At the Amazon Water Project our
experience in the jungle and our relationships with the
people of the Amazon gives us something that can’t be found
anywhere else; we understand the culture and have long
standing and irrevocable relationships with the people
there.
Let me draw you a verbal picture; In
the Amazon there are literally hundreds of projects done by
well-meaning North Americans and Europeans. From sanitation,
solar power, clean water and construction; the outsiders
swopped in, installed some equipment, labored at a project,
took some photos and headed home. If you ask the local
villager who built it, they shrug their shoulders and can
only remember their Nationality. No one in the village has
any ownership in the project so when there is a problem no
one fixes it. These projects were someone else’s ideas that
were built by someone else and it belongs to someone else;
it’s not theirs. Most of these projects are artifacts of
good intentions, unserviceable and unused. That really makes
me wonder, how much of our money has been wasted doing good
deeds?
How are we different at The Amazon
Water Project?
·We have a permanent presence in
the areas that we work.
·Our organization is represented
by a staff of nationals that live in the areas they work.
·Staff hired within the villages
that we’re working do our projects.
·We train and leave the project in
the hands of the community leaders or the local church.
·We have local staff that monitor
the projects and check on its use.
·We have a registered ONG that
give us legal rights and responsibilities.
Did you know...
1.1 billion people lack access to an improved water supply -
approximately one in six people on earth.
2.6 billion people in the world lack access to improved
sanitation.
Less than 1% of the world's fresh water (or about 0.007% of
all water on earth) is readily accessible for direct human use.
A person can live weeks without food, but only days without
water.
A person needs 4 to 5 gallons of water per day to survive.
The average American individual uses 100 to 176 gallons of water
at home each day.
The average African family uses about 5 gallons of water each
day.
Millions of women and children spend several hours a day
collecting water from distant, often polluted sources.
Water systems fail at a rate of 50% or higher.
Every $1 spent on water and sanitation creates on average
another $8 in costs averted and productivity gained.
Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water live
on less $2 a day.
Poor people living in the slums often pay 5-10 times more for
per liter of water than wealthy people living in the same city.
Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a
water-related disease.
Approximately 443 million schools days are lost each year due to
water-related illness.
For children under age five, water-related
diseases are the leading cause of death.
Millions of women and children spend several
hours a day collecting water from distant, often polluted
sources.
At any given time, half of the world’s hospital
beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related
disease.
1.8 million children die each year from
diarrhea–4,900 deaths each day.
