HEALTH AND SANITATION
41
Promoting IWSH projects
and what slogan would you
use to do it?
IAPMO formed its new foundation — the International
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Foundation (IWSH) — to help
provide safe access to clean water and sanitation systems.
By Ankitha Doddanari Nalin Kumar
What profession constitutes as the paramount
defence for public health? Take a guess. It’s not
doctors or nurses. The World Health Organisation
(WHO) has declared plumbers the most important
front-line health workers around the globe.
The IWSH has truly taken this fact to the core of its
mission, improving plumbing facilities to elevate health
standards in underserved communities all over the
world. I would define the IWSH Foundation by the slogan,
“Service, Sanitation, and Sustainability in support of
global health”.
This slogan perfectly illustrates the multifaceted
approach, tailored to an individual community’s needs,
and is characteristic of IWSH projects.
Dedicated volunteers help improve sanitation by
designing and implementing better water and
wastewater facilities, thereby bettering the health of
people in impoverished areas. Children especially
benefit from such projects because they are much more
susceptible to disease-causing pathogens than adults.
Additionally, improvements to such systems in other
areas, specifically urban city environments, can help
reduce wastage and increase the sustainability of an
entire population.
In order to promote IWSH projects, I would focus on
outreach with community organisations and schools in
order to connect with students and educate them about
the importance of clean water systems while fundraising
and raising awareness.
Last summer, I was fortunate enough to intern with
the King County Wastewater Treatment Division.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
Through visits to all types of wastewater treatment
facilities, from self-sustaining urban towers to industrial
pump stations, I gained a greater understanding of
the behind-the-scenes work that makes our society
possible and how improvements to these systems can
make us more sustainable.
IWSH could create lessons that integrate with concepts
already taught in school, like the water cycle, and
distribute these to teachers. Local plumbers and
government wastewater treatment employees could
come in and teach as guest speakers.
IWSH’s sustainability efforts are vital for people in related
professions to learn more about. As the population of the
world increases at an exponential rate with increased
concentration in the cities, it is important for the citizens
and government to consider how they will provide
adequate water systems to their residents.
Water and wastewater systems are interconnected with
many industries, ranging from architecture to agriculture,
so it is important for them to collaborate when creating
solutions to these complex problems. IWSH conferences
like the Municipalika Smart and Sustainable Cities
International Exhibition and Conference on Smart and
Sustainable City Solutions, which includes people from
the construction, architecture, planning, and engineering
professions, could be televised and broadcast to people
all over the world to raise awareness about the work that
IWSH is doing internationally.
India is an especially important location for this work
because the country is experiencing a rapid urbanisation;
the urban population has grown from 286 million in
2001 to 377 million in 2011 and is expected to reach
Russ Chaney
In the spirit of the sharing
of unique experiences that
shape the plumbing industries
in our respective nations, the
following essay won first place
in IAPMO’s annual Scholarship
Essay Competition. First
introduced in 2009 and open
to all high school, university,
and trade school students,
the competition has elicited
entries from all over the world.
Written by Ankitha Doddanari
Nalin Kumar of the University
of California, Berkeley, it is
the next in a regular series of
similar articles that will run in
this magazine.
Continued on page 43 >>
November 2018 Volume 24 I Number 9