Primates Aren't The Only Things There's A Shortage Of In Africa

There's also a shortage of clean water. Friend of the blog Melissa Rowley is working to fix that.

She writes:

When I see photographs of children in developing countries, I ponder what my life would have been like had I not been adopted. My being here, here and now, and not roaming the streets of Korea or ending up as a sex trafficking tragedy, is more than a coincidence. It's a miracle. The longer I live the more certain I am that I was put on this planet to help those who need compassion, care, and a call to action to help them help themselves.

...the women who are mothers and nurturers in impoverished nations must be equipped with the proper resources. They need economic opportunities... For the love of all that is good and sound in this world, they need an education and clean drinking water, as do all the members of their community!

Two years ago, I met an inspiring couple devoted to providing all the aforementioned necessities to those in need. John and Stacey Travis, founders of the LA-based clean water initiative Drop in the Bucket, laser their energy and fire into empowering and educating people in post conflict regions of southern Sudan and northern Uganda, areas decimated by more than two decades of war. In these parts, where there is very little infrastructure, a lack of clean water can literally mean the difference between life and death. Drop in the Bucket focuses on well construction at schools because the group has found that school enrollment increases dramatically once the facility has a safe source of clean water. The volunteer-based organization is currently setting up village savings and loans initiatives that lend money to women so that they can have a chance to make money and empower themselves.

If you go and vote for Melissa's post, she could win an opportunity to join the appropriately named Dr. Greg Allgood on a clean water expedition to Africa and a $15,000 donation to her favorite charity tackling water issues: Drop in the Bucket.

How to vote: click here and read Melissa's post. Enter your email into the widget at the top of the page, and click "vote for this blogger." You'll receive an email with a verification link. That's it. (Note: I did this several days ago and have received no spam since, but of course I can't guarantee it.)

More like this

As many of you know, I am raising money and volunteer time for charity by shaving my head. Yes, I'm nervous about it, and yes, I'm definitely going to do it once we get 100 donors. If you'd like to donate, some fantastic charities that I can recommend are: Heifer International: providing livestock…
So, you may or may not recall that last week, Matt Nisbet posted about a study purporting to show that religious people were more generous in their charitable giving than atheists. One of his commenters opted to go for the "sour grapes" response, claiming that religious charities were all stupid,…
I believe that most of my readers are very environmentally-conscious people. After all, how could you stand reading the ravings of a clearly tree-and-animal-hugging girl like me unless you had a soft spot for things that are green. So you all might like to know about a brand new, volunteer-based…
The Council of Science Editors has organized 235 journals from 37 countries are publishing more than 750 articles on poverty and human development this week. For its theme issue, PLoS Medicine asked a variety of commentators from around the world to name the single intervention that they think…

Done!

It's interesting that school enrollment increases after the school gets a source of clean water. I've also read that installation of gender-segregated toilet facilities decreases the rate of girls dropping out of school once they reach puberty.

Liz @1
Also provision of washable sanitary pads, and facilities (either at home or at school) to launder them.

By stripey_cat (not verified) on 17 Aug 2010 #permalink

I'm not so sure there's a shortage of primates anywhere on the planet. The shortage is more a shortage of the right sort of primates, or indeed any sort of primate other than humans.