One brick at a time

It’s all connected

You’ve heard us talk about the importance of the ‘One Brick at a Time’ project for the people of Bergnek. From an intellectual perspective it is easy to understand why this is so important. However, from an emotional perspective it is hard for us to imagine the loss of a family member due to the lack of water and simple medical services. I say this as we have access to both in our own circumstance and reality here in North America. When we think about water, what is it that comes to mind for you first? What do you associate water with in your everyday life?

For most, we think of quenching our thirst, washing ourselves, clothes and dishes, a swimming pool, or a water park, perhaps. The fact is we associate water with positive, social experiences.

Now let’s dig a bit deeper. Water sustains life, it is used to grow our food, to was our food, it is used to create electricity in lots of places. It is used and consumed in every aspect of our daily lives.

The current reality of Bergnek

In Bergnek, the thought of water creates stress, angst and fear. Why?

Well, the reality for the people of Bergnek is they don’t know from day to day if they will even have water. And if they don’t, then what are they to do about their children being thirsty or cooking the little food they have. So, the thought of water can mean thirst, hunger, pain and suffering, all things their children and themselves have experienced before and are afraid they might have to experience again, today and tomorrow. That is scary for anyone to have to go through.

In South Africa right now, the entire country is experiencing a sever drought to the point where major cities have even been without water for a few days at a time. This is creating fear for the people of the Bergnek community. Last week, in a call with members of the community, people where in tears as the two pumps we do have working in the community are being run a few days less, due to the water shortage. Isaac, the pump operator, says that he is afraid because the people think it is his fault. Fear create abnormal and irrational behavior and we are working as smartly as we can with what we have to keep the situation in check. We need your help.

So we are asking you to help us get the Bergnek Water Project underway sooner rather than later, by making a donation to the cause. We’ve already had to delay the project and know that the children, the people of Bergnek, can’t afford to have that happen any more. Please help us by supporting the project now. 

I wonder of we could survive in Bergnek? 

Please. Donate.

What will water enable the Bergnek Community to do?

For the residents of Bergnek, getting access to enough water to meet basic needs will have a direct impact on child development, nutrition and better health. As we work alongside the community to increase capacity, with your help, they will be able to grow more food and ultimately build more homes, a health clinic and a brick making factory. All of this will create employment on the community and literally save lives.

Let’s start 2016 with a huge effort and DONATE NOW!                  

The Bergnek community needs us to get this project done. We need a total of $5,000 to get the full funding released for the project.

GRATITUDE

Whatever you decide, please do it today! The girls, women and children we serve extend a warm smile and heartfelt ‘thank you’ for your support. We are all grateful for your support.

With our deepest Gratitude,

The My Arms Wide Open Family of Communities

Grateful for all I have in my life

I always love this time of year, as the world around us changes displaying the most brilliant and beautiful colours. Snow is coming for some of us and we're ready to trick and treat. Before we know it it will be thanksgiving, here in the US and on to the Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah, or simply the Holiday Season depending on your belief system. The one thing that seems to be common at this time of the year is the focus on family, friends and gratitude.

I am truly grateful to be in the circumstances I am in, here in North America.

The current reality of Bergnek

Currently the residents of the little community of Bergnek, in Limpopo South Africa have a water supply that provides them with approximately 5 litres (just over a gallon) of water per person, per day, to meet all their individual water needs each day.

During the month of December we are hoping to get new distribution piping and two new wells activated to increase the water supply to 15 litres (approx. 4 gallons) per person per day.

Let's put that in perspective; the average North American uses 176 Gallons of water per day = 666 litres of water per day. In fact, the EPA suggests it is even higher than that, providing a number of around 400 gallons a day for all of our needs.

I wonder of we could survive in Bergnek? 

How about making a new donation today?

We really want and the Bergnek community needs us to get this project going the first two weeks of December. We need a total of $5,000 to get the full funding released for the project.

What will water enable the Bergnek Community to do?

For the residents of Bergnek, getting access to enough water to meet basic needs will have a direct impact on child development, nutrition and better health. As we work alongside the community to increase capacity, with your help, they will be able to grow more food and ultimately build more homes, a health clinic and a brick making factory. All of this will create employment on the community and literally save lives.

Get your donation tax deduction for 2015 and DONATE NOW!

We really want and the Bergnek community needs us to get this project going the first two weeks of December. We need a total of $5,000 to get the full funding released for the project.

GRATITUDE

Whatever you decide, please do it today! The girls, women and children we serve extend a warm smile and heartfelt ‘thank you’ for your support. We are all grateful for your support.

With our deepest Gratitude,

The My Arms Wide Open Family of Communities

How you can help to dig a water distribution trench in Africa?

You might ask, 'How can I possibly help dig a trench a continent away?' What's this trench for anyway? The simple answer is you really can help by donating to the project to pay the community members to dig the trench.

What's the trench for? Well, the trench is to extend the water distribution system in the Bergnek community, taking them off the critical list and getting them to the WHO minimum recommended amount of 50 litres per person per day.

So will it be 'BLUE' or 'GREEN'? Make a donation today!

What does the project look like?

Pick a trench on the town map! You'll see the 'BLUE' or ‘GREEN' lines on the map we've included in this update of the trenches that need to be dug out for the new water distribution lines that we hope to start in September of this year, and then to complete this part of the project in October and November with the tremendous help and support of Engineers Without Borders, Houston Chapter. 

You may know, from our previous reports, that a lot of work has been done by the members of the Bergnek Community and its supporters to get us to this point. Now we are in the critical stages of the 1st phase of the 'One Brick at a Time' project. Without solving the core need for water, we can't go on to address sanitation, house building and an healthcare clinic,

There’s work to do and YOUR Contributions and DONATIONS MAKE the DIFFERENCE

You can support the My Arms Wide Open, ‘One Brick at a Time’ project and make a meaningful difference in the lives of the children and families we serve, by making a donation now or setting up a monthly recurring donation as well as sharing this report with your family and friends.

Please Donate Now!

We are grateful for your support. The women, men, girls and children of the My Arms Wide Open communities extend a warm smile and echo our gratitude for your support.

• A map view of the Bergnek Water Project (PDF)
  

What does it take to pull a project together and implement it successfully?

Establishing needs

The scope of the 'One Brick at a Time' project includes the research, analysis and implementation of identified needs around infrastructure development to support the community of Bergnek.

Drilling down into the core needs

Some of the biggest challenges the community faces and has clearly identified include water, sanitation, healthcare, food production and education.

What is the community saying?

The priorities established by the community members and the community council are focused on water and sanitation for the elderly, children and the general population.

The women in the community are quite jubilant about what is happening as there will be more water distribution points and the ability to get water on demand after the project is completed. This will be a first for the community of Bergnek.

Getting funding in place

Through our engagement process and once we know the extent of the core needs we begin raising additional funds to support community-approved initiatives. The funding comes from My Arms Wide Open volunteers, individual and corporate donors and grants. In most cases there is a formula as to where we raise the funds from and typically this is a requirement of a grant we may receive. In the case of the current Bergnek project to create a supply and distribution of 50 liters of water per day per person, we have received the support of Engineers Without Boarders, which we are truly grateful for. My Arms Wide Open acts as the sponsor of the project on behalf of the community and as such provides a level of funding. In addition to this we must raises 5% of the value of the project from outside and individual sources to support the project before we can proceed with full implementation of the first phase of the project.

What have we accomplished so far?

So far we have completed a number of site visits, and the site survey, assessment, analysis, and validation of the project. We have received approvals from Engineers Without Boarders for funding for the first phase of the project and they are now finalizing the plans for implementation of the project, scheduled for August 2015. We have come a long way over the past 12+ months.

To date this has taken quite some effort as well as funding to get the right professional resources into the community to do the assessments and the subsequent analysis. This has included third party resources to validate the data collected and the observations documented.

Next Steps?

We must now raise the 5% of the value of the project in order to proceed and need to raise a total of $7,500 for all three phases and the ultimate completion of the project. Each phase is broken down into $50,000 increments for a total of $150,000.

The implementation phase of the project is scheduled for August of 2015, which does not leave us much time.

Your Contributions and Donations DO make the Difference

You can support the My Arms Wide Open, One Brick at a Time project and make a meaningful difference in the lives of the girls, women and children that we serve, by making a donation now or setting up a monthly recurring donation as well as sharing this report with your family and friends.

Assessing the real needs in Bergnek

In November, we made a trip to Bergnek with 5 engineers from Engineers Without Borders to fully assess the Bergnek Community Water Project. The group arrived a week before me to survey the current distribution and well infrastructure in Bergnek. By the time I arrived, we were all ready to start what turned out to be a 5-day marathon of meetings.

We met with the City of Polokwane Water Board, the Mayor's office, the city Engineering department, the Bergnek council and headman as well as finally the Regional Chief.

A Marathon of Meetings

Once we had established the requirements and current situation we need buy-in from all parties to support the project and most importantly the ongoing needs for maintenance of the equipment going forward. Getting the agreement signed by all parties was a challenge and involved daily meetings from morning until night for five days to get the approval of the cities legal department on the terms of the contract and finally to get all parties to sign and ensure we had them sign in the correct order to meet local tribal traditions as well as policy as far as the City of Polokwane was concerned.

Success!

The good news is we literally got it all done within the last few hours before we had to return to the airport to catch flghts back to the United States.

Next Steps

The next steps in the project is to collect all available survey information and create the design specification for the Bergnek Community to be able to provide an on demand, safe water supply of approximately 50 litres of water per day per person. 

The implementation of the approved design is estimated to take place in August of 2015.

How we determined the volume of water needed to support the Bergnek Community Sustainabily

A number of our regular supporters and donors have asked us why this project is so important and so in addition to the update on our last visit at the end of 2014 we will also share the information with you as to why the My Arms Wide Open, One Brick at a Time project is so important to the community of Bergnek and communities who face similar circumstances.

Safe drinking water and adequate sanitation are crucial for poverty reduction, crucial for sustainable development and crucial for achieving any and every one of the Millennium Development Goals

                                                                                                                         Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General 

Could you do it?

Could you or I survive on less than 10 litres of water a day for all of our daily needs? The people of Bergnek have no choice; they have to survive on less than 10 litres a day.

Ensuring access to water and sanitation, as human rights constitute an important step towards making it a reality for everyone. It means that:

• Access to safe water and basic sanitation is a legal entitlement, rather than a commodity or service provided on a charitable basis;
• Achieving basic and improved levels of access should be accelerated;
• The “least served” are better targeted and therefore inequalities decreased;
• Communities and vulnerable groups will be empowered to take part in decision-making processes;
• The means and mechanisms available in the United Nations human rights system will be used to monitor the progress of nations in realizing the right to water and sanitation to hold governments accountable.

How is having sufficient water available for daily use defined by the UN and WHO?

The water supply and sanitation facility for each person must be continuous and sufficient for personal and domestic uses. These uses ordinarily include drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation and personal and household hygiene. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), between 50 and 100 litres of water per person per day are needed to ensure that most basic needs are met and few health concerns arise.

Most of the people categorized as lacking access to clean water use about 5 litres a day-one tenth of the average daily amount used in rich countries to flush toilets. UNDP

Most people need at least 2 litres of safe water per capita per day for food preparation. WHO

The basic requirement of drinking water for a lactating woman engaged in even moderate physical activity is 7.5 litres a day. UNDP

Some of the information we’ve presented here has been taken from the UN’s, The Human Right to Water and Sanitation, Media Brief

Your Contributions and Donations DO make the Difference

You can support the My Arms Wide Open, One Brick at a Time project and make a meaningful difference in the lives of the girls, women and children that we serve, by making a donation now or setting up a monthly recurring donation as well as sharing this report with your family and friends.

Please Donate Now! 

We are grateful for your support. The women, girls and children of the My Arms Wide Open communities extend a warm smile and echo our gratitude and thanks.