Projects
ADFT has identified various partners with expertise in planning, managing and/or implementing clean water projects. We fund projects that are sustainable and community-based. Though our focus is on clean drinking water, we realize the importance of adequate hygiene and sanitation in preventing the spread of water-borne diseases, and thus the projects we fund range from those that specifically focus on clean drinking water to comprehensive projects that integrate hygiene and sanitation as well. Funds are not restricted to any geographic area, but are directed to those areas most in need of clean water projects; namely, Africa, Asia and Latin America. We support organizations that have the infrastructure and knowledge in place to carry out clean water projects, but, due to inadequate funding, lack physical or human resources to meet the current need for clean water projects in the regions in which they work. We currently work with the following partners to oversee or carry out the implementation of projects:
- BLOOM Africa
- Glimmer of Hope Foundation
- Global Water
- Living Water International
- Project Well
- Peer Water Exchange
ADFT's Healthy Schools Project in Guatemala
A Drink for Tomorrow collaborated with Global Water to bring clean water and sanitation to three schools in Guatemala.
Jalachi School
Jalachi School is located in the outskirts of the city of Nebaj, in the Department of El Quiche. This school project has benefited the 66 students who attend the school, four teachers and 30 families that live in the surrounding community.
The Jalachi School project includes the construction of a seven-faucet hand washing station and the rehabilitation of two latrines. The parents of the students and the teachers provided all the labor to construct the facilities and a local organization purchased all the materials and will provide all long-term follow-up. for the project.
Prior to this project, students walked to a nearby stream polluted with trash to use the water for drinking, bathing and cooking. Without a working toilet at the school site, students practiced open defecation.
Xecax School
Xecax School is located in the outskirts of the city of Nebaj, in the Department of El Quiche. This school project has benefited the 200 students who attend the school, seven teachers and 150 families that live in the surrounding community.
The Xecax School project includes the construction of a four-faucet hand washing station and water storage tank. The parents of the students and the teachers provided all the labor to construct the facilities and a local organization purchased all the materials and will provide all long-term follow-up. for the project.
Prior to this project, community members walked to a spring site located 5 kilometers away in the community of Xevitz.
Vicotz School
The rural village of Vicotz is remote, located 35 kilometers from the center of Nebaj, Guatemala. To arrive, it takes over 2 hours to drive the first 28 kilometers from Nebaj and another 2.5 hours to walk the remaining seven kilometers to reach the village of Vicotz. This school project has benefited the 95 students who attend the school, three teachers and 45 families that live in the surrounding community.
The Vicotz School project includes the construction of a three latrines. The parents of the students and the teachers provided all the labor to construct the facilities and a local organization purchased all the materials and will provide all long-term follow-up. for the project. Prior to this project, students did not use latrines, instead practicing open defecation in surrounding vegetation.
At each school, training was provided to the parents and teachers on how to maintain the hand-washing station and latrines as well as make any necessary minor repairs. In addition, a health education program was established, providing instruction on health prevention, hygienic use of water and latrines. Clean water will make these schools/communities healthier, especially young children who are most susceptible to illness due to their fragile immune systems.
ADFT and Penn Students Fund Project at a Girls' School in West Bengal, India
A Drink for Tomorrow and the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts and Sciences Sustainability student group partnered to raise money for a clean water project at Ajaya Girls School in Purba Medinipore, West Bengal, India. The school is located in a remote village of Bansguria, approximately 150 km southwest of the city of Calcutta, and was established to promote the education of girls in the area. Ajaya Girls School is a secondary school, serving 235 students from five surrounding villages, and has seven staff members. The building and infrastructure are not in good condition; there is no running water system and no source of clean, safe water. Because of the lack of safe water and working latrines, absenteeism among the students is common.
Currently, the school has a dysfunctional hand pump that is very erratic and grossly inadequate for supplying water to more than two hundred students. Students are forced to carry water from a nearby pond for flushing latrines and must wash their utensils with the pond's dirty water.
The project is planned to consist of a new well approximately 700 feet deep with a submersible pump, which will supply water to two overhead tanks that will on the school's roof. Water pipelines with all the necessary fixtures will be constructed to connect overhead tanks to a proposed drinking water station with multiple faucets for students to use. Water lines will also be connected with all latrines for flushing.
The school will form a committee named WATSAN, consisting of 10 students and two teachers, to oversee the operation and maintenance of the system, and will open a separate bank account for funding the cost of operation and maintenance of the water system by raising a monthly subscription from students and teachers.
Teachers will give lessons to students on overall hygiene, the importance of water and conservation, and efficient use of water in environmental class. In addition, at the beginning of each day, teachers will stress the importance of personal hygiene to all students.
ADFT Funds Project in Nicaragua
A Drink for Tomorrow has funded the construction of a well and latrines in Portrero Platanal in the San Lorenzo region of Nicaragua. Currently, there are two springs in the community, but one dries up during the dry season and the other does not provide a sufficient amount of water for the 250 people who live there.
The hand-dug well will be a reliable source of safe and clean water year-round for the community, which is also home to a small primary school. It will also relieve women and children of the burden of having to travel and search for water during the dry season, thereby allowing them to pursue other opportunities such as go to school, engage in business, garden (improving their nutrition), etc. We will share additional information as it becomes available.
ADFT Brings Clean Water to Community of 1500 in Haiti
The project we funded in Haiti (a pump repair) is now benefiting 1500 people in Terrier Rouge, located in northern region of the country. Representatives from our implementing partner, Living Water International, also taught community members about proper use and care of the pump, good hygiene techniques, and lessons on germs, hand-washing techniques and water-saving methods, and how to keep the water clean.
According to Living Water International, 80% of Haiti's 9.8 million people live below the poverty line. Furthermore, 42% of the population lives without access to an improved water source and 81% lacks access to sanitation services. Haiti has the highest rates of infant, under-five, and maternal mortality in the Western Hemisphere. In Haiti, contaminated water is the leading cause of infant mortality and illness in children. Many water sources in Haiti are contaminated with human waste because of the absence of a sewage sanitation system. Additionally, the country has thousands of wells that have been incapacitated either by overuse, vandalism, natural disasters, or war. In January of 2010, a devastating earthquake of 7.3 magnitude, the strongest to hit the nation in more than 200 years, left much of the country in ruins.
ADFT Provides Clean Water to Lumpa Community Health Post, Sierra Leone
When the team from Living Water International (our implementing partner) arrived, the community and Health Post were using an open, contaminated well as their primary source of water and because of this residents were suffering from dysentery, typhoid and malaria, among other preventable water related illnesses. The Health Post was in despair: with no toilets, patients were forced to walk a distance to use a neighboring toilet or to go in the bush. Two women might have to share a bed while one or both of them give birth. There is one crib for the babies, and the facility is unable to hold patients overnight. There is no running water at all in any of the examination rooms, no screens on the window in the delivery room, and there is nothing in place for nurses/midwives to wash their hands in between patients.
The LWI team had an opportunity to meet with sixteen-year-old female housewife, Alice Kamara, who stated, "There is a far difference between the open well and a well with a hand pump. The open well is very dirty. The hand pump well is better than the open well. There are no germs inside." Alice is the mother of a new baby and expressed her gratitude for the new water source, as her baby had been sick. The well will provide clean water for the 250 people who are served by the health post. The LWI team also conducted hygiene trainings, including special trainings for mothers, who felt very loved and cared for. The LWI team will return to show the nurses how to make tippy taps (simple hand washing stations) so they can wash their hands in between patients to cut down on disease transmission. Furthermore, the post has a LWI contact number in case the well falls into disrepair or becomes subject to vandalism or theft.
According to the 2008 UNDP report, Sierra Leone is ranked 180th out of 182 countries in the United Nations Human Development Index. Of the population of 5.1 million, 47% is without access to an improved water source, 89% lacks adequate sanitation services, and 70% lives below the poverty line. The brutal civil war that stretched from 1991 to 2002 cost tens of thousands of lives and destroyed much of the country's economy and social infrastructure.
Unfortunately, in spite of some recent advances, Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest countries in the world. It has the world's highest maternal and infant mortality rates. The health system collapsed during the war and has not been able to meet the health needs of a growing population. Hazardous waste, marine dumping, and ship pollution from Sierra Leone's harbor plague the nation's water supply. Water catchments, rivers, ponds, and lakes are the main sources for water during the rainy season, and open hand dug wells replace these sources when the rains stop.
ADFT makes contribution to cholera relief effort in Haiti
In response to the October 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti, ADFT made an immediate relief effort donation to Partners in Health to assist their efforts in handling clinical treatment and community-based finding of suspected cholera cases in addition to actively taking measures to prevent the spread of the acute diarrheal disease.
ADFT Makes Contribution to Relief Effort in Pakistan
In response to the terrible flooding in Pakistan in August of 2010, ADFT made a contribution to U.S. Fund for UNICEF to support the immediate provision of clean water to those suffering in Pakistan.
ADFT and Triangle Tube Bring Clean Water to Village in Botswana, Africa
A Drink for Tomorrow, in partnership with Triangle Tube of Blackwood, NJ, funded the construction of a freshwater well in the village of Labala, located in Botswana, Africa. This project, made possible entirely by a donation from Triangle Tube, consists of a newly drilled well approximately 100 feet deep and a new hand pump to draw clean water from the well. The well will provide a community of approximately 400 people with clean, safe drinking water.
Prior to the well's completion, the people of Labala drank from large ditches filled with muddy brown water, laden with disease and contaminants, as animals freely roamed in these ditches. During half of the year in which the ditches were dry, women and children were forced to trek for six kilometers to a government pump. Earlier this year, the truck carrying the water to the government water source got stuck in soft desert sand and never arrived. The women and children would walk for miles and beg passing cars for water in desperation.
Furthermore, the people of this region are traditionally hunter-gatherers but the government imposed strict limitations on hunting, and the lack of water thwarted the growth of agriculture. The new well will not only keep the villagers from contracting diseases from contaminated water or dying of dehydration, it will also allow them to cultivate agriculture, thus providing nourishment. The children in this picture are some of the thousands of people whose lives will be saved, and dramatically improved, because of the individuals, groups, and businesses that support A Drink for Tomorrow.
Triangle Tube has been an innovator and industry leader in the manufacture of quality stainless steel water heating equipment, providing highly efficient, environmentally sound solutions to the heating and plumbing industry for over 60 years. It is fitting, therefore, that the company decided to fund the construction of a system that will bring clean, safe drinking water to 400 people who previously lacked this basic human right. ADFT is grateful for Triangle Tube's generosity in funding a life-changing project. Triangle Tube is our first business partner to fully fund a water project.
ADFT Brings Clean Water to an Orphanage in Lesotho, Africa
A Drink for Tomorrow and BLOOM Africa partnered to bring clean drinking water to 46 children at Little Angels Orphanage located in Thaba Bosiu in Lesotho, Africa. Until now, the children, age two to six, were forced to drink water from a source contaminated with animal feces, many of them contracting illnesses as a result. The situation was even direr given that several of the children are HIV-positive. A Drink for Tomorrow funded and BLOOM Africa oversaw the implementation of a rainwater harvesting system, which required the purchase and installation of a 2500-liter tank, a 5000-liter tank and specialized gutters that harvest rainwater and keep it safe from contamination.
The 2500-liter tank supplies water to the drip irrigation system in the orphanage's garden, which is the main source of fresh vegetables used to feed the children, while the 5000-liter tank provides water for drinking and cooking. The rainwater harvesting tanks require little or no maintenance and will bring clean water to the orphanage for 10 to 20 years.
ADFT makes contribution to relief effort in Haiti
In January of 2010, we are proud to have been able to make a contribution towards immediate provision of clean water to those suffering from the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti by supporting the efforts of Water Missions International. This organization has committed to sending 10 water purification systems to victims in Haiti which treat 10,000 gallons a day, providing water for 5,000 disaster victims daily. Our contribution will help fund these efforts.
A Drink for Tomorrow Provides Arsenic-Free Water to Village in West Bengal, India
In November of 2009, ADFT partnered with Project Well and Peer Water Exchange to fund the construction of a dug-well in West Bengal, India. In West Bengal, millions of people are exposed to poisonous levels of arsenic in their groundwater. The tasteless, odorless metalloid occurs naturally, in a dissolved state, in groundwater aquifers in the region. Furthermore, with 220,000 people showing symptoms of arsenic contamination, the situation here has been coined "the biggest arsenic calamity in the world" by the British Medical Journal.
Arsenic causes cancers of the lung, bladder, kidney, liver, and skin as well as cardiovascular, respiratory, reproductive, neurological, and dermal effects. As it is an odorless, tasteless poison, a person dramatically increases the likelihood of developing cancer with each sip, unbeknownst to him or her. Those who are exposed to arsenic in utero and during early childhood may develop diseases such as acute myocardial infarction, childhood liver cancer, and bronchiectasis, a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
In the Deganga block in the district of North 24 Parganas, where we funded the well, 150 people had died from arsenic poisoning. A Drink for Tomorrow's well is now providing clean water to this community of 140 people, and will continue to do so for 20-30 years. Our funds will also be used to educate community members about the harmful effects of arsenic and train them in well repair and how to disinfect the water through a chlorination process, to ensure sustainability of this project. This project used environmentally sound materials and there will be consistent follow-up to ensure that the well continues to function properly.
