By our OSDW reporter

Indigenous schools on the islands are opening soon and

many have no safe drinking water — or clean

water in the school kitchens to cook the daily lunch.

Background - We install a rain-catchment tank for safe drinking water at an indigenous school in urgent need of it.

AND NOW THEY HAVE SAFE DRINKING WATER. Our tanks refill every time it rains, which it often does, providing indigenous schools and villages with safe, clean water. The tanks are simple, easy-to-maintain, last for years -- and have only one moving part -- the faucet.

17 MORE SCHOOLS ARE IN URGENT NEED OF SAFE WATER NOW — BEFORE THE KIDS START SCHOOL IN A FEW WEEKS.

You, your group, chuch or social club can provide a tank f or a school for $900.  We’ll put your name on the tank and send full details of the school, location and number of students. Your gift of any amount will make a difference for indigenous children.

You’re always welcome to come and meet those whose lives you’ve changed for the better.

We’re in a race against time. Schools are opening soon.

Please help today.

Donate

( Operation Safe Drinking Water is a 501 (c) (3)volunteer charity. No one receives a salary. We live among the people we help.

by Our OSDW Reporter

Go with us to a cut-off and rarely-visited group of indigenous people in desperate need of safe drinking water.

“You can’t get there from here,” we were told. And that was true, by land. Access is only by a long and risky open boat trip on the open ocean.

You load up the boat the day before and make sure it’s brimming  full with fuel. There’s no place to get fuel where we’re going.  You wake up long before dawn, get food and water for the day and wait for enough light to see the marker buoys to let you get out of the harbor.   You take off in near-darkness and meet up with the second boat — two go together for safety in the open seas.

The second boat carries volunteers who have helped donate the water tank for Punta Nispero and who are coming along to help.

You and your “buddy boat” head past one island after another, until you are past all islands of the archipelago and in the open seas.  You press on in the ocean swells until you come to Punta Valiente, where OSDW has installed rain catchment systems for 4 schools.

But you don’t pull into the sheltered water this time.  You keep going  into the open seas  headed to  place rarely visited by outsiders – Punta Nispero. The lead boat skillfully guides you through reefs and into the calm harbor where dozens of people wait for you.   Local men eagerly pitch in and help unload the ladders, the wood for the base of the water tank, the long PVC tubes which make the rain-catchment gutters – and start  hauling them up the steep steps to the school.

Then a man far from his Iowa home — Ken Eide – an OSDW volunteer, takes charge and puts OSDW staff and local volunteers to work on the rain-catchment system.  The guttering is installed. Then a  problem comes up.  The water flows the wrong way.  Shims are laboriously put in to raise a part of the guttering to feed the water to the end of the gutter and into the waiting tank below.

The work in the sun is hot and difficult, but in the end is worthwhile.

The school  of more than a hundred students and the  village of some 300 people have a rain-catchment system that is simple, easy-to –maintain, has only one moving part – the faucet, and will last for years.  Best of all, it’ll refill every time it rains.

Schoolchilden and villagers of isolated Punta Nispero in front of their school's new rain-catchment system installed by Operation Safe Drinking Water and its partners. No more carrying buckets of water from a polluted well. There will be fewer sick kids and less absenteeism. The question is--- why should indigenous children be sick from bad water where it rains a lot?

Everyone senses it’s a new days for the kids and people of Punta Nispero.  But there’s no time for celebrating.  Time is passing and we have to shove off to get safely out of the open seas and back among the familiar islands before dark.

Another day for Operation Safe Drinking Water. Another school and village has safe drinking water.  But there was nothing normal about this venture into the open seas to a distant, remote, rarely-visited people.

We thank the donors who not only gave, but went along to help install their tank.

But other schools are opening soon with no safe drinking water.

Please open your heart to indigenous kids who need safe drinking water just as much as your own kids.

Donate

Operation Safe Drinking Water is a 501 (c) (3) charity. We’re all volunteers. No one receives a salary or compensation.

By our OSDW reporter

Those are the questions we asked when we heard about Tiger Island and the indigenous people living there.  We were told their school urgently needed safe drinking water, so we needed to go.

We poured over charts of the Bocas Archipelago off the coast of Panama and found it was on the “backside” of Popa Island, itself relatively unknown. It was hidden behind dangerous reefs.

This was no place for first-time visitors, so we went with a local guide to steer our boat through the reefs which can cripple a boat in no time.

“Raise the motor,” he frequently ordered as we passed over reefs coming up from the deep.

With his help we finally made it —and are glad we did.

We found a school in urgent need of a rain-catchment tank to provide safe water.  We found a medical clinic with a devoted doctor who had no water. (He had to leave his patients to carry water in a bucket from a distance.)

On the way to Tiger Island. This time, no guide. We're on our own.

That’s the kind of challenge we of OPERATION SAFE DRINKING WATER exist for –remote, hard to get to, among indigenous people, with a school in need of safe drinking water.

We did a survey, determined what was needed, loaded up our boat — and headed back to Tiger Island, this time on our own with no guide. Fortunately, the sun was out which made it easier to see the reefs and dodge them.

Our OSDW team landed and went to work.

Water hole in the foreground, Tiger Island school in the background. They desperately needed safe drinking water. So do many other indigenous schools.

The first job we tackled was installing a water tank for the school.

Off the boat and onto the school roof -- installing the rain-catchment guttering

Ken Eide of OSDW completes the school tank installation. It will refill every time it rains. Tanks are simple, have only one moving part, last for years --and refill often.

Now we install a rain-catchment system for the doctor who had no water for his clinic.

The doctor-without-water welcomes Joe Bass of OSDW and his new rain-catchment tank.

School is starting soon for thousands of indigenous childrren. Many will go back to schools without rain-catchment systems.  Most indigenous children have worms from bad water, which cause anemia, dysentary, and “invisible” malnutrition — so-called because while they look healthy, they suffer sever under-nourishment.

Worms can be easily treated, but if the kids go back to drinking bad water, they’ll get them again.

Help indigenous children get well — and stay well– with safe drinking water.

Indigenous schools reopen in March.

Donate a water tank for a school before the kids go back.

Donate

OSDW is a 501 (c) (3) all-volunteer charity.  No one receives a salary or compensation.

By our OSDW reporter

Safe water prevents disease.

But what do you do when people are already sick from polluted water?

80% of all disease in developing countries is from contaminated water, according to a UN report.

Most indigenous children have worms from bad drinking water.

Worms cause anemia, dysentery and “invisible” malnutrition – so called because while children look healthy, they are lacking needed nutrition.

This causes kids to miss school or drop out, perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty among indigenous people.

Our volunteer team attended more than 300 men, women and mostly children. Most had worms or easily-treatable health problems.

Team works to save a baby.

Health starts with safe drinking water.  It’s essential to a healthy life.

In all the islands where OSDW has ins

Safe water prevents diseease. Our rain-catchment systems drastically reduce the rate of sickness.

talled rain-catchment systems for the school and community the people can get well and stay well with safe drinking water.

Many indigenous schools and villages now have safe drinking water, thanks to donors to Operation Safe Drinking Water.  But many more still have only polluted water to drink.

One mother said, “I know I am poisoning my own children with this water, but it’s all I have.”

Why should indigenous children have their lives cut short from bad water where it rains a lot?

Rain catchment systems are the answer. They’re simple, easy to maintain, last for years – and refill every time it rains.

You, your friends, family or church can sponsor your own tank for a community and school for $700. (Donors are welcome to come down and help install the tanks they donate.  You’ll get a rousing welcome from the school and community.)

Your donation of any amount will provide safe drinking water for indigenous schools and villages.

Donate

(Operation Safe Drinking Water is a 501 c 3 nonprofit charity.  We’re all volunteers. No one receives a salary.)

Volunteers came to change lives and they

changed their own.

They donated water tanks and came to help install them. In doing so, they changed more than  the lives or indigenous people. They changed their own lives.

GREGG:  COLLEGE ADMINISTRATOR —”VERY FULFILLING. LIKE NO OTHER EXPERIENCE  I’VE EVER HAD.”

Gregg worked alongside his son, McKinley, age 13.

McKinley (left) and Olivia with Indian girl. They helped install a rain-catchment tank for the school at Valle de Agua.

STEVE, A BUILDER SAID, ‘” it WAS LIFE-CHANGING AND   REWARDING. I’LL NEVER BE THE SAME”

Builder Steve, came along with his daughter, age 13.

OLIVIA, AGE 13, SAID,  ” I TAKE BACK MEMORIES OF A LIFETIME.”

Olivia and her father worked side by side to bring safe drinking water to indigenous children.

KEITH, A DAIRY FARMER FROM IOWA, SAID,  ” THIS WAS AN INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE.. I RECOMMEND IT TO EVERYONE.”

An Iowa dairy farmer not only helped donate a rain-catchment tank, he went down to install it at an indigenous school.

ONE OF MANY SCHOOLS WHICH RECEIVED RAIN-CATCHMENT SYSTEMS FROM THESE VOLUNEERS — THE INDIGENOUS SCHOOL AT BAHIA AZUL ON THE PENINSULA VALIENTE, PANAMA

They provided safe drinking water for an indigenous school of almost 400 students.

Why not share safe drinking water by installing a rain-catchment tank for an indienous school without clean water?   We welcome you to come down and help install the tank you donate.

This group did, and it changed many lives, including their own.

Groups consist of families, chuch groups, civic groups — or just friends– who want to make a difference and do hands-on work to change lives.

COME CHANGE LIVES — INCLUDING YOUR OWN.

LIVE ON A TROPICAL ISLAND, SEE THE LIVES OF INDIGENOUS VILLAGERS, EXPERIENCE WHAT IT MEANS TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Contact us at opsafewater@gmail.com

Most days Rosa paddles 3 hours in search of clean water for her family. A simple rain-catchment tank will change their lives.

Click here to provide safe, clean water for indigenous schools that have only polluted water.

Donate

By our OSDW reporter –

“Not just another year,” Joe Bass of OSDW says, but “a year in which every child will have safe, clean water.”

How is this possible?  Because, as the song says raindrops do keep falling.

But instead of forming polluted, disease-bearing puddles kids drink from our rain-catchment tanks will provide safe water with the kids and feed it into school kitchens where their lunches are cooked  and dishes washed – often with water from unclean sources.

“Schools should be where kids go to learn, not to go and get sick from bad water,” Joe said.

Every school tries to give their kids safe water, of course, but it’s often just not available. Kids run, play, get hot and drink whatever water there is, often becoming sick from worms which leads to anemia, dysentery and malnutrition.

Once they get sick and fall behind in school many give up, perpetuating the iron grip of poverty from generation to generation.

Our tanks are simple, easy-to-maintain, have only one moving part –-the faucet—last for years — and refill every time it rains.

Jan 1, 2010 started off with a rainstorm which refilled every tank in this chain of indigenous islands.  Thousands of indigenous people woke up on Jan 1 to full tanks and clean, safe water.

Those who donated those tanks didn’t know it, but they gave again last night as their tanks refilled.

Glen, Robin and Claire came all the way from Iowa to install the tank they donated.

Ready to provide safe drinking water for schoolkids and the school kitchen.

New Year’s Resolution —resolve this year to bring safe drinking water to indigenous children who have none.  You gift of only $10 will help provide a tank for a school.  Your donation of $600 will install a complete rain-catchment system for an indigenous school.

Why not get a group of friends together to donate your own tank?  Even come and help install it.  Visiting donors are always welcome to help install the tank they donated.

Pic Michelle and Ken

As Michelle, a Peace Corp volunteer in a local community wrote:

“Please know that your  efforts to better the lives of others do not go unnoticed, but are appreciated daily by the community at Buena Esperanza as well as myself … I’m glad I was able to be part of it.”

Be part of it this year.

Thank you,

Donate

Her mother brought this fever-ridden sick child for help. "She drank sick water" the mother said.

Years of safe drinking water for this indigenous school and community

Please help.

www.OperationSafeDrinkingwater.org

Donate

Volunteers from OSDW and Peace Corps team up to make a difference.

By an OSDW reporter

Polluted water is a tragedy for poor indigenous families.

Children get worms, which leads to anemia, dysentery and malnutrition, which causes absenteeism from school, or even dropping out — which, in turn, perpetuates the cycle of poverty and hunger they’re trapped in.

Their children may become one of 4,000 children who die each day from bad water.

Medical treatment doesn’t work if children have to go back to drinking bad water, which is often all they have.

Recycling rainwater is the answer.

–   The question that launched Operation Safe Drinking Water –

Why should children have their lives cut short due to bad drinking water where it rains a lot?

Look at the story of just one indigenous school – Buena Esperanza on an island in Panama. OSDW teamed up with Michelle Aguilar, a US PeaceCorps volunteer there, to bring safe drinking waterto kids there.

Ken of OSDW and Michelle of the Peace Corps find teamwork gets the job done. Indigenous kids will now have safe drinking water.

Michelle later wrote:

“Thank you again for the time and supplies you donated to the school at Buena Esperanza so the kids can have clean drinking water.”

The tank has arrived at a distant island-school. Volunteers carry it up the hill to the school, where it will mean safe water for kids. Our tanks are simple, easy to maintain, last for years ...and refill every time it rains.

This is a call for more volunteers:  to come and help;  to donate;  to buy a rain-catchment tank so the most vulnerable children can get well – and stay well..

Rain-catchment tanks loaded and ready to be taken to schools in need of safe water.

Could you get by without safe drinking water?

No.  None of us could.

Neither can indigenous children.

A rain-catchment tank you help provide could make the difference.

Donate

Come recycle rain for safe drinking water, help indigenous peoples, travel with a purpose and have an adventure — all in one.

Those are the reasons volunteers come to our base in a chain of indigenous islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama.

Tommy and Jenna, a young couple volunteered before their wedding, to “give back” some of what they felt life had given them.  They helped buy and install this tank so chidren have safe drinking water..

Tommy and Jenna, soon to be married, volunteered their time to help buy this tank and install it.

They said, “we came to change their lives and changed our own.”

Tommy and Jen are now happily married, but their shared experience of helping indigenous people remains a key point in their lives.

Tommy and Jenna pitched in and helped install the tank they donated.

Tommy and Jen are now happily married, but their shared experience of helping indigenous people remains a key point in their lives.

Tom and Jenna. Their time as volunteers to help indigenous people remains a high point of their lives. We hear they're coming back again --- as husband and wife,

Do something different in 2010.

Volunteer.

Share a little of your time and a lot of your heart

To find out how, go to http://www.opwater.org and check out our Volunteer page.

Even if you can’t volunteer like Tommy and Jenna you can help donate a rain-catchment tank for an indigenous school.

Thank you.

Donate

Angela’s only 6 … but she’s already drinking herself to death.

Angela , age 6.

One drop of this polluted water and she can get diarrhea, hepatitis, worms, dysentery or cholera.

Rosy is already sick.

Rosy is aleady sick.

Most child deaths and illnesses can be prevented by safe water from a simple rain catchment tank.

Our tanks are simple, easy-to- maintain, have only one moving part, last for years — and refill every time it rains.

Why should kids have to drink polluted water where it rains a lot?

Donate