April 22nd, 2009
A Single Drop of Women’s Wisdom, Guest Post by Gemma Bulos
Happy Earth Day! Wherever we live, I think we can all agree that loving the Earth needs to be something we do more actively than passively, which is why we’ve asked Gemma Bulos, founder and executive director of A Single Drop, to tell us a bit about her organization. I think you’ll find it inspiring. Actually, Gemma herself is pretty inspiring, and you’ll get to find out more about her in our interview series with her, which will begin next Tuesday, here in the blog.
Currently, 1.2 billion people do not have access to water and 3-5 million die of water-related disease per year. 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation facilities and toilets. With the growing concerns of a world plagued with social inequities and environmental degradation, it is crucial for future of sustainability that we seek guidance and leadership from our natural caretakers: women. By addressing the environmental conditions that create gender inequity, A Single Drop (ASD), a humanitarian organization that provides safe water solutions in Asia and Africa, empowers women with the tools to transform their burdens into opportunities.
Why women? ASD targets women and women’s groups as they are responsible for the health and welfare of the household and have a traditional role in water collection. Women and girls are affected most profoundly by lack of access to water and sanitation. Women and girls are assigned the task of fetching water which can sometimes take all day. In Africa, women and girls spend over 40 billion hours per year collecting water. Hence, women do not have livelihood opportunities and girls cannot go to school.
Also, women are the primary caretakers of the family, so when someone gets sick, it not only consumes time and energy, but is also cost intensive from losing work days and buying medicines. In India, water related diseases cost the Indian economy 73 million working days a year. Studies have shown that without the pressure of collecting water, and when there are toilets in schools, the number of female students increases. Women with even a few years of basic education have smaller, healthier families, are more likely to be able to work their way out of poverty and are more likely to send their own children, girls and boys, to school. Each additional year of female education is thought to reduce child mortality by 5-10%.
Further health implications for women are injuries as a result of carrying one to two 20liter (5 gallon) water jugs each weighing about 50 lbs. Neck, shoulder and back injuries are common and in extreme cases curved spines and pelvic deformities can result, causing problems in childbirth.
Lastly, lack of sanitation facilities force the women and girls to resort to relieving themselves publicly at night leaving them vulnerable to violent attacks and rapes.
A Single Drop’s Women WaterKeepers program works with women in the Philippines and seven countries in Africa to provide them with the technology expertise, business skills, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) education that will empower them to offer viable water services to their communities using sustainable practices. The technologies that we introduce can be implemented and built easily using indigenous resources and can be an opportunity for income-generation for the women. Technologies such as roof rain catchments and cement tanks to collect and store water, filters and solar cookers to purify water, among others. A Single Drop also helps the women to find seed funding to start their water service micro-businesses.
A Single Drop believes that when you take care of the women, you take care of the community. You can learn more about how to support the Women WaterKeeper’s program by logging onto www.ASingleDrop.org If you would like to contribute, your donation is tax-deductible. For more info, please send an email to gemma@asingledrop.org
May 5th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
[…] I had the pleasure of chatting with a Gemma Bulos, founder of A Single Drop and author of the guest post we ran on earth day. She’s a woman who has inspired many, both with her song, “We Rise,” and through […]