Rajasthan, India

During my trips to India, I stay in a small town in northern Punjab. Visiting my grandparents abroad is one of the highlights of my life; however, every time I travel there, I experience water limitations.

The main experience that stands out during my India trips are the bucket showers — bucket showers in the middle of winter in a home without a central heating system.

I will never forget my experience in 2004, at my grandfather’s house. The shower room, separate from the bathroom, is located outside the main house. In the wintertime, it is impossible to take showers once the sun has set because it gets too cold. I remember having to switch on the hot water plug and waiting almost 30 minutes for the water to heat up. I only had two buckets for my shower, which, then, seemed so little to me.

Once I got in the shower room and pulled the string to switch on the lights, I wished I hadn’t. Mosquitos, or some kind of similar insect, lined the walls. I tiptoed to the water buckets. I thought, “Perhaps if I don’t make too much noise, they won’t bother me.”

The creatures didn’t bother me for the most part of my bucket shower. However, there were times I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and inadvertently screamed. My cousins found this quite amusing. They stood outside the door, laughing every time I made a noise.

It was an experience I will never forget… nor will my cousins.

When I went to India as a young child, I never thought about water as a human right. I simply dreaded the “bucket showers.” As soon as I got back to the states, I would take an extra long hot shower.

This time, however, I thought about it. I realized how much water I use daily in America and just how often I take it for granted.

In India, water doesn’t come pouring endlessly from shower-heads. The water is limited and, many times, contaminated. According to a New York Times article, half of the water supply in rural areas of India is “routinely contaminated with toxic bacteria.”

The bucket showers taught me to conserve water. I don’t need to leave the shower running for 30 minutes to get clean. I can do it in five, using one-third of the water.

When I returned to America, I started turning off the shower while shampooing and applying soap. Furthermore, I don’t think I could ever take hour-long, hot water baths knowing entire villages could use that amount of water to shower.

My visits to India always teach me valuable lessons about water. They teach me to appreciate and value water, something I took for granted for a very long time.

Saba Naseem studied journalism, Middle East Studies, Arabic, and French at the University of Arkansas. She has traveled to India, Morocco, and Jordan to visit family and as part of study abroad programs.

This is part of a DigDeep series following people who have firsthand experiences dealing with the human right to clean, accessible water.

Here’s a little video that (almost) blew up the Internet this week. In it, Nestlé Chairman (and former CEO) Peter Brabeck calls the idea of a right to water ‘extreme’ and seems to argue that the free market is the answer. 

Our Director, George McGraw, did a little digging (pun intended) and published an analysis on the Huffington Post today. What do Brabeck and Nestlé believe, and why does it matter? What’s the ‘right to water’ anyway? Read more to find out. 

Los Angeles, CA

DIGDEEP HQ is in the heart of Los Angeles - the city with the largest homeless population in the US. The infamous Skid Row is just blocks from our office - a place where nearly 50,000 men, women, and children struggle every day to find basic services like a clean source of water or the privacy of a bathroom. 

Whether it’s flowing from our faucets, swirling in our toilets, or filling up our bath tubs – most Americans take our easy access to water for granted. Not so for our homeless neighbors, who often face criminal or civil sanctions when they try to improvise necessary solutions.  

Last December, David Busch faced charges of public nuisance for improvising a restroom on a Venice sidewalk, using nothing more than a bucket of soapy water, a sponge and a tent for privacy. Fortunately, Busch was acquitted, but the problem remains: homeless Americans face one of the largest human rights challenges in the country. And few of us are paying any attention. 

This year, DIGDEEP is focused on bringing awareness of the water crisis home. In addition to our important work abroad, we’re pledging to work closely with at-risk communities in the US - like American Indians and the urban homeless - to find meaningful ways to defend their right to water.

Every American has a right to the water we need to live in dignity. Help DIGDEEP defend your human right to water by making a donation. We’ll put 100% of it to use in the field. 

Happy World Water Day from DIGDEEP HQ!

This is part of a series for World Water Day celebrating our global water access projects. Help DIGDEEP defend your right to water this March 22nd by visiting digdeepwater.org 

Kajo Keji, South Sudan

Almost 2 years ago we flew across the globe to celebrate independence for South Sudan. We met local beneficiaries, established friendships, and began an ambitious slate of field projects with our partner WHI that continue today.

In some parts of rural South Sudan, up to 70% of the population lacks access to a safe and reliable source of clean water. Water projects, like wells, are bringing much-needed health and opportunity to hundreds of communities, schools, and clinics every year. 

But there are still some marginalized groups that fall through the cracks.

Isaac Buk, for instance, is a criminal. Until recently Isaac, his guards, and his fellow inmates have not enjoyed access to clean water.

The right to water for prisoners is protected by many international treaties, including the Geneva Conventions and the European Charter of Human Rights. Without clean water, closed communities like prisons become breeding grounds for disease. Water also provides a unique security concern. Several prisoners have escaped from Yapa while collecting water in recent years. 

You can see the full report for the Yapa Prison well here.

DIGDEEP’s water projects recognize the needs of individuals like Isaac, who don’t fit the traditional charity model.  We believe that every person has a right to the clean water they need to live in dignity. Because no one – prisoner or free – deserves to be sentenced to a lifetime of illness.

This is part of a series for World Water Day celebrating our international water access projects. Help DIGDEEP defend your right to water this March 22nd by supporting our work at digdeepwater.org 

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. … Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Ever wonder what happens when you donate to DIGDEEP?

1. After we process your donation, we work with our partners to find the right community in our field sites (now: Sudan, South Sudan, Cameroon and New Mexico).

2. We select a project with a unique human rights challenge. Sometimes it’s a school or community without access to clean water. It might also be a prison, an orphanage or some other marginalized group.

3. We meet the community, as our partners plan project execution. DIGDEEP works through communities, not for them, and we require active participation every step of the way. 

4. Once a water project is complete, the work has only begun. We lead community-wide sanitation and hygiene education, establish long-term sustainability mechanisms like water councils, introduce human rights concepts, and assess any special needs.

5. DIGDEEP sends a field team twice a year from our LA headquarters to review projects. Our partners commit to monitoring installed projects for up to 5 years. 

6. We deliver a report to you - our donors - detailing the impact of your gift. Reports include data, pictures, personal stories, maps and a list of the donations that funded that specific project. 

You can view a sample report here. 

DIGDEEP takes a human-centered, rights-based approach to water poverty. Want to join us? You can learn more and donate online.

DIGDEEP

Celebrate your toilet. Over 2.5 billion people can’t get to one! #WTD2012

We’re moving into the production stage for our big Launch Party on October 19th. It’s only two weeks away, so grab tickets and you’ll enjoy gourmet food, open bar, music by Kingsley and awesome educational installations featuring DIGDEEP projects from around the world.

Best of all, your ticket will build a well in South Sudan - providing clean water to over 200 people!

RSVP here: http://digdeeplaunchparty.eventbrite.com

DIGDEEP!

Save the date.

On October 19th, DIGDEEP is (finally) hosting it’s launch party in DTLA… with music from Kingsley, interactive exhibits, silent auction, gourmet food and unlimited beer and wine. Tickets are only $40 and space is limited. So get it on your calendar now and log on to buy tickets. 

Funds raised will support water projects in South Sudan - our first field site. 

More details to be announced soon. 

A very happy 94th birthday to human rights defender Nelson Mandela!

DIGDEEP.

(Source: tobegreat)

DigDeep digs wells, but we also dig great films. (Since we’re in LA, we almost can’t help it.) That’s why we’re excited to support our friend Mukesh and his Silent Water Film. 

SWF is a brilliant short film on the water crisis. It turns it’s unique (black & white) eye toward water, corruption and daily life in rural South India. The film has a huge human rights element - provoking some serious thoughts about water access and payment processes in the developing world. 

If you’re in LA, you can see the movie at a free screening on June 21st.

So tell your assistant to pencil it in (or just save it to your google calendar.) The Charlie Chaplin in you will be so pleased. You can RSVP here.

DigDeep.

WHAT: Silent Water Screening

WHEN: Thursday, June 21. 7:30PM

WHERE: Woman’s Club of Hollywood  - 1749 La Brea Ave (@ Franklin)

DigDeep defends your human right to water. It’s a big job - involving education and awareness work, access projects, field visits, sanitation and hygiene training, meetings, blogging, face booking, party planning and a hulla-valot of coffee. 

And yet we still get this question, almost every day: “What do you mean, my human right to water.”

Well listen up.

First off, you have a human right to water. You have a right to the basic amount of water it takes for you to live with dignity… the water you require to experience your humanity in its fullest, most beautiful form. Your right to water may seem like an obvious thing, but how sensitive are you to it? How often do you think about water and its relationship to your daily life? How much water do you even use a day? 

Sometimes it’s easiest to understand our human rights when they’re not respected - when they’re not enjoyed. DigDeep’s work to bring clean water to people around the world (people just like you) helps each of us better understand this lesson.

But here’s a little newsflash. There are people rights here, in the US, who lack access to clean water. Worse, there are some American communities in danger of having their basic water access degraded or taken away.

These 5 Hotspots are on our Radar. They should be on yours too…

1. Las Cruses, NM - where officials warned residents last month that they can cut off their water service for unpaid traffic violations, citing municipal code;

2. San Joaquin Valley, CA - where nitrate contamination is off the charts, threatening the health of residents;

3. Andrews, TX - where the city has failed to lower arsenic levels in the drinking water… levels that have reached three times the legal limit. The city does not have the money to upgrade water treatment facilities;

4. Dimock, PA - where methane pollution has made local water unsafe to drink (a gas contamination story may also be developing in Illinois);

5. In Lowndes County, AL - where Algood Water Works (a water company) has taken advantage of a new anti-immigration law to threaten water cut offs for residents without a valid drivers license.

Well there you have it. Because you have a right to the water it takes to live in dignity - no matter where you live - it’s simply wrong for anyone to completely cut off your access to this life-giving resource. We’re working to identify and protect the human right to water in the US, and to bring relief to US communities without water access. 

DigDeep believes that US states need water management plans that incorporate human rights, that upgrade infrastructure, and that ensure full domestic water access while preventing contamination and over-extraction.

Join us. After all, its your human right we’re defending!

DigDeep.

Thanks to our friends at Food and Water Watch for this excellent May 9th report on the status of the Human Right to Water in the US. 

Photo credit. 

No this is not a basement distillery at DigDeep HQ (though what a great idea). In fact, it’s an exciting new experiment taking place at Columbia University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering.

DigDeep is in New York this week, and we decided to catch up with our friend Kartik Chandran, professor of applied science and a true water wizard.

Kartik and his students are investigating bio-mechanical processes to clean and reuse waste water - including urine and sludge. The plan is to find a natural, carbon-neutural way to change urban waste back into drinkable water, while harvesting components for bio-fuels. By better understanding the way microbial communities (or bacteria towns) behave, Kartik and his team hope to break otherwise harmful sewage down into something helpful.

It’s an ambitions goal - but one that could change urban water management forever. New processes like Kartik’s could help communities around the world better use their resources, protecting water access for basic human needs!

The tank full of pasta-like structures in the picture above is actually a bacterial bath full of millions of colonies. They’re breaking down synthetic urine into something more, well, drinkable. It’s a bit like water into wine, but backwards and with a step in-between. Kartik and his team are the first to devise a system that treats wastewater naturally, and without releasing potentially harmful greenhouse gasses like carbon and nitrous-oxide.

Check out Kartik’s bio here, and check back for updates on his progress. We hear the city of New York is about to invest in some of his technology. Rumors, rumors.

DigDeep.

Here’s a little photo from the field - a view of the Yamuna river from the Taj Mahal. The Yamuna is of ancient historical and religious significance, and the most important tributary of the Ganges. 

Unfortunately, the Yamuna is in danger from pollution and over extraction, threatening the lives that depend on it for subsistence. Delhi - an upriver neighbor to the Taj - dumps about 58% of its liquid sewage (some 1,102 million liters per day) into the Yamuna. Coupled with over-extraction, this causes the river to virtually dry in the Summer, becoming a muddy stream of sewage. Like Palm Spings and similar areas closer to LA, the Taj Mahal is sinking, as the water table depletes.

Delhi has committed to large scale construction projects to update sanitation infrastructure since 2009. There’s hope - but the result still seems inconclusive. 

DigDeep loves rivers, and we work to defend those who rely on river systems for their daily needs. Share the message: Clean water is a human right. 

DigDeep

DigDeep is in Kashmir this month, teaching a graduate course on water, conflict and human rights. It may seem odd that we’re here. After all, there’s plenty of water in Kashmir. But that’s just the problem: Kashmir is water-rich, and its water wealth is a quiet but essential part of a regional conflict here that’s lasted five decades.

For the Kashmir dispute, ‘the Indus runs through it.’

The Indus is one of the world’s most important river systems - home to the earliest human civilization and indispensable for agriculture and industry in North India and Pakistan. All five rivers of the Indus system (the Pubjab) originate in Kashmir. Since the 1960’s, India and Pakistan have managed to create a peaceful treaty system governing this tremendous resource, despite their failure to resolve the Kashmir dispute more generally. 

So why are we here?

Well, the future of Indus water peace is uncertain, with both Pakistan and India facing new resource constraints in their quest for irrigation and hydropower. With Pakistan approaching its “water barrier” (the per-capita amount of water its citizens require to live), the situation is especially sensitive for those who depend on the Indus to meet their daily needs.

DigDeep is sponsoring a class on the human right to water at the Islamic University of Science and Technology in Srinigar, the capital of Indian Kashmir. IUST is home to the Centre for International Peace and Conflict Studies, the only faculty of it’s kind in Kashmir - one of the most famous conflict zones in the world.

We’re working with Kashmiri Master’s students - the region’s best and brightest - to provide seminar-style training in conflict, transboundary water issues, and human rights. We hope to help these incredible young people think differently about water, and to equip them with the tools they need to protect basic human needs in this region, their home.

Whether we’re kicking off an awareness campaign in LA, drilling a well in South Sudan, or hosting a Masters level course in Kashmir, DigDeep is defending your human right to water. 

We’re happy to help.

DigDeep

P.S. Check back here for insights and updates. We’ll be keeping you posted from the field!

digdeepwater.org // facebook.com/digdeepwater // @digdeepH2O