Today, in celebration of World Water Day, we’re participating in a ceremony convened by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton where we’ll announce a new collaboration between P&G and CARE to provide more than 100 million liters of clean drinking water in rural areas of Kenya and Ethiopia.  P&G and CARE issued a media release describing the effort (Download MR WWD Partnership 3.22.12).

In addition, I’m honored to represent P&G and join Secretary of State Clinton on stage in Washington, DC to announce a new US Water Partnership and to be part of the 2012 Steering Committee for the Partnership.  This recognition of partnerships, both the new collaboration with CARE and the US Water Partnership, mean a lot to me because partnerships are the engine that drive the success of the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) Program. 

Secretary Clinton has been a passionate advocate for clean drinking water.  I was honored (and horrified at the overwhelming challenge) to be the speaker immediately following her historic foreign policy speech on water at the National Geographic Society on World Water Day 2010 (http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/03/138737.htm).  As they say, the world will little note nor long remember what I said that day, but her speech stands as a beacon for what is possible using water as a major part of the US foreign policy agenda.  And P&G recently received the US Secretary of State’s Award for Corporate Excellence for our corporate social responsibility efforts in Pakistan and Nigeria, largely based on our CSDW Program.  Bob McDonald, P&G CEO and Chair, represented P&G to receive the award from Secretary Clinton.

While I’m thrilled to be in Washington DC to take part in a number of presentations including the high level event at the US State Department, I was equally pleased to recently travel to Kenya to kick-off the new collaboration with CARE to provide 100 million liters of clean water. This was marked by opening the 100th school in which we’ve provided clean drinking water and hand washing stations.  Below is my recap of that day.

It’s a beautiful day in the Siaya District of western Kenya and I’m traveling with Alex Mwaki and Margaret Lesso of CARE Kenya and Carol Meyer of CARE USA.  Alex and I have been friends and collaborators now for 8 years and today we’re thrilled to celebrate kicking off the program at the 100th school, St Linus Nzoia Primary School. 

St Linus Nozia Primary School sits on the banks of the Nozia River.  It’s almost right on the equator and in deep, rural Kenya where people are subsistence farmers.  During most of the year, the only source of water for bathing, washing, and drinking is the river.  They have some capacity to collect rain water during the rainy season but it doesn’t last long.

We’ve worked with CARE to target schools like this one where the P&G packets can make the biggest difference.  It’s not as simple as it sounds to make sure you’re finding the right schools, but Alex and his team have experimented and refined an approach over the last 6 years that is working very well.  CARE Kenya starts with a stakeholder meeting bringing together the local Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health, and other water stakeholders.  This ensures that everyone is supportive of our work and also that there’s not redundancy with other water programs.  For this most recent set of schools, the stakeholders identified more than 30 schools before conducting site visits to the schools to determine the best 20.

Alex and his team train the teachers at each school and two teachers volunteer to be sponsors or “patrons” who will lead a team of student volunteers called “the clean water committee” that will take responsibility for preparing the clean drinking water and setting up hand washing stations each day.  Alex has learned over the years that it’s important to select patrons who are likely to stay in place for several years to help ensure continuity of the school program and, based on this, has developed some criteria to help select the best patrons.

We walk with the student committee to collect water.  To help build gender equality, CARE requests both a male and female patron and that the clean water committee include both boys and girls.  We don’t have to walk far for water today as the school was built close to the river.  It’s far enough away so that the seasonal flooding doesn’t usually reach the school buildings.  But flooding can be an issue and frequently there are outbreaks of cholera, dysentery, and typhoid fever during the rainy season.

The students were trained a few days ago and they’re efficient in making clean drinking water using the P&G packets.  They know to add the packets to 10 liters, stir vigorously for 5 minutes, allow the water to settle for 5 minutes, pour the settled water through a cotton cloth, and then wait 20 minutes before drinking the clean water.

With only minimal encouragement, the students break out into a song to help pass the time while they stir.  The students love the “magic” when the dirty water turns into clean and healthy water.  I decided to capture the flocculation and settling on video this time (VIDEO).

I ask the students some questions as we wait for the water to be ready to drink.  With a show of hands, we see that nearly everyone gets their drinking water from the river.  Only a few children who travel a long distance to the school have access to water from a bore hole. 

A few of the children’s families were using the P&G packets prior to our arrival, but for most of them, this initiative will be the first time that they’ve had truly clean water at school and at home. 

 

 

Alex and I are the first ones to drink the purified water.  We then invite the head teacher, Stephen Opondo, to drink with us and say a few words before inviting all the students to enjoy clean water in celebration of the opening of the 100th school.  Mr Opondo tells us “P&G and CARE have brought us a way to have clean water.  We are very pleased that now we will have healthy school children free of dysentery”.  Like the students, Mr Opondo collects water from the river and he tells us that he’ll set a good example by only drinking water treated with the P&G packets from today onwards.

Because we’re going through a transition of renaming the PUR packets to the P&G packets, I show Alex and the students the new packet design.  It will be near the end of the year before the P&G packets are available in Kenya, but I wanted to show them what’s coming in the future.  They like the new design and are glad to hear that we haven’t changed what’s inside the packet.

 

 

 

From our previous work, we know that these school programs can have a significant impact.  In fact, the CDC monitored some of the previous schools and showed that providing clean drinking water and hand washing stations reduced school absenteeism by 26%, and resulted in 3-fold higher usage of water treatment by the surrounding community. 

We meet the chairman of the school committee, Julius Odako.  He welcomes us to the community and tells us that he’s very thankful to P&G and CARE.  To encourage widespread adoption of clean water, the school children will take packets home and CARE also engages the community health workers (CHWs) to help spread the word.  As the chair person, I ask Mr Odako for permission to meet the CHW for this village.  He says no problem, and whips out his mobile to make a call.  I’m really surprised that he has the number for the CHW on speed-dial. 

 
As we travel to the CHW, I get to know Julius.  He tells me that he’s 60 years old and volunteers that he has HIV/AIDS.  He’s a good role model to be open about his status. This helps reduce the stigma so that people agree to be tested to learn their status and, if they are positive, to take medication to keep them alive and take protection to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.  In fact, Julius agrees to a short interview so that more people can hear that he’s open about his status. (VIDEO)

As someone with HIV/AIDS, Julius knows first-hand about the importance of clean drinking water to prevent opportunistic infections.  In fact, he’s been receiving the P&G packets through another program that we have with CARE to use the CHWs to reach people with HIV/AIDS.  CARE Kenya is doing this in collaboration with more than 60 health facilities in western Kenya.  It’s part of our new grant that we’re celebrating today to provide 50 million days of clean water.  Julius tells me that he’s been a regular user of the packets to clean his water for the last year and he wants to make sure that everyone has the packets in this village to provide clean water.

When meet the CHW, Evelyn Atieno, the mystery of the speed-dial is resolved.  It turns out that Evelyn is the daughter-in-law of Julius and so not such a surprise that he has her number.  Every grandfather knows how to reach his grandchildren quickly!  We walk with Evelyn to collect water and are amazed at the difference that the P&G water packets can make.  It’s no wonder that the school children and community are excited and thankful for CARE and P&G’s work to provide clean water.  Evelyn tells us that the P&G packets are the right solution for them because their water is so dirty and she knows it works because she can see it with the own eyes.

I’m thankful to CARE for their tireless work to not only reach deep into these rural communities but to refine and improve their work so that it becomes more efficient and more impactful.  Here’s to another 100 million liters of clean water and happy World Water Day!

 

 

 

 

 

“Water is the issue here.  It’s number one, number two, and number 3.”  I listen intently as Mohammed Mamu, the manager of Save the Children’s Moyale office in Ethiopia, explains the situation here in the epicenter of the Horn of Africa famine.  He’s been here for 8 months and will be here for several more to oversee the response to the drought and subsequent famine.

This is a big area and it’s extremely remote.  Save the Children is working in the Somalia region of Ethiopia to provide humanitarian relief to the pastoralist communities that live here.  Because the drought was so sustained, the water sources that usually never dry up became bone dry.  People dug deeper and deeper into the earth of the ponds and wells but eventually not even a trickle could be found. 

As an emergency response at the height of the drought, Save the Children used tanker trucks for 88 days to get water to the people so that they didn’t perish from dehydration.  But it wasn’t enough for the livestock and it’s estimated that half of all the livestock in the region perished.  And, that’s the average.  Some communities suffered much worse. 

Mohammed explains that there are only 4 permanent water sources (the Dawa River and 3 boreholes) and that the hydrology and remoteness mean that digging deep wells doesn’t work. So, the best solution is to construct ponds to collect rain water.  The deep red clay soil makes for some very turbid water and the livestock make for some highly contaminated water.  It’s an area where the P&G water purification packets can have a huge impact.  Mohammed enthusiastically tells us that he’s very glad to be able to provide the packets to the communities here and that they love it.  They’re currently reaching about 60,000 people in this area.

So that I can see the Save the Children effort’s first-hand, Mohammed is sending me out to several communities with Ibrahim, his water and sanitation manager, and Johannes, who works with the local government.  A critical part of the Save the Children outreach is to work through the local government personnel including the community health workers.  I’m hosted by PSI Ethiopia and Wondwosen who has traveled with me from Addis Ababa and previously provided training to the Save the Children staff and gatherings of the community health workers.

At the first community of Halohuluko, we’re met by Dayow Mohammed, one of the community health workers (CHW).  All of the CHWs in this area are male because of the strict Islamic practices of these Somali people. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We speak with several of the households and I ask to see them using the P&G water purification packets.  But, all the water that we can find has already been treated with the packets.  The women have gone to fetch today’s water.  They use donkeys to haul the water and jog alongside the donkeys so that they can make the 18 kilometer trip to the pond and back by mid-morning.

We finally find someone who has enough untreated water.  Hilwel Ibrahim is a mother of 8 children.  When I ask her age, she looks at me sheepishly and says she’s 30.  There’s no way she’s that young, but it’s good to see that a woman feels empowered to lie about her age here and so I don’t probe further. 

Several men have gathered to watch Hilwel use the P&G packets or perhaps to watch me!  I ask them for the men’s perspective on the drought.  The conversation starts with several men answering my questions but eventually the oldest in the group begins to take the lead.  He’s Adam Mohammed and we share the same age of 52.  We joke about who looks younger.  He has much more hair than me and its only a little grey so I make the point that he’s younger.  But he says I have the hands of a young woman compared to him!  So, we call it a draw and agree we’re both doing okay.

Adam explains that for this pastoralist community, their livestock is their primary asset.  They’ve not seen a drought approaching this severity for 20 years.  There was almost no rain for three consecutive years.  Even donkeys, which are normally drought resistant, began to die.  But the impact on the cattle was incredible.  Out of the 700 households in this community, they lost 4,000 cattle.  Adam’s family had 20 cattle and they lost all of them.  For now, they’re trying to find new ways to make a living.  They collect wood and make charcoal to sell and they’re trying to pan gold from the nearby stream bed.  Adam says he hopes that God provides more cattle.

Meanwhile, Hilwel has been doing a good job of showing us how she uses the packets.  In order to have both a bucket to stir the water and a bucket to filter, she shares one bucket with her neighbor.  They also share the filter cloth.  The starting water was extremely turbid and when she poured it from the jerry can into the open bucket for stirring, a big nasty looking insect fell out of the jerry can.  But what’s worse is that as the water clarifies we can see a huge thick worm-like creature at the bottom of the bucket.  Imagine having that slither down your throat as you drank muddy water.  It almost makes me want to throw-up looking at the worm.

Once the P&G packets have done their magic, we drink some of the crystal clean and purified water.  Hilwel provides the female perspective on the impact of the drought on her eight children.  Her family had 30 cows prior to the drought and she says that they lost all of them. She explains that the loss of cattle meant no food for the young children because cow’s milk is their primary nutrition and they also sell the milk so they can buy other foodstuffs.  With the drought, not only did the cattle die so that they didn’t have milk, but the food prices escalated because of the greater demand.  The lack of enough food meant that the children didn’t have enough energy to go to school.  Hilwel tells me now that Save the Children is providing assistance, they are much better off.  They have food, purified water, and the children have returned to school. 

Hilwell tells me that they really like the water purification packets and need to keep receiving them because their water is so bad and before receiving them they suffered frequently from diseases. 

After meeting with several additional households, I’m asked to meet with the elders who have gathered at the town center.  They tell me that the P&G water purification packets have been of great benefit to the community.  But they explain that they are needed for the entire community and not only the families with malnourished children. 

The men explain that they’d be willing to purchase the purification packets once they had recovered financially but in the next year with losing most of their assets of livestock, they aren’t able to purchase them.  I tell them that I agree that it’s unlikely they can afford the packets given their situation and that, given their highly dirty water, I’m not surprised they feel a great need for the packets.

When I tell them that I’m from the United States, they ask what the world knows about their situation because to them it’s very severe.  I tell them that the world knows about their situation and that it’s considered the top humanitarian crisis in the world.  They respond that people need to know that they are severely impacted and have lost their livestock and that they need clean water because water is life.

Our next stop is the village of Ardaonna.  I visit the home of Sharu Abdullah, a 40 year old mother of six children.  She’s one of the households that is receiving the packets because her child was malnourished.  Little Suleiman is eight months old. 

When Sharu first took him to the clinic, she was told that he was severely malnourished.  She was a bit frightened but she wasn’t surprised because the drought had killed all of her family’s 40 cattle, 15 of their 20 goats, and they also lost their donkey.  Without cattle, they didn’t have enough food for her family. 

When Sharu first took Suleiman to the clinic, he was suffering from diarrhea and vomiting because of the unclean water.  The community health worker, Ibrahim Ali, showed Sharu how to use purified water from the P&G packets to make oral rehydration therapy to treat the dehydration from the diarrhea.  He provides additional packets every month so her family can have clean water.  He also gave them Plumpy Nut as a quick energy food to help Suleiman recover.  With the purified water and the Plumpy Nut, Suleiman recovered quickly and now he’s no longer malnourished. 

Sharu explains that not only Suleiman but her entire family is healthier now with the support of Save the Children.  She tells me however that they’re not receiving sufficient amount of the water purification packets.  She receives 30 packets every month when she goes to the clinic.  But Sharu explains they have 9 people in her family and it’s very hot so they drink a lot of water.  They need 2 packets per day versus the 1 packet that they receive.  Currently, they’re running out of packets after two weeks and she boils and drinks the dirty water for the rest of the time.  I think back to the worm in the dirty water that I saw earlier and can’t imagine drinking the boiled muddy water.

As we walk to the next household, Ibrahim explains to me that only providing the packets to the malnourished children has created a problem in this community where everyone desperately needs clean water.  And, given their current allotment, they don’t have sufficient stocks to provide Sharu with the number of additional packets that she needs. 

It’s become extremely hot now but Helima Gole agrees to show us how she uses the packets to treat her water.  Her son, Brahim Bashir, was determined to be suffering from moderate malnutrition and edema when she took him to the clinic five months ago.  It’s clear that Brahim is now a healthy weight and he seems a happy child playing with his sister as we chat in the shade.

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are eleven people in Helima’s family and they use 2 water purification packets every day.  This is twice the amount that they’re allotted so they boil water during the 2 weeks every month when they run out.  It takes a big part of the day to boil 20 liters for her family when you include the time to collect wood in this arid region.  And, they’re still left with very dirty water full of insects and who knows what.  I’m not surprised when she tells me that she really wants enough of the packets for her family for the entire month.

Similar to the other households in this community, Helima’s family lost all of their cows in the drought. They also lost all of their goats and their donkey.  I know they used the donkey to haul water so asked her about the burden of hauling water.  Currently it’s about a 6 mile round-trip for her to haul the water, which is the average distance that women carry water in sub-Saharan Africa.  But she explains that it was much worse at the height of the drought before the recent rains. 

Astonishingly, Helima was walking 40 kilometers every day to collect 20 liters of water for her family.  This was taking most of the day but she had no choice if her family was going to live.  Her making this journey was literally a matter of life and death for her family.  I’m speechless for my admiration for this woman and thank her for our visit.  I tell her that we’ll do what we can to provide more packets.

I’m asked to meet with the elders in this village and they make the point that we’ve heard as we’ve walked through the village.  They need more of the packets than they are currently receiving.  They’d be glad to start purchasing the packets in about a year if the rains come as expected, but currently purchasing them is just out of the question. 

When we debrief back in the Save the Children office with Mohammed, I tell him that I empathize with his dilemma. They currently do not have enough stocks of the purification packets to provide everyone in the community since the program was established to help families of the malnourished children. And given the very large size of the families, even some of the families of the malnourished children are not receiving a sufficient amount. The community is clearly telling us that they want and need the packets and that all of them need it. They have no option to purchase them at this point.

Looking at the glass of water before it’s treated and after it’s treated with the P&G water purification packets, I’m left with only one answer.  These communities need to receive more of the packets so no one is left with making the decision of who deserves clean water. Everyone deserves clean water.  I’m confident that we’ll step up and do more. I hope you’ll consider helping.

POST SCRIPT:

Since returning to the US from Ethiopia and writing this blog, I’ve corresponded with Save the Children’s team.  I’m thrilled to report that they’re going to do more to address the needs expressed by community members during my visit.  Not only are they going to increase the allotment and extend the donation of the P&G water purification packets to the communities that we visited but they’ll also expand it to include other nearby communities still suffering from the drought.  In total, Save the Children will reach 90,000 beneficiaries in Ethiopia and provide additional water purification packets to treat 40 million liters of clean water.  Thank you to PSI, Save the Children, CARE, Americares, Oxfam, Global Medic, Goal Ethiopia, Action Against Hunger, Child Fund, International Rescue Committee, and the Clinton Global Initiative for this fantastic response.

 

I’m eager to get into the field this morning.  I’m a bit groggy after being woken up early for the call to prayer in this predominately Muslim part of Ethiopia.  But what has really tired me out is the 3 days of grueling travel to get to this border of Ethiopia and Kenya near the border of the Somalia region of Ethiopia.

I’m in the heart of the area that is being devastated by the East African famine.  Several years of drought turned this area into the top humanitarian crisis of the past year.  P&G and our partners made a commitment at the 2011 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) to reach 2 million people by providing 300 million liters of clean drinking water with the P&G water purification packets.  It will be our largest single response ever.

As hour after hour passed over the last several days in the car, I marveled at the supply chain necessary to bring the P&G water purification packets from our production site in Pakistan all the way to this remote area.  I’m traveling with Wondwosen Keremenz of PSI Ethiopia who leads the safe drinking water program.  He’s traveled several times to this region to train our partners on the correct procedures for demonstrating how to use the packets.

I started my trip in Addis Ababa and met Staci Leuschner, the PSI Ethiopia country representative, and we discussed progress over the last year and plans for the coming year.  PSI Ethiopia has long been one of our strongest programs.  And  largely because of the massive response to the famine, 2011 was the biggest impact to date.  PSI Ethiopia delivered more than 150 million liters of clean drinking water using the P&G water packets last year.  They not only respond to disasters but also provide the product to a broader audience using social marketing.  They created a short film about one of the villages that has become a model area for the use of the packets including a shop owner who makes large batches of purified water to provide to his clients (LINK to video).

While a bit mind-numbing to spend so much time in the car, it’s interesting to see the change in landscape every hundred miles or so.  We eventually end up in an arid landscape with camels, cactus, and Acacia trees.  There seems to be a town about every 100 kilometers so we stop to take a break from the bumpy roads at several of them and fortify ourselves with some of the delicious Ethiopian coffee.

As we enter the more rural areas, we see women walking beside the road carrying everything that might be needed for a household - from food to water to long poles for building their homes.  Another respite from the drudgery of the long travel is check for birds and we’re treated by seeing some hornbills, hawks, eagles, and the Spectacular Starling. 

But most impressive to me are the huge termite mounds that appear like obelisks decorating the landscape.  They’re the color of the deeper soil and so there are clay red ones and limestone white ones that seem like ghosts walking across the land.  Some are gigantic.

 

Wondwosen tells me that today we don’t have far to travel.  I think to myself that’s because we’re already at the end of the earth and there’s nowhere else to go!  We meet some of the CARE Ethiopia team and quickly head to the field.

CARE started their famine response here in the Borena District of Oromia along the Kenya and Ethiopia border with funding from P&G and the European Union.  They began in July of last year when humanitarian groups first started mounting responses to the famine.  It’s one of many districts where PSI has provided the P&G water purification packets and training to respond to the famine. 

The strategy behind CARE Ethiopia’s approach goes back to work they pioneered in 2003 when they were the first humanitarian group to provide nutrition therapy along with the P&G packets.  CARE found that clean water was very helpful in addressing malnutrition in these areas where people have unclean water.  It makes sense that if you eliminate diarrhea with clean water then malnourished children can retain more of the nutrition from food and regain weight to recover faster.

CARE works through the local community health workers to provide the P&G water purifier packets.  Bezuaychu Belochew is a 24 year old single woman who has been a community health worker for 4 years.  She loves helping the community and plans to hold off on getting married and starting a family while she pursues this career for several more years. 

 

 

As she shows some of the local women who have gathered how to use the packets, she explains that the most important things she teaches the community is how to prevent disease. She specifically teaches hygiene such as hand washing, sanitation such as building latrines, and treating their drinking water. 

 

 

 

Bezuaychu tells me that showing people how to use the water purifier packets takes a little more effort than teaching people how to wash their hands. Once people understand they’re more likely to use the packets than wash their hands at the correct times.  While both habits are extremely important for a healthy family, she believes that having a way to treat the highly contaminated water is the most important health prevention habit for the families.

We watch as one of the malnourished children, Habiba Bela, is weighed and various health measurements are taken by Bezuaychu’s colleague.  She measures the mid upper arm circumference of Habiba with a cloth measuring tape as a quick indicator of nutritional status.  The cloth is colored red in the short distance indicating a severely malnourished child, yellow indicates moderately malnourished, and green indicates they’re okay.  The mothers of the severely and moderately malnourished children are immediately given the P&G water packets to treat their family’s water and nutritional supplements for the children.  The severely malnourishced children are also given the more expensive and quicker acting Plumpy Nut and families of the moderately malnourished children are given fortified flour and vegetable oil.

Habiba was given water treated with the P&G packets and Plumpy Nut 6 weeks ago when she was deteremined to be severely malnourished.  But, today is a great day because the measuring tape and other health assessments show that she’s quickly regained weight and has now graduated to outside the risk of malnutrition.  It’s fantastic to see that our effort is really making an impact.  Habiba was at great risk of dying without this intervention.

I ask to visit one of the households so we can see how the people live and how they use the P&G packets in their homes.  Amale Guyo is a 30 year old mother of six children.  She runs a small shop out of one corner of her house, while they cook, eat, and sleep in the rest of the house. 

 

 

 

 

Amale gathers her drinking water from a large pond.  It’s extremely dirty water that they share with their cattle and goats.  She received the water purification packets from the community health workers when they found that her youngest child was moderately malnourished.  Their home has mud floors and cow dung walls. 

 

 

 

 

Amale keeps the floors as clean as she can, but the cow dung leads to an enormous number of flies.  Amale bring in some smoking embers to keep the flies from flying in our faces but now it’s hard to breath and doesn’t seem to have of an impact on the flies.

 

 

 

 

While Amale shows us how she uses the packets, I ask her if she’d tell me about the impact of the drought on her family.  She gets very serious and says that it’s the worst drought she can remember.  Sometimes it’s easy to graze their cattle in this area and they thrive.  These people are pastoralists whose life depends on their livestock.  Amale and her family had done very well during the good years and built up a herd of 30 cattle.  But during this extended drought, the ponds dried up and the cattle started dying.  Amale and her family only survived because some of the humanitarian groups trucked in water.  Her herd was reduced from 30 cattle to only two.  And she tells me that some of her neighbors have been left without even a single cow.

I ask Amale to explain to me why this loss of cows has such a negative impact on her family.  She looks at me quizzically at first as if to ask how I can be so ignorant as to not understand the importance of cattle to your family.  But she’s patient with the foreigner and explains that the primary nutrition that the youngest children receive is milk from the cows.  And, they sell the milk in town in order to buy other food and occasionally slaughter a cow for meat.  So, losing the cattle can bring down the whole family.

 

I thank her for her patience and in order to lighten the mood from the gloom of thinking about the drought, we joke while enjoying the purified water.  I tell her that I don’t have any cows and wonder if she’d consider trading a cow for one of my strong daughters.  She says that since I only have two daughters that maybe I need some more children.  She has six children so maybe I’d prefer one of her children instead of one of her two remaining cows.  We have a good laugh and I secretly hope that my daughters don’t hear that I tried to trade them for a cow in Ethiopia – and couldn’t get even one cow for them!

Before we leave, Amale makes a special point to thank us for providing the P&G water purification packets.  She tells us that they feared everyone would get very sick when the rains came and they started gathering water from the ponds.  They knew that it was highly contaminated because the running water brings feces into the pond.  But, thanks to the P&G packets, the rainy season did not bring the expected wave of disease outbreak.  The grandfather also shows up to thank us profusely.

Amale tells me that they expect they’ll be much better off in about a year if the rains come in March and again in October.  This will allow the cows to calf and they’ll have milk again.  She’s glad to hear that the CARE program will continue to provide the P&G packets for the next year.

 

 

 

As we travel to the next site, the CARE Ethiopia team explains that they’re caring for thousands of malnourished children in this area.  And, it’s just one of many areas in the drought areas of Ethiopia and Kenya where we’re reaching.  I ask about the impact of losing so many cattle and the CARE staff explains that because it’s the primary asset some of the local tribes have had armed conflict against each other in order to steal cows.  Based on this, I’m not too surprised when I see a man with an automatic rifle.

At the next clinic, we meet Alemnesh Bayesa, another community health worker.  A local NGO is having a program to pay the locals to help rehabilitate one of the ponds that was damaged during the recent rains.  Alemnesh and the local nurse are using this opportunity to screen all the young children that have come to the clinic with their mothers. 

 

 

They’re quite a gathering of women at the clinic and so it’s an efficient plan to screen children.  Of the 20 children that they’ve screened today, they’ve identified 3 that are moderately malnourished and one that is severely malnourished. 

 

 

 

 

I ask to see the severely malnourished child.  It’s frightening to see the measuring tape show that he’s well into the red zone as I know this means he’s in bad shape.  When we examine him, his eyes will not focus.  When I check his skin it’s clear that he’s dehydrated because when I lightly pinch the skin on his arm, it doesn’t spring back.  The nurse agrees the child is severely dehydrated as well as severely malnourished and they’ll immediately get him to a clinic that has more advanced care while starting to rehydrate him.

Alemnesh has worked in this area for four years.  She tells us that people were familiar with the P&G packets prior to the drought because a local NGO was providing them for several years.  The only water source is the pond water and people really value the clean and purified water. 

 

 

 

 

 

Kula Roba is a 45 year old mother of 10 children.  She tells us that she uses 2 packets of the P&G packets every day.  She’s one of the families who received the packets prior to the drought for many years.  In fact, she’s been a fairly regular user for about 3 years.  They haven’t been supplied continuously but now that she knows the importance of clean water, she boils her water when she does not have access to the packets. 

 

Kula describes an impact of the drought that is similar to what we heard from Amale.  When they lost 5 of their 8 cows and all of their goats, they didn’t have enough food for the children.  The children became so weak that they stayed at home and didn’t want to walk to school and didn’t have enough energy to study. 

 

 

Kula says the CARE program has made a big difference for her family.  The children now are back in school and while they wait to rebuild their heard, they’re selling charcoal.  Kula shows me that one of their cows is producing milk again.  I tell her that the canteens that she’s made to store the milk are quite attractive and would make nice souvenirs to sell to tourists. 

We enjoy some clean water after the end our chat and Kula’s youngest, Lelo, drinks a lot of the pure water. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been well worth the days of travel to see first-hand that our efforts are really making a difference.  The supply chain and training provided by PSI combined with the local expertise and work with the community health workers provided by CARE are leading to a significant health impact that is saving lives.  I’ve never seen an area with any greater need for the P&G water purification packets and I’m grateful that we’re able to help.

 

 

 

I’m in coastal rural Kenya with Nick Redding of SAFE which stands for Sponsored Arts For Education (www.sponsoredarts.org).  I met Sophie Bray and Nick Redding of SAFE through an introduction by Leigh Blake of Keep a Child Alive (KCA), another of our P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) partners.  In fact, we agreed to work with both KCA and SAFE at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) a couple of years ago.  It’s one of our many CSDW partners that we’ve met at CGI.

Nick Redding is an actor who has appeared in the hit film with Clive Owens called “Croupier.”  He started working on using the power of the arts to engage people to help with the HIV/AIDS pandemic prior to September 11, 2001.  In fact, he was in New York City during the September 11 terrorist attacks helping create a song using major talent including Beyonce and others to help build support for addressing HIV/AIDS.  The terrorist attacks set this effort back a bit. But as we bounce along the roads in rural coastal Kenya, Nick tells me that not long afterwards he found himself in a Mombasa clinic helping fight HIV/AIDS.

As he met HIV positive mothers, he became appalled at how little they knew about their disease.  It seemed to Nick that public health education had failed in creating even a modest level of awareness. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nick knew that the arts could be a powerful way to inspire and educate people.  Many in the public health community were skeptical because drama groups are frequently used and it frequently hasn’t had much impact.  But Nick’s response was common sense that bad drama doesn’t inspire but world class drama can really make an impact.

 

 

 

 

 

I thought about this and compared it to my own experience.  I’ve seen a lot of plays incorporating clean drinking water and we’ve funded much of this.  But, truthfully I’m not sure it’s done much good.  But then I thought of my own experience and how a book, a movie, a song, or a play has really inspired me.  So, I’m receptive to see if quality drama can be a tool to help engage communities to adopt clean water habits.

SAFE isn’t starting with clean drinking water.  They’ve already had significant success in helping reduce stigma against HIV/AIDS and have seen dramatic increases in voluntary testing in areas where they perform their plays.  And, importantly, they have a very high success rate in getting people who test positive to enroll in treatment programs.  Their plays make it clear that the treatment can work and can save lives.  Nick turned their play into a film and it’s been piling up awards at film festivals from Zanzibar to Sweden.

Even more impressive to me is that they’ve used their theater outreach to significantly reduce female circumcision or female genital mutilation.  This is a very hard habit to break because of its deep cultural implications.  But among the Maasai, Nick tells me that SAFE has a remarkable success rate in getting communities to stop this practice.  One of the ways they helped address it is to understand the cultural importance of the belief that the circumcision eliminates bad blood from girls when they enter menarche.  So, they’ve encouraged the aunties who conduct the ceremony to make a very small, clean incision and still have the important initiation ceremony for young girls, but not remove the clitoris.  And, they’ve used good drama to engage the entire community on the benefits of changing their practice.

We’re about 3 hours out of Mombasa deep in rural Kenya to start the program engaging communities on clean water.  Nick has assembled a talented group of young actors – real professionals for world class touring theater.  They’re reaching smaller audiences with short shows and then a bigger play on a main stage. 

 

 

 

 

 

They start with a parade through the community complete with bugles and drums.  The women and children seem to come out of nowhere to join in the fun as we march through the community to the stage.

 

 

Nick recently brought enough tents back from his native London so that the whole production cast can live in the communities for several days while performing the plays.  This not only reduces the time and grueling travel over the bumpy roads but it helps lead to the acceptance of the actors by the community.  In addition, I’m pleased to see that the performance team is setting a good example and has already started using the P&G water purification packets to make their water clean.

                                          

 

It’s interesting to watch the interaction between these young professional adults and the rural Kenyans.  I watch in fascination as a young Muslim girl literally draped from head to foot stares at one of the performers texting on her mobile phone to her friends back in Nairobi.

 

 

 

 

 

 From the start of the performances, it’s clear that the audience is very engaged.  I get a full translation for the first performance but then want to just watch people’s reaction.  They’re really into the scenes – laughing at the jokes and holding their breath in the dramatic scenes.  The play incorporates much of everyday life in the drama so is familiar to people. 

 

 

 

 

And, of course, it incorporates the consequences of unsafe drinking water and how to use the P&G packets to make water safe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I went with the team to collect water prior to the performance and was amazed that the local well had extremely dirty water.  It’s an area where I suspect the P&G packets will be readily accepted because of its ability to make the water crystal clear.

 

 

 

 

 

Between the different performances, I offer some hints on how to improve the process of using the water purification packets.  The professional actors take the feedback very positively and immediately incorporate the suggestions into the next performance.  While it’s not rocket science, there’s clearly a bit of an art to the education on using the packets. 

 

 

 

One of my suggestions is to have the local women lead a second demonstration after they’re shown the first time.  We’ve learned that this makes it clear that they can manage the process themselves. 

 

 

The woman they pick has clearly understood how to correctly use the packets as have her friends who help her filter the water.  In fact it seems that the women do a more efficient job in using the packets than the male actor who has just started using the packets.

 

I’ve always known that the water demonstration with the P&G packets is high drama to those with dirty water and very engaging.  So, it’s interesting to me to see these highly talented actors take it to a new level with their incorporation of the demonstration into today’s events. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I scan the crowds, it seems that everyone is completely engaged.  Not only the women, who usually pay close attention to the water demonstration, but also the men. 

 

 

I notice that two of the women with small children are particularly engaged in the performance and afterwards I interview them to see what they’ve learned.  Kinyauu Kimera brought her son Jolo to the performance.  She tells me that Jolo has diarrhea and vomiting today and she’s very glad to be taking some of the packets home with her. 

 

 

 

 

Mlongo Chte has brought little Livuma with her.  Just like Kinyauu, she’s understood how to use the packets correctly.  She says that it seems like her 5 kids have diarrhea and vomiting all the time and she trusts that the packets will work since she’s seen it work with her own eyes.  And, she says the water tastes clean with no smell.

It’s been a fun day watching the performances.  I’m excited to learn about the results as SAFE provides more than 5 million liters of clean water to these communities over the next year.

 

I’m in rural coastal Kenya with Aga Khan Foundation and their developmental effort called Coastal Rural Support Program (CRSP).  I first visited them in 2003 and we’ve been working with them consistently since 2007 to provide clean drinking water.  This Aga Khan Foundation’s development effort reaches deep into the rural areas of the Kalifi and Kwale Districts of coastal Kenya not far from Mombasa. 

 Today is hot.  And not just regular hot and humid but stifling hot.  It’s the kind of hot where lizards scurry across the dirt because it’s so hot and the heat sort of numbs your brain and makes it hard to concentrate.  The hot breeze feels like it’s out of an oven but it’s still welcome to stir the air a bit.  I know I should appreciate the break from the cold winter of the US, but this is too much to enjoy and I feel like I’m struggling just to breath.  I can’t imagine living here in one of the mud huts with tin roofs that amplify the heat.

 Deborah Imali and Pamela Moraa of CRSP are the coordinators of the clean drinking water effort and tell me that when it gets this hot it usually results in an afternoon shower.  That sounds quite delightful right now but there’s a lot of hot day ahead of us.  And rain is desperately needed in this area so that the maize can finish growing in the next month before the harvest.  Everyone is praying that this will not be the third year of bad harvest in a row.

Deborah and Pamela confirm my suspicion that this area is deeper in poverty than when I first started visiting.  My quick impressions are based on the tattered clothes and the thinness of many of the people. While much of Kenya has a thriving and growing economy, these subsistence farmers are really hurting because of the recent droughts and inflation.

In the past, we’ve worked with Aga Khan Foundation to reach into schools and to set-up traders to provide the P&G water purification packets.  We’re continuing the school outreach but today I’ll visit for the first-time Aga Khan Foundation’s effort to reach people living with HIV/AIDS with clean water.  This two year program will provide 7 million liters of clean water to vulnerable people in this rural impoverished area.

 

 

 

We’re accompanied by Rose who is part of the community health volunteers established by the Kenyan government.  Deborah and Pamela work closely with the existing health infrastructure and people like Rose for their outreach on clean drinking water. 

 

We visit a household that has a 74 year old grandmother who is HIV/AIDS positive.  It’s unusual in my experience to see an elderly person with HIV.  She lives with the family of her grown daughter who usually prepares the treated water.  But the daughter has been bitten by a Nairobi fly and is away at the clinic.  This nasty insect leaves an extremely painful rash on the skin and I’m glad to say that I’ve not encountered it first-hand - yet.

 

 

 

I admire her granddaughter’s ingenuity in making her hair look nice by braiding it with colored rubber bands.  She’s a bit shy but when I tell her that it looks nice, she agrees to a picture and flashes a nice smile. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way to our next stop, Rose tells us that our next visit will be one of their most dramatic experiences with this program.  We see the home’s water source and it’s a hand dug pond to collect water during the rainy season.  This harvesting of water during the rainy season is the only type of water source in the area and previous attempts to dig bore holes have failed to provide water.  Because it’s the only water source, people share the water with their cattle and goats and it’s highly contaminated. 

We meet Saumu Mboga and learn that she was bed ridden and down to about 50 pounds before receiving the P&G water purification packets six months ago.  She tells me that prior to receiving the water packets, her family frequently suffered from waterborne illness.  When I ask more specifically about her personal experience, she tells me that her problems had gotten very serious before receiving the packets.  She had typhoid from unsafe water and then she had frequent vomiting and persistent diarrhea.  She regularly had to go to the clinic and spent most of the day in bed.  The transformation since she’s had clean water for six months has been dramatic.  While she’s still very thin, she’s regained a lot of weight.  And, she’s much stronger.  Saumu shows her vigor in stirring the clean water while she tells us that she can now walk and work in the fields.

Like many people with HIV/AIDS, Saumu tells me that the diarrhea that she began to have after she had HIV/AIDS was more severe, more persistent, and accompanied by very painful stomach cramps.  There seems to be something about the reduced immune status of people with HIV/AIDS that results in these severe symptoms.  For example, we know that parasitic infections from pathogens such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium can be much more severe in people living with HIV/AIDS.  These infections are usually self-limiting and not life-threatening in people with a normal immune system, but they are frequently fatal in people living with HIV/AIDS.  Because the P&G water purification packets remove these parasites that are resistant to normal disinfection, they’re an appropriate and affordable intervention for people living with HIV/AIDS in these areas with unclean water.

When Saumu shows us the difference between the water treated with the P&G water packets and the water from the nearby pond, it’s quite dramatic.  This is clearly an area that is appropriate for the use of the packets.

 

Our next stop is to a home that also collects water from one of the hand dug ponds.  This pond is even smaller and it’s easy to find evidence of the fecal contamination from the animals that share the water source.  It’s hard to imagine being able to survive drinking this water and impossible to imagine surviving if you have a reduced immune system.

This beneficiary is also named Saumu but in this case Saumu Nazua.  She tells us that she first started using the P&G water purification packets when her daughter got very sick from diarrhea two months ago and she took her to the clinic.  Rose showed her how to use the packets then and she’s been using ever since.  Saumu believes that her family of nine people is healthier since they’ve had clean water.

When I ask how much water she prepares each day, I’m surprised to learn that she makes 2 batches of 20 liters every day.  This is 2-4 times the average consumption so I probe a bit further.  Saumu insists that they drink this much water.  In fact, her own average consumption is 5 liters per day.  As the sweat rolls off my face and onto my notepad, I get it.  This sweltering heat means that people need to drink a lot more.  And, because of the poverty, they don’t have other options for consumption of liquids. 

 

While this is a poverty-stricken area, the ubiquity of the cell phone has reached here as well.  Saumu shows that she’s familiar enough with the process of using the P&G packets to continue stirring while she answers a phone call from her son.  I have to laugh at what has quickly become almost a universal task of multi-tasking while on the mobile phone.

Saumu thanks us for the packets and confesses that she had one experience recently where she went back to drinking untreated water.  She traveled to a funeral and didn’t take packets with her and drank the water of her neighbors that wasn’t treated.  She got sick and believes it’s because she has a weak immune system because of her HIV/AIDS status.  She tells us that she’ll not make this mistake again but will take the packets with her and help spread the word to her neighbors.

 

Our visits with Saumu Mboga and Saumu Nazua are two more examples of how clean drinking water can save lives of people living with HIV/AIDS.  She joins Jemima, Zeinab, Bashir, and many, many others who have told us the same thing.  People with HIV/AIDS are dying from unclean water and something as simple as the P&G water purification packets is helping save lives.  It’s one of the most important parts of our Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program and I’m grateful to Aga Khan Foundation and our many other partners who are helping some of the most vulnerable people live positively by providing them with clean water.

It’s very hard for me to believe that today we’re providing the 4 billionth liter of clean drinking water through the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water (CSDW) Program.  It seems like only yesterday that we began this journey.  But in reality, it started 10 years ago.  For three years, P&G provide the water purification packets as a for-profit effort and we provided a total of 30 million liters of clean water.  In 2004, in order to expand the effort, we created the not-for-profit P&G CSDW Program as a signature program of P&G’s pro-social investments and we’ve been growing ever since by partnering with on-the-ground humanitarian groups that can reach people who are most vulnerable and have a critical need for safe water.

It took us from 2004 to 2008 to provide the first billionth liter of clean water by providing 100 million water purification packets.  At the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), as we were nearing that first billionth liter milestone, we committed to provide a cumulative 2 billion liters of clean drinking water by 2012. Then, almost unbelievably, we increased our commitment by 1 billion additional liters of clean drinking water at the next two CGI annual meetings for a total commitment of 4 billion liters.  Frankly, we were really sticking our necks out to deliver this huge amount of impact.  But, I had confidence that our model of working with external partners and finding the situations where the water purification packets are most needed would result in impressive growth to meet our goal of 4 billion liters.

I’m in Thailand where they’ve experienced the worst floods in 50 years.  More than 500 people have perished from the floods and a staggering 3 million people have been displaced from their homes.  We started a CSDW program in Thailand earlier this year in collaboration with the Princess Pa Foundation and the Thai Red Cross.  In recognition of P&G’s 25 year presence in Thailand, we committed to provide 25 million liters of clean drinking water over a couple of years.

Boy, were we in the right place at the right time.  When we launched our program in June, there was already a need for our work in the south of Thailand because of flooding.  Then the flooding started in the north based on a series of typhoons accompanying the monsoon season.  This caused the massive floodwaters that traveled over a few months down to Bangkok and has caused flooding that has lasted more than 2 months. 

My P&G colleague, Kannika Jausuraisin, has led our efforts with CSDW in Thailand and has done a wonderful job.  On a previous visit, I helped Kannika as we trained Princess Pa and Thai Red Cross volunteers on proper use of the P&G water purification packets.  As the flood waters entered Bangkok, Kannika and her team provided the water purification packets in ways that we’ve never done before. 

First, our own P&G employees had a need for the purification packets.  I met Nipon Asavakulpanus, one of our sales employees who joined P&G four years ago.  He’s one of the employees who’ve been using the P&G water purifier packets for his family.  Nipon goes by the nickname “A” and he told me that when the flood waters first entered Bangkok the municipal water supply became contaminated.  The water from his faucet was yellow and smelled of sewage.  So, having a way to purify his water was very useful, particularly as bottled water supplies became very limited and impossible to find in the stores.  P&G provided as much bottled water as they could to our employees, but there was quickly a national shortage as the bottling operations for the bottle water suppliers became contaminated. 

“A” told me that the experience of the floods has made him even more proud to work for P&G.  He said he joined P&G because of our purpose to improve lives, but he never expected that he’d be one of those whose life would be impacted in this way.  He told me that he loves working for P&G and is so grateful that the P&G CSDW Program is now in Thailand.  He said the timing of bringing CSDW to Thailand was amazing given the flood.

Kannika and I visit several of the large media outlets in Bangkok.  They’ve been important partners in helping build awareness of the CSDW Program and proper use of the packets.  Many of the employees of these media outlets have been impacted by the floods, so we make donations of the packets to them for their use and go on several of the television stations to conduct demonstrations. 

Finally, in another first, P&G is working with 4 of our retail customers, Tesco, 7-11, Tops, and The Mall to act as distribution centers for the packets.  The Princess Pa Foundation will train people and the stores in the flood areas will act as the distribution center for 2 million water purifier packets. 

Because of our efforts in responding to the floods, P&G has been asked to attend a special ceremony with one of the most popular Princesses of Thailand who is the patron of the Princess Pa Foundation.  She’s regarded as one of Royals who is closest to the public because of her tireless efforts to help the people – and she’s really stepped up during the floods.  Kannika asks me to make the symbolic donation of our efforts to the Princess.  I joke that I’m not very good with my curtsey, and Kannika answers that I’ll be given many chances to practice.  Indeed, for almost an hour the royal protocol staff makes us rehearse the ceremony.  I have to bow three times, bend on one knee, present the symbolic gift on a gold platter, back-up with more bows, then scurry to her side for pictures that requires a low bow to the ground while somehow manipulating my legs to the side and behind me.  Wow, I should have taken yoga more seriously. 

I remember all the steps correctly when it finally comes time to do it for real.  Okay, maybe I wasn’t the most graceful with the legs behind me while bowing to the ground thing.  I learned why this Princess is the Princess of the people.  She’s very gracious and gives me a royal smile for my attempts and then addresses me in English.  I’m a bit astonished when she then extends her hand for a handshake instead of the traditional greeting of putting your hands together like you’re praying.  Kannika tells me that this is very unusual and we’re not surprised when it makes the national news later.

While I’m fascinated by the pageantry, I realize that I’ve been given a great honor of representing P&G at this event.  The royalty have a very special place in the heart of the Thai people and most people will never have the opportunity that I’ve been given today. 

While the pomp and circumstance has been fun, I’m most excited about our visit to the flood areas to see the impact of the CSDW program and our partnership.  I’m not sure what I expected when thinking about the floods, but maybe a few areas with very high water.  What I see is that huge areas have been inundated with a few feet of water.  In some areas it’s up to 6 feet, but mostly it’s 1 to 3 feet deep but over miles, and miles and miles.

As we drive to the community we’ll visit today, we see that the elevated highways have become a safe haven for automobiles and in some cases for people’s temporary housing.  All the shoulders of the highway are now full unless they’re flooded with water. 

 

After driving for a couple of hours and seeing water everywhere, we work our way through some police blockades to a small community.  We put on some rubber boots (luckily the Thai boots are able to stretch 3 sizes if you really cram your big feet into them) and walk through the water to a waiting boat.

Our host is Kamolthip Boonsup and we’re asked to call her “Khun-Thip”.  She lives in the community of Watkiasae in the province of Ayuttaya, one of the hardest hit areas north of Bangkok.  This community is in a low-lying area that was predominately rice paddies prior to the flood. 

 

 

 

 

 

We spend almost an hour by boat going over the flooded rice paddies.  The shore birds that used to feed in the irrigation canals are now having a field day with massive areas to feed.  Khun-Thip tells me that 160 households in this area lost their home.  She’d already been a volunteer with the Princess Pa Foundation and when the flood hit she contacted the central office to let them know that this area needed help.  Khun-Thip is now the leader of the relief efforts here and her responsibilities include bringing food to the community and water, including the PUR packets.

We visit Khun-Thip’s house that is still partially flooded with water after more than two months.  When the flood first hit, they had to go to the upper floors of the house and hope that it didn’t keep rising above the roof.  Luckily, it stopped after flooding the first floor of her home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We visit with several of the households including Khun-Thip’s extended family of about a dozen people.  Khun-Thip leads them through a demonstration with the P&G water purification packets to reinforce proper use before we provide more packets.  We ask one of the young mothers to help with the second demonstration. 

 

 

 

 

Paweena Khoporn grabs a bucket full of water from right off the front porch of the house.  She carefully repeats the same steps of using the packets that she observed from Khun-Thip while several of the children watch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paweena and her husband Yospeng are both 31 years old and they have a 6 year old daughter named Chnakarn.  We choose them as the recipients of the 4th billionth liter of clean water.  They’re thankful to have the packets because, as Yospeng explains, clean drinking water is one of the biggest needs of this community following the floods. 

 

 

 

 

 

Transportation is also a challenge now since you can only move from house to house using something that floats.  The market for boats has expanded greatly but we also see people using big pieces of Styrofoam as make-shift boats, surfboards, and canoes.

 

Yospeng is a rice farmer and Paweena collects scrap to sell.  But with the high water, they can’t work.  They expect that it will be more than 3 months before they can get back to work. 

 

 

They’ve never seen anything like this flood and neither have any of the community members.  Officially, it’s the worst flood in 50 years but the elderly people tell us that they’ve never seen a flood that is so vast and persistent.  Unfortunately, with global climate change and the fact that Thailand is in a low lying area and acts as a drainage basin for this part of the world, it seems likely that they’ll have more of these types of floods in the future.  And, CSDW and our partners will be there to help.

 

 

We’re about to run out of day light and it’s not safe to cross over the big body of water at nighttime so we say our good-byes to Praveen and her family after drinking some clean water.  I’m struck by the positive spirit and happiness of everyone that we’ve met today.  Kannika has also noticed this and as we travel back she comments that the Thai people have a warmness and positive spirit that provides them with immunity against these bad times.  I’ve certainly been impressed.

In case you want to check it out, I recorded a short video about the 4th billionth liter and the growth of the CSDW Program in Asia (VIDEO LINK).  I also created a little photo montage of the visit (Download Thailand CSDW Flood Response).

Thanks to P&G Thailand, the Princess Pa Foundation, the Thai Red Cross, and the Princess for hosting my visit.  It’s been an amazing experience and a good way to celebrate the 4 billion liter milestone.  Now, we have our sites on growing the program that so we can provide 2 billion liters of clean water every year – in order to save one life every hour.  It will take us several years to grow the program to this level and thank you for being part of our journey.

I travel to many remote places in helping provide clean water through the P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program. Today is one of the most remote visits that I’ve ever made. It took two days to reach the Philippines from my hometown in the US. Then it took a full day of travel from Manila to the island of Siargao in Mindinao. And, this morning, we were up at sunrise to start our travel to the island of Maribojoc. Today, I’m traveling with Keith Kall of World Vision US and Billie Abata, Joy Mariscal, and Joel Pielago of World Vision Philippines.

        
It’s about an hour ride in a small catamaran to Maribojoc. But because it’s low tide, we walk the last mile carrying the water purification packets and buckets needed to prepare clean water. I’ve been told that the traditional name for foreigners in Filipino is “dayuhang mana nakop” or “foreign invader”. As I walk onto shore, I hope that I’m not being viewed as a foreign invader.

I can tell from the smiles that we’re very welcome. Filipinos and Americans have a great bond of friendship that formed during War World II and it’s felt to this day in the relationship between the two countries and their people. Speaking of armed conflict, the mayor of this area insisted on sending an armed guard with us today because we’re in areas that have seen some conflict. It’s low risk but nevertheless we’re grateful that Jonas is providing a bit of security for us.

 

As we dry our feet and put our shoes on to walk to the water sources, I ask about the last time there was a visit like ours. This leads to a long discussion that I don’t understand. Eventually they reach a consensus that the last visit by someone doing development work like us, was a visit either seven or nine years ago by the Australia Agency for International Development (AUSAID). It’s clear this is not on the main circuit for development efforts. When I think about the supply chain that has taken the packets from our plant in Pakistan to this remote village, it’s pretty impressive. It helps that a couple of small boats can bring enough of the packets to last an entire year for this community because the packets are light weight, stable, and easy to transport.

I lead the first demonstration of the water purification packets today to reinforce the correct procedures with the new volunteers. The Barangay Health Workers here are wearing uniforms to highlight their status in the community. We gather the contaminated water from the shallow well and show them how to make it healthy. Today the water from the shallow well is pretty clear but they tell us that it’s frequently dirty. 

When I ask if anyone ever gets sick from the well water, I notice one of the Barangay Health Workers giggling nervously into her handkerchief. MariJane Compra is a young mother with two children and she had waterborne illness for the last several days and today is the first day that she’s been feeling well. She’s been standing close to me during the demonstration and very interested in our work. In fact, I picked her to do the second demonstration before I knew this. While we always have a pre-trained person lead the first demonstration, we randomly pick a local person in the crowd to lead a second demonstration. This reinforces the correct procedure, gives people confidence that it’s easy for them to do themselves, and provides just the right amount of activity before the water from the first demonstration is ready to drink. 

After drinking the treated water and while we walk to our next stop, MariJane tells me that today has been an amazing experience for her. She’s been very worried that her children will succumb to illness from drinking their water. The purified water is very nice to drink and has a good taste. She tells me she’s very happy and I tell her that I am too!

At our next stop, we take some pictures with some adorable twins, Reyford and Reymark. These adorable 9 year old boys have earned the nicknames of “Popoy “and “Kiking”. There’s an explanation for the nicknames but it’s sort of like rhyming cockney and the meaning of these nicknames gets lost in translation.

The mother of the twins is 46 year old Aurelia Daban. We sit down for a chat about life on her island while the World Vision staff led a demonstration for more people in the village. Aurelia tells me that almost all the men on the island fish for a living. The women plant some cassava and harvest bananas. And there’s a small school that sits over the water with a teacher from the mainland who has commuted every week for the last three years. And, of course, the Catholic Church is an important part of the community. Aurelia has lived in this community of 260 households for her entire life. She’s raised 9 children including the twins and now has a little grandchild nicknamed “RR”.

I’m also pleased to meet Aurelia’s husband, Romy, and we pose for a picture to remember our time together and celebrate the start of our efforts helping this community. Then I sit down with Aurelia and the twins to record a short video summarizing our visit to Maribojoc (VIDEO).

Before we leave, we learn first-hand one of the advantages of living in a fishing community. We’re treated to a feast of boiled crabs topped off with fresh mango for dessert.  It’s a fantastic meal and we’re very thankful to the fisherman and their wives.

We have to wait an hour before the tide comes in sufficient for the boat to make the channel back to the larger island of Siargao. Keith, Billie, and I enjoy the time with the children. But, school is about to start so we soon have to shoo the kids away to make sure they don’t miss their lessons.

Our last community to visit is Abad Santos. This is the remotest part of the bigger island of Siargao and not surprisingly has some of the worst water access. In this community of 118 households and 583 people, there are several shallow wells in the middle of town. But these are so obviously contaminated that people only use this water for washing or bathing.

 

 

 

The community has to walk down and up very steep and slippery paths to reach nearby springs or creeks to gather their drinking water. Not surprisingly, people frequently slip and fall while carrying their heavy burdens of water. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Barangay leader, Captain Gerito, is happy to take us to the springs. It’s very steep and the late afternoon has become stifling with humidity and there’s no breeze to provide relief. Keith and I are soon completely drenched in our own perspiration.  The first spring is beside a creek and the water looks like milk. The second water source is clear but we’re told that during the dry season it will also be dirty.

 

 

 

I’m starting to feel a little queasy. I try to pretend the symptoms don’t exist and grab the 50 pounds of water from one of the local teenagers and haul it back to the village.  But before I complete the journey, I know that I’m not going to be able to avoid my issue. I made a very stupid mistake back on Maribojoc and drank the contaminated water. We keep out a glass of the starting water to show people the difference between the dirty and clean water. In fact, I warned Keith and Billie to not drink the contaminated water. Then Keith said I was looking a little pale from the heat and that I should drink some water. So, I drank from the dirty water glass that was in my hand at the time! It was only a sip before I recognized my mistake. But I know that even a sip of this water could have millions of bacteria and viruses.

Sure enough, my mistake from about 6 hours ago is coming back to visit me. The community is great and locates one of the nicer houses that has a toilet and gives me some privacy while I spend a few minutes. Well, it can happen to anyone. I’m certainly not happy to have this experience, but it a strong reminder of why we’re providing safe drinking water. It’s humiliating and it hurts. I’m lucky that I have medicines if needed, I’ve developed a strong immune system over the years of traveling to the developing world, and the community quickly provided me access to a toilet. So, I’m only having a small taste of what it must be like to live in this community and have to drink contaminated water.

In the center of town, it doesn’t take long before we have quite a crowd to watch the demonstration of the purification packets. Captain Gerito is very engaged and endorses our efforts. He tells us that there is usually a wave of sickness that overcomes the village during the start of the rainy season when the water gets very dirty and during the dry season when they run out of rain water and have to return to using the springs. He’s very grateful that P&G and World Vision will be providing the packets to his community.

Luckily, I made it through the day and we don’t need to cut our visit short. Keith and Billie tell me that they’re absolutely exhausted from the long day so I don’t feel like I’ve held anyone up. So, we say good-bye to the community of Abad Santos and head back to our hotel. 

It will take me a couple of days travel to leave the Philippines as there’s not regular plane service to the island. So, we’ll take a long ferry to start catching the flights back home. In thinking back over my time in the Philippines, I think about MariJane on the island of Maribojoc this morning. She told me that it was an amazing experience when we visited her. I absolutely agree. My time in the Philippines has been an amazing experience, and I’m very grateful to World Vision Philippines for the work they’re doing to reach the most vulnerable people in very remote places where clean drinking water will make a big difference in improving and likely saving lives.