Health for Families in Rural Honduras

by Nick Forgrave | Oct 11, 2019 | Our Work

We are glad to already be seeing impact from our project in partnership with ChildFund International in Honduras. Our goal was to provide filters to a predominantly agricultural community that relies upon water from a mountain river.

Families were drinking water directly from pipes that fed river water into their homes, not knowing the water wasn’t safe to drink and exposing them to water-borne illnesses. This is a typical hurdle in our clean water projects. We must not only provide the tools necessary for people to have clean water, but also help people understand the health affects of the clean water.

With this need in mind, we partnered with ChildFund on a project to help hundreds of families gain access to clean water. This partnership was in coordination with the Honduran Government health service, who was working to identify families at high risk of exposure to water-borne illness through drinking water. In order to make this project happen, funds were used from Kohler’s annual “Run For Clarity” fundraising event.

In addition to providing Kohler Clarity water filters, this project also focused on educating families who received the filters to enable them to utilize the filters properly, ensuring years of access to clean and potable water. It was all part of a multi-phase project that seeks to identify families with the highest need for water filters, educate on the proper and safe use of the filters, and distribute of filters that meet the goal of helping 300 families in the region.

As a result of the work done ranging from the Kohler “Run For Clarity” fundraising event in Wisconsin to implementation work in Honduras, 273 families now use water filters to provide clean water to their family.

Even though implementation was relatively recent, within the first month of use the local health center reported zero patients with gastrointestinal diseases. This shows just how important these projects are for the families in need of education and resources so that they can live healthier lives by drinking clean water for years to come.

From Idaho to Botswana: Educators Empowering Educators

by Nick Forgrave | Jun 7, 2019 | Our Work

The work of an elementary school is so fundamentally important in helping to develop and educate young minds. One Idaho school teacher decided to take her curriculum a step further then just the usual book learning.

Tricia Poppy of Longfellow Elementary was teaching a unit on Botswana in her third grade class but felt that teaching the unit in class shouldn’t be the end of it. While doing research on Botswana she came across an already established project Connect for Water had going on with a preschool in Botswana. Ms. Poppy reached out to Connect For Water and wanted to champion a project, raising funds at her school for filters.

She understood the impact that could be made and the education benefit from learning about a country and then getting her students engaged with problems that a classroom in Botswana would face, like not having clean water, which can be taken for granted in the U.S.

Because of this project, 20 filters are now providing clean water to classrooms at the Kgomodiatshaba Primary School. The class in Idaho was able to raise $500 which was matched by the school and then used to purchase the filters which are now used in the individual classrooms at the primary school providing clean water for the school kids.

There is so much power in such a seemingly small fundraiser that all it took was one teacher wanting to deepen the impact that her students would have while learning about another country. So she decides to make a difference in the lives of school kids and educators in a school in Botswana.

She not only made an impact on the lives of kids in Botswana, but the lives of kids in her Idaho community where her students had the ability to learn and connect with a problem and find a solution that helps the Botswana school kids in the long term.