Willy, I am so glad you have posted this. The conference is a wonderful idea. It will raise awareness globally about the need for clean water. The planning is off to a great start! Thanks for all of your work!

That is awesome, Willy! We're behind you, Dr. Dickson Ssenoga and Rural Health Care Foundation all the way! Great job!

thanks phyllis and Liz, globally millions of people need clean safe water we need to find simple innovative solutions to prevent water borne diarrhea illinesses for the world

http://www.stopwdi.net/water.ppt

This can summarize the stats for everyone

Good work on the conference and thank you so much for alerting me to this. Google.org recently launched a blog and this post by Alix Zwane links to two research articles which examine the effectiveness of spring protection and community water supplies on reducing diarrheal illness. Lots of good information about approaches that really work. The reports are discouraging in the sense that the problem is harder to solve than we all wish. Still rigorous research is quite useful for decisions about allocating time and money.

Thanks for your post, John! Happy to be with the CLEAN WATER FOR THE WORLD team.(CWFW).

Welcome, John, It's good to have you here and to have our team reassembling again! I like our new name, the CLEAN WATER FOR THE WORLD TEAM.

Hello Willi and the CWFW Team,

I think the conference is a very good idea - it provides a focus and something to be working towards.

A few initial thoughts:

• it usually helps to have a very clear idea of what the end product (I mean the conference, not a world without unclean water!) would ideally look like

• how many participants (registration until the date before the conference suggests the answer is as many a possible)?
• is the precise venue decided? (flexibility vs. focus)
• how many and what kind of organisations will take part?
• is the list of discussion areas on the stopwdi website definitive or suggestive?
• Are some issues/approaches less welcome than others?
• is the conference a goal in itself or a springboard to further collaborative action?
• do we know yet what that further collaborative action might be?

• Can the World Water Day on 22nd March, 2008 be used as a useful interim date for recruiting support for the conference?
• Are there compelling reasons for the submission date for conference papers to be so soon (less than three months away)? If so, I think we may need to snap into action very quickly to publicise this, especially as we are now into academic vacation time.

Well done, Willi, for proposing this!

Good luck, everyone, with this exciting collaborative venture!

Dear CWFW Team thanks for the good ideas,

2008 is an international year of sanitation it wiil also boost our conference

David thanks for the the good comments, ithink we need another thread in the wdi group to focus on planning we need more advises

we have two venues wil be choosing the best, and its true we need to publicise the conference

This is definitely a conference to watch because of its importance especially in the great lakes region of Africa. During my stay in South Sudan, the issue of access to clean safe water emerged as one of the concerns of the local people. At least 50% of people seeking medical attention were suffering from water borne or water washed diseases. It remains a big challenge for rural communities and more so those facing conflict. There is need for issues of water and sanitation to be discussed at length with the aim of reaching solutions. I commend the organizers of this gathering and hope that the resolution reached will have far reaching positive change to those affected.

Hooray for the CWFW team! Time to make t-shirts for all the participants. There are MANY who want to go now both O-netters and non-Onetters. (Of course we will encourage the non-Onetters to join O-Net!;)

David, excellent post, my friend! We can always rely on you to help us hone things in. And with a big smile, I was nodding to each one of your questions. ;)We can all discuss each one.

Eric, welcome and thanks! We can surely learn from your perspectives. The CWFW concept dovetails with the most emergent causes in our world. The conference will not only raise awareness and create a critical mass of people who want to stop wdi but is a call to action for all.

Willy, wonderful start! I think it is best to do most of our dialogue in this thread for now to get the names of all those who want to be on the CWFW team. Love to all!

This is wonderful Willy and the entire team. Thanks David for raising those fundamental issues. I hope that the objectives and desired achievements of the conference will more particularly be spelt out.

I am looking forward to hearing more on the successes and progress of the preparations for this conference.

It is crucial!

Welcome aboard and thanks, Richard! Looking forward to more of your posts here.

I think this time, it will be great to post ideas and photos of our vision and solutions for the water problems. A looking forward approach. We have already addressed and reiterated many times over the problems and now we would like to engage people towards the solutions. Including the visuals of solutions. Many good things have happened since the Water team was started late last year.

Great plan and looking forward to attend. There is need for great mobilization for partcipants. I would suggest that you extend special invitations to the government decision makers and those responsible to extend social services to the people both in the urban and rural areas. Some of the people I would suggest suitable for invitation to attend are officers from the ministry of water and environment, at least to send a representative. It would be great if urban water officers and district water officers in all the districts of Uganda are invited! I believe if we can have all these people present at the conference much will be attained and these government officials will make supply of clean water a priority in their respective areas of authority.

thank you frieda and all the cwfw team for the good comments which has insipired me, yaeh its wonderful start and GOd bless us to finish it in a more wonderful way,

we will be inviting officers from the ministry of water lands and Environment

looking forward to recieve more guidance

I am new to this project and having been following this thread closely.

The conference will bring together many organizations that can work together to remove the threat of WDI. I understand the need for public awareness and getting the various governments involved in resolving this deadly issue.

I also know that through bringing awareness that it will be a great opportunity for raising funds to find solutions.

For myself, I am an individual not representing an organization, so my focus in presenting a solution.

I do have a couple of questions in regards to providing filtration systems in the highest risk areas.

Since there are many more experienced people on this subject, can anyone clarify the best filtration system in order to help a community?

Is there a web site connected to this topic that does provide the opportunity to assist in purchasing parts for the most reliable filtration system?

Is it possible to have a breakdown of the equipment and list it some where that it's attached to this discussion?

I would be helpful to list the equipment in a way that those that wish to assist in funding have choices according to their financial capability?

thanks Alexandria for such a good comment, Last year Rural Health Care Foundation Recieved a water purifier which was donated by WDI Team from New life international which is Used to purify unclean water in the rural villages, i will be sending the contact email for New Life International, and we have also other local methods which are not expensive to make the water safe for the Rural people to drink, we construct and protect wells like spring tanks, shallow wells etc

its also a great idea to recieve more types of filters to help us to fight WDI in the world

i will be arraging and sending you more details on filtration & protection of water

thanks Alexandria

Hi Willy,

That's really great, I'm still in the learning process but I feel this project is essential and can save so many lives.

I appreciate Liz, Marissa and Phyllis for sharing this thread with me. I feel together we can make a difference!

I'll watch for your information.

Great things will happen at this conference and it's one step closer to eliminating WDI.

Thank you Willy

Hi team,

great vibes, great work

hope to see you soon

Ashis

Freida Aniru Namukasa said:

Great plan and looking forward to attend. There is need for great mobilization for partcipants. I would suggest that you extend special invitations to the government decision makers and those responsible to extend social services to the people both in the urban and rural areas. Some of the people I would suggest suitable for invitation to attend are officers from the ministry of water and environment, at least to send a representative. It would be great if urban water officers and district water officers in all the districts of Uganda are invited! I believe if we can have all these people present at the conference much will be attained and these government officials will make supply of clean water a priority in their respective areas of authority.

Dear Freida and Willy,

I appreciate plans to have this relevant conference, I have gone through the concept and wholeheartedly think that it will have a postive impact.

I however have mixed fillings about Freidas post, while its a good idea to have those Goverment officials involved, and while I don't disaprove their paticipation ,I would be happy if they pray a peripheral role in our conference, we dont need to rely on them to make our world better, I have horrible expriences about their being involved officialy for they end politicising the whole event which in most cases negatively impacts on the long term objectives of the project.

In Tanzania which happens to be my second home, communities have always mobilised with less support from Government, Im not going personal my sister Frieda, but Its my oppinion that our Goverment's especially in the developing world have always failed us!!!!!

I witnessed a successful water project in birth place of Ntungamo in Feb this year - its locally called Rwecunda in my traditional language, perhaps Willy you might have heard about the Ntungamo Project , Its a community supported health water project, If I happen to make it for the conference, I will be more than happy to share more succesful examples that I have seen in other subsaharan African countries with less from their corrupt Government's.

Best wishes always and please keep "hope" alive

Comrade

Welcome to the thread Alexandria, Freida, Comrade and Ashis!

I believe we can put an integrative circle around all our thoughts about the conference. Looking forward to great ideas! We have a year and that can go by so quickly as we all know. Let us remember that the idea is to create a critical mass of bringing global attention to a problem that requires emergent response. Our aggregate thinking will propel actions that will make good things happen for many, that I have no doubt.

Perhaps we can also make a list of the people who are interested in going as that can certainly motivate more to go.

Love to all!

Hi Comrade Karekoona, I understand you expression and your opinion is worth agreat thought,though when these government officers are invited,they will know their stand i.e. called to participate and not to use the conference to request for votes or turn it political, though being decision makers we should expect great contributions from them in this conference. The main aim of having them present is to cause awareness to them and also reach fruitful conclusions on their side as service providers. Though to avoid making the conference apolitical arena for these officers, at the very beginning the focus of the conference can be emphasised to the participants. Of great importance to note the water officers we are planning to invite for the conference are not really politicians per say but technical officers who may have a serious interest in water issues. We could also consider inviting representatives from National water and sewerage cooperation. Thinking about the topics to be handled, I feel it would be great if there is a link in the presentation of these two topics i.e. supply of safe clean water sources and environmental sanitation! because the later to a great extent has been responsible water contamination. There is need to under stand that,not paying great attention to enviromental sanitation then attaining safe clean water sources worldwide may take decades!

Hi Freida,

This continues to be a learning process for me and I would like to have a better understanding of the solutions presented for environmental sanitation.

Can you or someone on this forum share the environmental sanitation solutions and what it would take to remove the source of water contamination?

Thank you.....Alexandria

Freida Aniru Namukasa said:

..... supply of safe clean water sources and environmental sanitation! because the later to a great extent has been responsible water contamination. There is need to under stand that,not paying great attention to enviromental sanitation then attaining safe clean water sources worldwide may take decades!

Liz, I am very much interested and if I can make arrangements for my animals...it would be a life moving change to be a part of the team.