By Joe Bass | Founder -President - Operation Safe Drinking Water
IT’S ALL ABOUT CHILDREN.
Saving them is our goal out in the indigenous islands of the
Bocas del Toro archipelago of Panama..
It's why we volunteer our time and work.
(We're an all volunteer charity. No one receives a salary
or compensation.)
Infants and the very young are the #1 victims of bad water in the remote
islands.. Their little bodies can't deal with the diseases from bad water -- diarrhea,
dysentery, anemia, intestinal worms.
Water from a polluted stream or contaminated well is often fatal.
They're so vulnerable, there's no margin for error. Their little lives are
snuffed out before they've had a chance.
But the good news is a month after villagers get access to water from
one of our rain catchment tanks the infant and young child death rates
drop to almost zero.
The village "box-makers" -- those who make burial coffins for the smallest children --
are under-employed or out of work.
The clean, safe water from our catchment tanks at indigenous schools
saves lives in the nearby villages, too. Mothers come daily for safe,
disease-free water for their youngest children.
An average of 120 students and 250 villagers get all their safe water from
one of our rain catchment tanks. A 600 gallon tank refills on average of once a
week in the tropical rains common to this area.
A single rain catchment tank can deliver 150,000 gallons of safe,
disease-free water during it's seven years useful life.
Each tank costs only $975 installed at a remote indigenous school or village.
No one should be dying for a drink of clean water.
Should they?
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