End of year gifts - of service, charity, etc.

[webbie]

For those who already have enough "stuff", Gifts of Service can make a nice holiday present......

http://seva.convio.net/site/PageServer?pagename=gos2008_home

Imagine, $50 restores eyesight to someone.....or, on the other hand, will buy you a nice iphone skin. Or, you could buy that cheapo iphone skin on ebay for $4, and save the world with the rest....

Anyway, I like what these folks are doing - it is direct action.

 

[snowleopard]

savetherain.org

Every 15 seconds a child dies from lack of clean water. Save the Rain teaches water starved communities to use the rain to stop these needless deaths; $15.00 pays for a villager to receive water for the rest of their life & the life of their offspring.
When access to clean water is compromised, survival becomes an everyday confrontation. But when it is your inspiration, the human potential is limitless. In just 5 short years, with billions of raindrops harvested, African villages are now living with access to clean drinking water. With our assistance, systems have been built by the hands of local labor with materials from their local suppliers. These villages now know that if you save a raindrop – you can save a life.
Our solutions are so simple, they beg you to question why this crisis even exists. Please join us in putting an end to the global water crisis now. You can make a difference.

When 1 inch of rain falls on a 1000 square foot surface, you can collect 600 gallons of water.

Rain Catchment is a viable solution for any area facing water shortage. Rain Catchment Systems require no electricity and are fairly simple to trouble shoot. They can be installed in the most rural areas and can be made from the most primitive materials. A Rain Catchment System can be as simple as a small swale to stop water flooding off a slope or as integrated as a system that catches rain to supply a structure with water for drinking, sanitation or agriculture. One thing is certain, Saving the Rain can put an end to the water crisis.

A Rain Catchment System consists of the following sub-systems:
catchment area (roof, road, hillside)
conveyance system (guttering, downspouts, piping)
pre-filtration
storage (cistern)
distribution (gravity flow)

Phase 1 Community Wide Project

Phase 1 begins by selecting an impoverished African community and using the village primary school as our access point. When we enter the community, we come empty handed, armed only with our desire to serve and our knowledge of harvesting the rain. We begin by interviewing all the parents of students. We assess the available water resources and the health of the children at the school. The village then elects the best masons and laborers to become the core construction crew for a large scale rain catchment system. This provides the entire community with access to clean water. We help the village democratically elect a water committee for governance, maintenance and sustainability of the project.
Phase 2 Women’s Water Initiative

Phase 2 involves an initiative that empowers women to build 5000 liter Rain Catchment Systems. This size system can sustain a family of 8 with their domestic water needs for a year. Each woman enrolled in the program receives the materials and education to construct the system. Once the system is complete, the women are responsible to repay the cost of the material and recruit 5 additional women into the program. As each participant begins to repay their loan, additional loans are funded.

A few of the projects completed by STR:

In 1942, during the 2nd world war, 150,000 Polish children from concentration camps were separated from their families and displaced in groups of 10,000. Somehow, the village of Tengeru, Tanzania was selected to become one of the refugee camps. Only 5000 survived the journey to Africa. For 10 years, the Catholic church tried to help these children survive a new kind of war. Inevitably most of the children perished from malaria, typhoid and other water borne illness. Some survived and return yearly to pay tribute to their history at the cemetery - the only remaining part of the refugee camp.
Last year, students from the Reconstructionist Synagogue in Plandom, New York, reached out to Save the Rain wanting to raise money to help a village. By spring, 2009, they raised $15,000.00. When they presented Save the Rain with the check, they said:“67 years ago, the poor and starving village of Tengeru, Tanzania graciously took in some of our children and did their best to give them a better life. Today, it is time that we return the favor.†. . . On October 8th, 2009 Save the Rain completed Tengeru’s 60,000 liter Rainwater Harvesting system and today it is beginning to fill with clean water and the promise of a better future.

Mbuguni, Tanzania has a population of over 6,000 people and is about 2 hours from Mt. Kilimanjaro and 1 ½ hours from Arusha, Tanzania. There are 1,400 students in the Mbuguni primary school, which lies at the convergence of 3 rivers. Before the rivers reach Mbuguni, they meander through hundreds of communities that have absolutely no sanitation infrastructure. Along with the issue of unclean water flowing through these rivers, flooding in Mbuguni is a regular occurrence. These floods lead to serious disease outbreaks. A teacher from Mbuguni he walked over 50 kilometers to find our team. He told us that in April 2009, in just twelve hours, 35 children died from water related illnesses after a flood. He begged us to come and work at their school. On April 16th, 2010 Save the rain completed a 130,000 Liter rain catchment system that is harvesting clean drinking water for both the school and community of Mbuguni.

After the primary evaluation and the construction of a community wide rain catchment system, within only 6 months, we found a 45% decrease of children suffering from water borne illnesses. Prior to the systems being built, only 10% of the students passed the national exam to continued their education after the age of 13. Now, their enrollment has increased, their attendance is amazing, the children’s health is of a different caliber, their educational performance is remarkable. In almost every school, the numbers of kids continuing their education is almost at 100%. Every teacher agreed this was possible because of the rain water tanks.