We are raising $15,000 for WaterAid America to support clean water and sanitation initiatives in northern Nicaragua. Currently, two million people lack sanitation and 800,000 live without clean water in Nicaragua. We want to change this by empowering women and girls to become clean water leaders in their communities through vocational job training and microfinance opportunities.

Be part of the solution.
The women in the program receive job training to build latrines and rainwater catchment tanks, repair water wells and pumps, and educate families and schools about hygiene. This project helps break the cycle of poverty because women are able to lift communities up by providing access to essential clean water and sanitation.

Your donation will have a lasting impact.
$30 pays for 1 pit latrine for a family.
$50 pays for 1 rainwater harvesting tank.
$100 pays for two hand pumps for water wells.
$500 pays for latrine construction and maintenance services for one family.
$1,000 pays for water and sanitation vocational training for 30-40 young women.
$2,500 pays for three new water well installations and maintenance costs.
$5,000 pays for clean water and sanitation facilities at a school or health clinic, which includes vocational training, a water well and sanitation/hand washing facilities. This donation level impacts 250 people.

We cannot do this alone. We need your help.
Please consider donating to our $15,000 fundraiser on YouCaring, a crowdfunding platform. All donations will help empower women and girls through clean water initiatives in Nicaragua.

Time: 5:00-8:00pm
Location: 825 N. Capitol Avenue, Indianapolis, IN
Register on Eventbrite today!
Light hors d’oeuvres and drinks will be served. This event is free and open to the public.

Join Water for Empowerment for a community celebration of World Water Day with a children’s art exhibit and a sneak peek of a Nicaraguan art exhibit to be featured at our gala event on November 10, 2018.

Last Saturday, Indianapolis community members gathered to raise over $25K during the second annual Water for Empowerment (W4E) fundraising event. Volunteer board members, community activists, and local business leaders enjoyed a Latin-infused evening in the recently renovated headquarters of event sponsor and environmental consulting firm, EnviroForensics Environmental Consultants]. W4E will donate all proceeds to a WaterAid Initiative that supports a micro-enterprises project in northern Nicaragua, in an area called the Mosquito Coast.

W4E volunteer event organizers timed the fundraiser just days before the UN’s annual World Water Day, celebrated around the globe this week. In the weeks leading up to World Water Day, and as part of the organization’s continuing effort, W4E maintains a very specific mission: To raise awareness of the clean water global crisis while raising life-saving funds and donating environmental expertise.

Guests enjoyed Jazz Kitchen artists Pavel Polanco & Direct Contact, including Raul Padro on drums and conga. A vibrant Nicaraguan market opened the event where guests shopped on handmade accessories, home goods, and more. Indianapolis local businesses, Artisan Foodworks and Crossroads Vintners, provided dinner and dessert. The night closed with Latin Dancing and a Two Deep Brewery After Party with DJ Camaron Electronico. The event was held at 825 N. Capitol Avenue in the Central Business District in the new EnviroForensics mixed-use headquarters built by Platinum Sponsor of the evening, Brandt Construction. Gold sponsors include IceMiller LLC and EnvisionAir.

Water for Empowerment is in the second year of a three-year partnership with WaterAid America to raise $90,000 for the micro-enterprise project. The 2017 goal is to raise $30,000 to $50,000 with matching dollars available after $40,000; Thus, the organization is continuing to fundraise to meet and exceed this goal.

Board President and Co-Founder Dawn Sandoe remarks, “The event was a blast and we were able to raise awareness within our community and gather with individuals who share a passion for empowering women and contributing to positive solutions that address the clean water global crisis. We have more to raise and will continue to inspire our local community to think more globally in order to meet our goals and help women and their communities.”

Images from the event can be viewed on the Water for Empowerment Facebook Page.

The founders and volunteers of Water for Empowerment seek to raise funds for global clean water initiatives that work to eliminate water-borne illnesses, provide access to clean water, and empower girls and women as agents for change within the family and community. The organization, along with the world community, has found that providing girls and women with education and opportunities for advancement can save whole communities. Water for Empowerment is most specifically focused on fundraising efforts and water technology support for projects that provide education and training for girls.

Today, 800,000 Nicaraguans struggle to survive without clean water and 2 million still need adequate sanitation. The WaterAid micro-enterprises program trains young women, ages 16 to 30, in simple and effective clean water technologies, in addition to hygiene education, water filtration, hand pump repair, and construction of water wells, water catchment tanks, and latrines. Trained as entrepreneurs and crew chiefs, young women become empowered as change agents for their communities with transformative effects.

Sandoe comments, “As we continue in 2017, we will keep the message and momentum for change and innovation at the forefront of our efforts. We’ll draw special attention to promoting the United Nations’ seventeen goals to eradicate poverty by 2030—most specifically ‘Goal #6’, which aims to improve clean water access and sanitation.”

W4E, along with a number of impactful organizations, contends that clean water projects lead to a path to safety, education, and empowerment for girls. The responsibility of girls worldwide to walk miles every day to fetch water keeps them out of the educational cycle and devalues them for the entirety of their lives.”

To help us reach our goal, donate now!

You may have heard that the MDG’s — or 8 Millennium Development Goals — adopted in 2000 by the world community under UN leadership are being called the greatest anti-poverty success in history. This is based on a 50% decline in extreme poverty over the last 15 years as defined by those living on $1.25 a day or less. Sub-saharan Africa is improving faster than any other developing region. You can read the UN Report.

For the next 15 years, the world community is targeting new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are seen as the best for targeting resources and continuing the improvements over the next 15 years. Specifically, the 8 goals have been replaced by 17 goals. UN Sec’y General Ban Ki-moon believes that the original MDGs “have taught us how governments, business and civil society can work together to achieve transformational breakthroughs.”

During our founding, Water for Empowerment adopted the original eight goals, which included amongst other things, clean water access, women’s and maternal health, and improved education for girls. In the new seventeen goals, our mission of empowering women and girls to build healthy futures with clean water initiatives is reflective of at least a dozen. Please join us and support our current project/fundraiser.

Read a fact sheet like Rural Women and the Millenium Goals and what becomes immediately apparent is that rural women around the world are shut out of education and employment opportunities because they are burdened with reproductive and household work (which includes obtaining water and fuel). When considering how an organization can help empower women, consider their daily activities first. Women from Sub-Saharan Africa collectively spend about 40 billion hours a year collecting water, according to UN’s “Women Watch” which created the fact sheet and incorporates every available data in order to chart progress toward achieving the eight Millennium Development Goals .

Information from sources like the UN and World Health Organization provide meaningful background for charitable organizations when making decisions about how to help in developing countries. The more one reads, the more compelling women become in the fight to stop world poverty and hunger, which includes infant mortality.

The facts are astonishing: Women make up two-thirds of the 796 million people that are illiterate. They are more active in the unpaid agricultural labor force worldwide than men; both unpaid and paid women workers make up 43% of the world’s agricultural labor force. Rural women typically work longer hours in the field than men; though men are more likely to be paid then women, and paid higher wages. Yet it’s widely believed that for every dollar paid to a woman, the yield for the family is the equivalent of four dollars. (This is not true with men’s earnings which yields less). Agricultural responsibilities, along with childcare, and collecting water and fuel, keep girls out of classrooms and women from earning money the family needs.

Importantly, a key factor in the survival of children past the age of five is a mother’s education. Chances for survival increase when a mother has a primary education; however children in Latin America and the Caribbean region die 3.1 times more than those of mothers with secondary or higher educations. Therefore. the welfare of children is proportionately linked to the amount of education mothers receive. That’s why the need to educate women has become the single most important goal in the fight to eradicate world poverty and hunger. Half a million children die every year, 1400 die every day, from diarrhea caused by unsafe water.

Hygiene education and nutritional counseling are necessary components in the health education of women. Sixty million children are born into homes every year without safe sanitation. Pre-natal care for rural women has increased by 55 to 66 percent worldwide versus 84 to 89 percent for women in urban areas. The gap between levels of improvement becomes glaring in the details when rural women fall behind urban women in improvements in regard to HIV education. Of 25 million people living with HIV in Sub Saharan Africa, young women account for 64 percent of all HIV infections. Rural areas account for more generalized epidemics than urban areas. (This effects agricultural productivity two-fold as HIV caregivers are also mostly women). Progress is significant, however, with women’s use of antiretrovairal therapy; 53% of the 6.6 million people receiving that form of therapy are women.

As research continues to reinforce that clean water for hygiene, nutrition and healthcare is what sustains life, clean water access will continue to be a primary focus for empowering women and in achieving the eight Millennium Goals. Important to note: A striking gap exists between rural and urban areas; in 2008, 141 million people living in urban areas were still drinking from unimproved water sources while 743 million people in rural areas were drinking from unimproved sources. These are staggering numbers in regard to clean water and access. As the world community continues to chart the progress of women in all areas of education and employment, charitable organizations must consider access to clean water and education of women when developing and allocating resources.

Water for Empowerment has been evaluating a variety of technologies to bring safe drinking water to developing countries. The Puralytics technology has the potential to provide clean water in a simple, straight forward, and cost effective manner to many communities that currently do not have clean water infrastructure. It has further potential application in emergency situations.

Puralytics uses a basic titanium catalyst technology concept. Titanium, as a metal, can act as an effective chemical catalyst under the correct conditions. Puralytics has developed a patented and proprietary nano-particle titanium catalytic product that allows titanium to temporarily capture the energy of sunlight and transfer it to a chemical form, the hydroxyl radical that is very reactive with biological organisms, many organic chemicals, and many metals. Note: The hydroxyl radical is much more reactive than the hydroxyl ion, which is present in all water systems.

The hydroxyl radical is very short lived so a large surface area is necessary to generate a sufficiently robust catalysis process to remove contaminants in a reasonable (3-4 hours) time frame. The secret to the Puralytics process is the nano-particle material that creates relatively large quantities of reactive hydroxyl radicals. Imagine a titanium dust so fine you cannot see the particles under even a strong microscope. A 10 nanometer-titanium particle is on the order of 50-100 titanium atoms in diameter.

The hydroxyl radical reacts with anything that can be oxidized or reduced, including breaking most carbon-carbon bonds, the main bonds in all organic compounds. It will break down most organic compounds to carbon dioxide and water. It will vigorously attack cell surfaces and so it is particularly effective against “organized” organic substances like virus, bacteria, prions, etc. It will convert many, but not all, metals into stable or precipitated hydroxides or oxides. It does not alter dissolved stable salts such a sodium chloride or magnesium sulfate, meaning it will not convert saline or brackish water into fresh water.

Applicability:
The applicability of this technology is based on the following:

Its disadvantages are:

Water for Empowerment is eager to take this new technology and use it to empower local communities and local people to develop clean water systems to reduce disease, lower work time and effort (from hauling water), and support local business that depends on clean water.

Visit Puralytics YouTube Channel