Norton Middle School starts collecting coins for clean water!

ACI has teamed up with Katie Spotz, endurance athlete and safe water advocate in an exciting campaign bring safe water to schools in Kenya.  Katie started  the Schools for Water campaign after spending a month with ACI in Kenya visiting some of the projects that had been funded through her previous rowing and biking adventures.   Katie and eleven schools in the Cleveland area are working together to make history through Schools for Water. Each school is raising enough coins to make a four mile line (which is the average distance children in Kenya walk each day for water).  With each school doing their part, we’re lining up the coins and attempting to break the world record for the longest line of coins, ultimately helping thousands of children gain access to safe water.  ACI staff in Kenya are hard at work selecting the schools that will benefit from this campaign.

Check back here for more details and be part of this exciting project by making a donation to Schools for Water!  100% of the funds raised will go directly to ACI projects at schools in Kenya.

One of the most valuable aspects of being part of PWX is the peer review process for funding proposals and project implementation. Each organization involved with PWX is responsible for reviewing a number of proposals from other organizations in each funding round. This process helps facilitate learning and collaboration within theWASH sector, while also helping to improve the programs of the organizations involved. The peer review process also helps funders to make more informed decisions about which projects to fund as they have already been vetted by experts.

PWX has also worked to simplify the project reporting process. Organizations post regular status reports online which shows the progress of a project while also adding to transparency. These reports allow organizations to easily report on what has happened in the project, what was learned, and how the donor money was spent. Finally the peer reviewers and parties involved in the process share and assess the long-term impact of a project. PWX is an active database that has frequently updated reports and is taking an innovative approach to tackling the scale of the water crisis worldwide.
Learn more about PWX at www.peerwater.org.

On July 1st, a dozen local leaders from the rural area of Rigoma (near Kisii in Kenya), met with ACI staff to officially donate a building to serve as the site of ACI's first H2Ope Center – a center of community support and training operations. This first center will have office space for ACI staff, lab space for the regular testing of purifiers, and a large classroom for the continual training of entrepreneurs as well as community health workers.

Though the building doesn't currently look like much, it is one of the largest and most solidly built in the rural area where most of ACI's entrepreneurs are working. Originally a government cash crop buying center, it has lain largely unused for years. The local officials present were happy to donate it to ACI's programs, being very pleased that ACI chooses to base itself in the rural areas rather than in city-centers, as they see many other rural development projects choosing.

While moving forward with its training center, ACI has continued to expand its partnerships in the area, including shared training promoting income generating projects applicable for the rural environment. In June, ACI partnered with African Development Initiatives (ADI) staff to conduct its first training in high-yield greenhouse and drip irrigation construction and management. Soon, ACI will be involved in the construction of simple, effective affordable latrines, as well as discounted rain water harvesting systems.

ZEELAND, MI- Darlene Vander Wilt wandered into downtown Zeeland Saturday morning looking for some entertainment for her sons.

What she got along with it was some powerful knowledge about a growing global problem.

The Vander Wilt family of Zeeland visited the Global-Local Water Festival in Heritage Square in Zeeland, where about a dozen nonprofits, whose collective goal is to provide clean water to undeveloped areas in the world, gathered to create awareness of the problem.

“I learned how many different parts of the world actually have trouble with clean water,” Vander Wilt said. “I knew a lot of people had trouble with water, but there is a lot more than I thought there were.”

Event organizer Dennis Nagelkirk said 80 percent of all the world's diseases stem from not having access to clean water, and dirty water kills more people each year than cancer, AIDS and warfare combined.

The festival, he said, was a fun and entertaining way to let people know the scope of the problem and also to show that there are several local organizations working to make a difference.

Along with several informational booths and demonstration of many types of water filtration, there were games for kids, food booths, craft stations and several live bands performed throughout the day.

“One of the reasons I felt compelled to do this is because 1.8 million children under the age of five die from diarrhea every year. That's just diarrhea. This problem is the biggest thing facing humanity right now,” Nagelkirk said. “This (festival) is a communications tool. It's to have a good time and it's also to let people know there are some great organizations in their backyard doing some amazing things around the world.”

Nakisha DeJong, the children's ministries director at Community Reformed Church in Zeeland, hosted a booth Saturday promoting the church's annual Water Walk, which raises money for WaterAid America. Several people learned about the walk for the first time, which DeJong said is exactly why the church wanted to be a part of the festival.

“It's amazing exposure. I'm most excited that organizations in Zeeland are getting together, working together and sharing resources together,” she said. “I think anything we can do to raise awareness of this issue around the world is a good thing.”

Vander Wilt enjoyed the venue through which the message was delivered.

“There was plenty (for the kids) to do. It was fun,” she said. “I hope they do it again next year.”

Gary Brower

CHARDON, Ohio. One of the country's largest producers of industrial sand has teamed up with a Holland-based foundation to supply 1,000 sand filters to villages in underdeveloped countries. The filters will provide safe drinking water, according to Fairmount Minerals Ltd. in Chardon, Ohio.

A Fairmount Minerals subsidiary, Standard Sand Co., is located in Grand Haven Township.

developing inexpensive systems to locally generate sustainable supplies of potable drinking water. The Aqua Clara water purification system cleans and disinfects polluted water that may come from rainfall, polluted ponds and unsanitary shallow wells without boiling to kill the pathogens. Fairmount and Aqua Clara developed the filters with the help of the engineering department of Hope College.

“In addition to providing clean water, our focus is on increasing industry in the region,” Aqua Clara Director Bob McDonald said. “We want to teach local business people to make the purifiers and sell them to support their families. Once people experience the difference clean water makes and value its importance, we're confident they will buy these units to use in their homes.”

Fairmount President Chuck Fowler said the program's first locally owned business involves the production and sale of family-sized filters and the installation of a large water filtration unit that serves a school complex in Kenya.

According to the World Health Organization and United Nation's Children's Fund, more than half of the world's population has access to safe drinking water for the first time in history, thanks in part to the use of sand filter technology that's actually more than a century old.

A leading producer of industrial sand, Fairmount employs more than 350 people at 18 mining and mineral processing plants in the United States and Canada.