– by our OSDW reporter
The facts of our work speak for themselves.
SIXTY-SEVEN rain catchment systems have been installed
See where they are on this map.
THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTY students and villagers get safe drinking water from each tank
– an average of 80 students and 250 villagers. Schools are centrally located.
Their tanks supply the entire community when school is not in session.
TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND desperate people have regular access to safe drinking water from OSDW’s tanks.
575 GALLONS fill an average tank.
We use a mix of 500-gallon and 600-gallon tanks.
38,525 GALLONS OF SAFE, DISEASE-FREE WATER are available to indigenous people when the tanks are full.
3 TO 4 HOURS of a tropical downpour will usually refill an empty tank
– depending on the length of the rain catchment guttering on the school roof.
ZERO $ — That’s the amount of salaries and compensation paid.
We’re all unpaid volunteers. Local villagers help install the tanks.
A LOOK AT THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE NUMBERS
ONE HUNDRED-PLUS volunteers have come to help install rain catchment tanks.
ON THEIR WAY! Below, an Iowa group heads for a distant island school.
Below, local school fathers and our volunteer work to install a two-tank rain catchment system
for this large school at La Gloria village, Bocas del Toro province, Panama.
We install two tanks at many schools to supply safe, disease-free water to both the schools and
surrounding village.
FamilIes fly down to install the tanks they donated.
One family said, “we came to change lives, and changed our own.”
Another said, “this trip has really brought us together as a family.“
CAUCHERO SCHOOL — The school principal – in blue – and OSDW volunteers celebrate
the installation of a rain catchment system at her school.
Below, students at CERRO BRUJO school, Bocas del Toro celebrate their new rain catchment tank.
The tank not only means safe water to drink, but clean, safe water for the school kitchen.
The days of missing school lunch due to lack of clean water are over.
Principals report large drops in absenteeism due to the better health of students.
THEIR SMILES SAY IT ALL
Children of Bahia Roja school beam at the news their two new tanks are ready.
Safe water means less diarrhea, skin infections and worms– common health
problems that often keep up to half the students out of school..
Many get discouraged and drop out.
A simple, low-cost rain catchment tank gives them a chance.
What it all boils down to — thousands of indigenous children having safe, disease-free water.
Joe says…”let’s look at a few more numbers…”
$25 will provide safe drinking water for 25 families.
$50 will give 50 families safe water.
$100 will ensure 150 families have disease-free water.
$975 will install a rain catchment tank in a school or village,
giving safe water for years to come.
Operation Safe Drinking Water, where the gift of life is given again and again — every time it rains
One last number – 23 villages are on our critical waiting list.
We’ve been to them.
The cost of waiting is high — in terms of disease and sickness.
We need the tanks on an urgent basis.
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