and check our Blog. Remember to "like us" on Facebook. 

Wastewater treatment plant contract signed

Today is a milestone day.  E finally (after more than a year) have signed and sent off the contract to the Oaxaca State Government to evaluate 100 defunct waste-water treatment plants.  This is both a big and very important project for us and the State of Oaxaca.

This all started over 13 months ago when we spent three days with the finance minister of Oaxaca discussing water and sanitation issues the state is facing.  From these meetings we proposed this analysis work to help the state determine which treatment plants are repairable and which are not.  The objective is to help the state spend its resources wisely to remedy the problem of the non functioning plants.

This will be a six month project that is scheduled to start in early December 2012

Bonds of tradition are a financial bind for Oaxacan migrants

This is a great article form the LA Times.  It outlines some of the difficult Mexico's second poorest state and its challenges it is having with traditional culture and government.

A third-world dimension- Recycled plastic toilets

Please see this article in the Economist about a new partnership we are developing.
3D printing
And in the Seattle Times
turn trash into better lives in Third World

"Mr Rogge, Ms Weeks and Mr Bowman intend to employ their prize money to do precisely that. They plan to form a firm that will, in partnership with a charity called Water for Humans, custom-build composting toilets and rainwater collectors. The partnership will look for suitable local entrepreneurs in poor countries and will train them how to build, use and maintain the printers.

Once the technology is established for toilets and water collectors, other products will be introduced. The local partners will know what products are needed and how much people are prepared to pay for them—and therefore what is worth making. The operation will thus run on a commercial basis. But the software that controls the printers will be open-source and available to all, as will many of the designs for things the printers can make. That way, the technology can spread. A trial will begin soon in Oaxaca, Mexico."

Interview with Dean Kamen and CEO of Coca Cola

Here is a Charlie Rose interview with Dean Kamen, inventor of the Slingshot for water purification, and Muhtar Kent, CEO of Coca Cola, about the global water crisis and how they will team up to make a difference.  It runs about 25 minutes.

          http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12576

Testing a Social Business Model for Ecological Sanitation

SOIL Launches the Household Toilet Project in Shada, Cap-Haitien Haiti

by Leah Page on Oct 31, 2012

For those familiar with SOIL, the Household Toilet Project probably doesn’t sound all that new. For years we’ve dreamed about a social business model for providing household sanitation in Haiti, and today we are happy to report that our dream has started to become a reality! On October 30, 2012, SOIL and our partners at Re.Source installed the first 25 private household toilets in the Shada neighborhood of Cap-Haitien. The SOIL inauguration hosted yesterday was a combination of celebration and logistics: families signed a contract with SOIL, picked up their toilets, and participated in a SOIL training, but they also sang, danced, and rejoiced with Regional Director Theo Huitema. This dream has been a long time in the making!....(more)

Today is Global Handwashing Day

October 15, 2012 is the 5th anniversary of Global Handwashing Day!!  Handwashing with soap is the “vaccine” that prevents infections.(more)