World Water Day
Posted by Tony Gilmore
While the United Nations designates 22 March as World Water Day, Rotarians worldwide are focused on the issue throughout the year. They volunteer their time and resources to provide safe water and sanitation to communities wherever there is need.
F. Ronald Denham, general coordinator for the 2007-08 Water Resource Group, estimates clubs are involved in at least 6,000 projects in several countries, all aimed at addressing the lack of access to safe water and sanitation that claims more than two million lives each year, a majority of them children. Denham, member of the Rotary Club of Toronto Eglinton, Canada, says Rotary is committed to help achieve the UN Millennium Development Goal that calls for a 50 percent reduction by 2015 in the number of people with insufficient access to safe water and sanitation.
"This is an enormous challenge for humanity, and Rotary clubs are logical leaders in the challenge because they are embedded in their local communities, allowing the clubs to help define realistic solutions to local problems," says Denham, who also heads the Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group (WASRAG). "Rotary clubs also can draw on the global resources of a worldwide organization (many projects receive funding from The Rotary Foundation) and form alliances with other groups and nongovernmental organizations to implement the most appropriate solutions."
Excerpted from Rotary.org
"This is an enormous challenge for humanity, and Rotary clubs are logical leaders in the challenge because they are embedded in their local communities, allowing the clubs to help define realistic solutions to local problems," says Denham, who also heads the Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group (WASRAG). "Rotary clubs also can draw on the global resources of a worldwide organization (many projects receive funding from The Rotary Foundation) and form alliances with other groups and nongovernmental organizations to implement the most appropriate solutions."
Excerpted from Rotary.org