WASRAG Newsletter - December 2019 View as Webpage

Rotarians Learn From Failures Rotarians learn from failures; we seldom learn from successes. WASRAG will be leading a break-out session at the RI Convention in Honolulu on the topic “Learning from WASH Failures”. The failure could be due to any of a number of causes: inappropriate technology, failure of the community to take ownership, lack of funding for ongoing operations, etc. Contact Ron Denham, ron.denham@atkearney.com with your examples, so he can coordinate a panel on this important topic. Please let us know what you’d like to share with Rotary friends. They are anxious to learn, and to avoid making the same mistakes..

Build Partnerships That Work World Water Summit 12 (WWS12) is being held on June 5, 2020, in Honolulu. The initial seminar will focus on Rotary's impactful partnerships with the United Nations. After the Included lunch, there will be sessions geared to help build partnerships that work. Space will become limited and the price to attend will increase early in 2020. Register TODAY at WWS12

RI President Maloney visits WinS project In September, RI President Mark Maloney visited one of the WASH in Schools (WinS) project schools in Guatemala. Read about the visit and the work of this multi-club project on the WASRAG Stories page. To learn more about Rotary's Water, Sanitation and Hygiene project in Schools Target Challenge visit this article WinS

WASH in Healthcare Facilities Over the past year, there has been an increase focus on clean water, adequate sanitation and hygiene training in healthcare facilities. Some significant partnerships have been forged and some great resources developed. In September, Emory University completed an excellent series of videos on the topic. Their website http://washconhcf.org/ is full of useful resources. One of the resources is a WASH Conditions Assessment Tool, which they call WASHCon The WHO and UNICEF have been taking a very active role in this area and have created a very good website of information at https://www.washinhcf.org/. One of their recent resources is an Advocacy Toolkit

Changing a River's Course The Lerma River is the longest river in Mexico. It is prone to flooding and receives a lot of rubble and garbage along it's 708 km route. It was realized that flooding could be reduced if a 12.5 km meander could once again be integrated into the river during flood time. However, first this new section of the river needed to be cleaned-up. The Rotary Club of La Piedad have been working on this project over the last five years. Read the PDF of the Recovery of the Lerma River to learn about the many components of this project which include removing tons of garbage, planting trees, building a dam, etc.

Aloha - BREW While in Hawaii for the RI Convention, plan to attend: BREW / WASRAG Hawaiian Beer Luau Sun, Jun 7 - 6:00 pm Honolulu Beerworks CLICK To get details and tickets Over the past few years, Beers Rotarians Enjoy Worldwide (BREW) Fellowship group have donated thousands of dollars to WASRAG to support clean water projects.

Household Water Filters & Testing A Vision for Clean Water has coordinated with the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technologies (CAWST), to produce a 4 day workshop (April 24-26, 2020) that will provide participants with the knowledge and skills to implement, monitor and evaluate household water treatment and storage and small community water supplies in developing countries. For details and to register visit Water Workshop.

Calendar of Events March 22, 2020 - WORLD WATER DAY http://www.worldwaterday.org/ May 28, 2020 - MENSTRUAL HYGIENE DAY http://menstrualhygieneday.org/   Jun 5, 2020 - WORLD WATER SUMMIT 12, Honolulu, Hawaii https://wasrag.org/page/world-water-summit-12 Register NOW before price goes up in early 2020 Oct 15, 2020 - GLOBAL HANDWASHING DAY https://globalhandwashing.org   Nov 19, 2019 - WORLD TOILET DAY https://www.un.org/en/events/toiletday/

To submit stories, videos, and pictures for the WASRAG Newsletter send an email to info@wasrag.org .

The Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group (WASRAG) is pleased to consider partnerships with any corporate supporter. Due to the unique attributes of water sources and water provision, acceptance of corporate support does not imply an endorsement of any particular water technology. Rotarians, Rotary clubs, and Rotary partners must evaluate any technology to determine if it is the best solution for the conditions where the program will be implemented. WASRAG can provide guidance about where different technologies work best, but Rotarians and Rotary clubs must make the final decision about how to implement their programs.