Are you concerned about the coming water crisis? Here’s an exciting opportunity to take awareness-raising and action to a new level. Water Hour, 8PM local time on June 11th is a moment in time for a celebration, a torrent of messages, an outburst of action for water! Water Hour takes a whole new approach: we must leave fear and guilt behind, reconnect with the awe and wonder of water in our lives, and create positive change from a positive place. It’s about falling in love with water, all over again. This event taps into the enormous power of social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Youtube, allowing us to join together across the globe to create something wonderful. You can participate right now.
Just go to www.waterhour.org and follow these steps:
READY,
Reconnect to your most amazing, touching, or hilarious experiences with water, and share your water moments on the website for a chance to win a beautiful framed print by photographer James Phillips.
SET,
Submit your ideas for how to mark the hour and declare that you care on June 11th , and vote up your favourites!
GO,
Take part in the top voted ideas during Water Hour or express yourself in your own way – just be sure to share your action or message with the world through the Water Hour social networks.
KEEP GOING,
Declare your commitment, large or small, on www.waterhour.org to protect water at home or in your community.
Category Archives: Do Something
Water Hour
Haiti
Water Story
SYNOPSIS
Water is crucial in maintaining our lives and society. Although people can survive without food for a month, they cannot survive for even a week without water. At times like when Katrina, the hurricane, swept across New Orleans, a great tsunami surged over Indonesia, and an earthquake hit Sichuan, what the survivors most waited for was water.
In January, 2010, an unexpected earthquake with a 7 degrees intensity hit Haiti, a small island country out in the Caribbean. The earthquake centered mainly in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, unfortunately the most highly populated city in Haiti. 200,000 people lost their lives. Government buildings, airports, and sea ports were destroyed. The government was virtually immobilized and this made it quite inconvenient when bringing in aid supplies. Countless people lost their families, homes, and everything else they had. The victims of this disaster did not have food to eat. Their injuries were not being treated. This time again, what the victims needed most was water.
Water can save people’s lives, but also kill lives. Since 1991 till 2000, 665,000 people lost their lives due to 2,557 natural disasters. 90 percent of these calamities were related to water.
The Haitians know that water is not just a “life-saver.” They have experienced the annual hurricanes that visit Haiti. Like this earthquake, the hurricanes have also caused great damage. In 2008, a hurricane swept across Haiti and left it practically in ruins. The survivors of the earthquake are already worrying about the damage this year’s hurricane will cause to the yet unrestored Haiti.
GOALS
Raise Awareness of the Importance of Water
Nothing will be able to exist without water. In each and every part of our lives and society, water is an essential matter. Civilizations developed, mainly centered around water. Where there was an abundant source of water, the lives of the people were abundant as well. Although water is a greatly crucial matter, not many people are aware of its importance.
Understand the Various Characteristics of Water
The earthquake that hit Haiti in January, 2010 provided people an opportunity to rethink about the importance of water. After the earthquake, people sought most after water to survive. The people of Haiti also are well aware of the cruel side of water. Hurricanes completely soaks Haiti every year as it passes by. We can understand more about water when we look into Haiti. Water is essential to maintain life, but life is sometimes also taken away by water.
Refocus on Haiti
The international society focused on Haiti after the devastating earthquake. However, as time passed by even the donations have started to slowly dwindle. We want to refocus on Haiti through the topic of water.
By refocusing on Haiti, which has gone through a disastrous calamity, we hope to once again catch the interest of the internatinoal society. We hope to be able to view Haiti with a new perspective and think of what kind of aid is needed and how it can be done.
Any partnership and sponsorship inquires mail to: friend@pursuitofwater.org
Haiti Job
The annual hurricanes that pass through its country let the world know about Haiti. What the world saw in Haiti was always an image of floods and pain.
In 2010, we saw another, a different suffering in Haiti. A densely populated city was hit by a violent earthquake. Haiti was devastated. 230,000 lives were lost; the survivors had to desperately hang on to their lives to survive. We saw Haiti in search for water.
In Haiti, lives were lost, but also saved through water. In the summer of 2010, we (the Pursuit of Water team) are off to Haiti to capture the Haiti Water Story in camera and share with everyone.
Republic of Haiti
Haiti is a country located in the West Indies. It was a French colony, but was the first black republic in Latin America to gain independence. It is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, due to continuous dictatorships. Most of the inhabitants are descendants of African slaves; the official languages are French and French-based Haitian Creole; the main religions are Catholic and African-based animistic Voodoo.
Three-fourth of the land is mountainous; the population is concentrated in the lower regions. Droughts and hurricanes occur frequently, causing much damage.
Haiti quake
How to Help
Tens of thousands of people were feared to have died after an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 devastated Haiti. Schools, hospitals and homes in Port-au-Prince collapsed, as did the parliament building and the headquarters of the United Nations mission. The Red Cross said a third of Haiti’s 9 million people would probably need emergency help. +Read more @The Economist
Haiti Earthquake Updates
You Can Do Something
Huffington Post Impact has launched a brand new way you can help the emergency efforts in Haiti. They team up with The U.S. Fund For UNICEF and International Medical Corps to update the online store with products you can purchase to benefit the recovery effort. On the store, you can purchase water purification tablets, emergency hygiene kits, protein biscuits and other items that will go directly to save lives in Haiti. +Read more @Causecast
Haiti Earthquake Relief: How You Can Help @Causecast
The American Red Cross, UNICEF, Yele Haiti (Wyclef Jean’s foundation), Operation USA, Save The Children, STILLERSTRONG, Partners In Health, Mercy Corps, Doctors Without Borders, Direct Relief, Oxfam, The UN World Food Programme, Baptist Haiti Mission, International Medical Corps, Catholic Relief Services, Earthquake Relief Fund, CARE
How to Help @KLTV
Mercy Ship, Compassion International, YWAM Tyler
A list of Charitable Organizations Active in US @MSNBC
First Newsletter
Happy New Year!
Our first newsletter! +view Subscribe our newsletter. +subscribe
We are waiting for creative partnership inquiries from our future partners.
Any partnership or sponsorship inquiries, mail to: friend@pursuitofwater.org
Thanks,
Serving Friends
South Korea’s Non Governmental Organization, Serving Friends International has given support to the Pursuit of Water.
Serving Friends International is a humanitarian, development provoking, non-profit organization affiliated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. They help serve people suffering from AIDS, poverty, and other hardships by practicing genuine love through emergency relief, life aid, and regional development.
Thanks,
Katrina in New Orleans
When Tim went to visit New Orleans last month, John Martindale guided him through the beautiful French Quarter to the Garden District and the swamp of the Lower Ninth Ward. Since Katrina, John has been mainly focused on relief work in the most damaged areas. It’s been four years since the devastating blows of Hurricane Katrina. Here is John’s story of New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina.
New Orleans was founded in 1711 and is loved for some of the best food in the world, its rich history and culture, wonderful hospitality, European architecture and jazz. It is also known for it’s brutal humidity, Bourbon St. immorality, drunkenness, homosexuality, Mardi Gras and wide-spread political corruption.
Parts of New Orleans are under sea level, so the city continues to sink making it especially vulnerable to hurricanes. After 40 years of the weather channel crying wolf almost every Hurricane season, the big one finally came.
Hurricane Katrina made land fall August 29th 2005. The city seemed to miss a bullet at first glance, for the storm turned and gave the worst of its fury to Mississippi. But the day following Katrina, under a clear blue sky, several levees broke and moments later 80% of the city was under water.
Over a 100,000 buildings flooded, 1,000s of New Orleanians were rescued from their roofs, many houses in the Lower 9th Ward (where the worst of the structural damage happened) were torn to pieces, several house were picked up and set upon cars.
Though the aftermath was horrible, God has a way of making beauty from the ashes and has lead 100s of 1000s of volunteers to come serve, making New Orleans no longer “The city that care forgot”. The Big Easy has seen the hands and feet of Christ. New Orleanians will tell you that “FEMA failed us, the government failed us, but the church groups are doing it, the church groups are rebuilding the city”.
Youth With A Mission (YWAM) has had a base in New Orleans since 1982. After Katrina the Lord provided the help for the YWAM properties to be restored and after that came the tools to gut out flooded houses and the people to do the work. 1000’s of volunteers have joined us and have had the honor of being a part of something God is doing.
Even after 4 years, there are still houses in need of gutting and of course the need for rebuilding is endless. Residents often used their insurance money to pay off their mortgage and were thus left with zero. So help is most deeply appreciated.
you can do something in New Orleans,
If you would like to volunteer in disaster relief with YWAM, either personally or with a team, please go to ywamneworleans.org for all details.
John
YWAM New Orleans
Growing
In March of 2009, I decided to make a film for raising awareness on water issues around the World. On starting this project I believed that all I would need would be a MacBook Pro, a good/handy video camera, some money and myself to make this film. I was wrong.
Yes, I am making a film about water, but you don’t just go out and start filming the first river you see. You need a lot of research done, accounting, organizing and more. So much was needed for the project and it just never seemed to stop coming. But the most important realization I had: I definitely needed a team.
It’s nearing the end of December 2009, and it has been 9 months since the birth of this project. I have been in the United States traveling to different cities connecting with people and organizations and also promoting the film project. I have had the opportunity of meeting people from the cities that I traveled in and it is awesome to say that the project is growing. It’s so encouraging and exciting. More people have volunteered and are willing to help with the project than I ever expected.
So far, 35 people from 15 countries (Germany, India, Lebanon, Madagascar, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Samoa, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States, and Venezuela) have made an impact on the Pursuit of Water project! Isn’t it amazing?
From now on, I don’t want to call it my project; it is OUR PROJECT!
p.s. and… there’s a space for you! volunteer + you can do something
Tim
Director of The Pursuit of Water
