Save the Date - Sep 22 - Fifth OU Water Symposium

The fifth biennial WaTER Symposium will be held on Thursday, September 22, 6:45 - 9:00 pm, on the OU campus in Norman, OK. This Symposium will include a dinner, brief addresses by our distinguished jurors, and the International Water Prize Award Ceremony. The event is free and open to the public.

Participants at the 2015 OU International Water Conference visit during the poster session.

The International Water Prize is awardee to a person who does outstanding work in the field of water, sanitation and health (WaSH).

The goal of the University of Oklahoma WaTER Center is to promote peace by advancing health, education and economic development through sustainable water and sanitation solutions for impoverished regions.  The Center seeks to be a premier academic leader in responding to water-related UN Sustainable Development Goals through four focused activities: education, research, outreach, and international leadership. As part of this last activity, we offer a biennial WaTER Symposium (Water Technologies for Emerging Regions) which features an invited set of some of the world's top researchers and practitioners in the field of water and sanitation. These speakers form a jury of judges who will together select the next awardee for the OU International Water Prize. That Prize winner will be announced as a highlight of the Symposium.

Peter Lochery, 2015 International Water Prize winner, accepts his award from OU Senior Vice President and Provost, Kyle Harper.

This Symposium will be of great interest to all people - students, scientists, practitioners, and the general public - who believe that people across the planet deserve to have sustainable sources of clean water and adequate sanitation in order to safeguard their health.

In order to attend the event and banquet dinner, pre-registration is necessary. Register now by going here.

Service-Learning Course Begun in Uganda

Students and faculty from five academic disciplines embarked on a new adventure in June. They spent the entire month in northern Uganda in the first installment of an annual interdisciplinary, service-learning course. The primary objectives of the course were to engage with all pertinent stakeholders connected with Saint Monica's Tailoring School for Girls in Gulu, Uganda, and its smaller sister orphanages. The students spent much of the first week in formal interviews and informal interactions with orphaned girls, Catholic sisters, rural villagers, technicians and business owners. The discussions this first year focused mostly around practices and challenges associated with water and sanitation.

OU students and faculty form a frame around our beloved Sr. Rosemary Nyirumbe, Catholic nun and humanitarian, who watches over the many children in her orphanages in northern Uganda.

Students came from the disciplines of engineering, business, architecture, city and regional planning, and education. After five days of interviewing at five different sites - both rural and urban - students processed and organized their data using "grounded theory" methodologies. In this way, they could uncover cause-and-effect connections regarding water and sanitation needs. The education students helped develop a curriculum of instruction for adult learners in Gulu.

Students learn "grounded theory" techniques to process and organize the data collected from interviewers with hundreds of stakeholders - orphan girls, Catholic sisters, villagers, technicians, and business owners.

Engineering student, Kensi Brown, measures the height of the water outlet pipe at a storage tank.

Dr. Jim Chamberlain, OU WaTER Center Co-Director for Education and Outreach, traveled with the students and saw the transformations that many of them experienced on this first trip. "Students noticed how few choices were available to rural villagers and to orphans. There were limited choices on clothes to wear, food to eat, ways to spend their time. What a difference between life in Uganda and life in the U.S. where we can often define ourselves by our choices."

Students visit a rural borehole well in northern Uganda.

The needs are so great, and the time in country is so limited. One student felt frustrated that we could not do more: "One of the (orphan) girls we interviewed said that candida was rampant by the end of the term because so many people have to share toilets, and they often ran out of medicine to treat it. This was really hard to hear. The students were desperate for more toilets, saying that even pit latrines would do.... I feel pretty useless not helping such a large number of students with an issue they feel so strongly about." If all goes as planned, there will be another cohort of students and faculty back again next year, and the next year, and the year after that. Perhaps . . . one by one . . . and in cooperation with others . . . all of the challenges may one day be met. 

An OU student plays soccer with children in Saint Monica's Orphanage - Atiak, Uganda.

Nudge Handwashing Project Wins First Place

First place in the Civil Society Innovation Award at the WASH Futures Conference in Brisbane, Australia was awarded to a handwashing project designed and implemented by Save the Children, WaTER Center Assistant Director Dr. Robert Dreibelbis at the the University of Oklahoma, and the University at Buffalo, This project makes use of nudges - environmental cues that spark quick, unconscious decision-making, by connecting latrines to handwashing stations via paved pathways painted with bright colors, footprints and handprints, subtly guiding students to a handwashing station. The feasibility for nudge-based interventions was assessed in a pilot in 2014 of nudges in two schools in rural Bangladesh, showing an overall increase of 64% in handwashing among primary school students after a toileting event. The nudge path concept is currently under further study in a cluster-randomized trial to assess the longer term sustainability of the intervention as well as the behavioral impact of nudges compared to a traditional education-focused handwashing and hygiene promotion program, the results of which will be available in the fall of 2016.

WaTER Center Representatives Present at Local School

Local school children welcomed representatives from the OU WaTER Center this past January to learn more about the world’s water crisis. Students from Terra Verde Discovery School of Norman listened to the Director of the WaTER Center, Dr. David Sabatini, as he identified opportunities and ways in which the WaTER Center works towards finding solutions to water issues in developing countries.  He was accompanied by staff member Cindy Vitt Murphy, who spoke to the awareness and importance of clean water, sanitation and hygiene in our world, and Dean Huffine, engineering student and president of Sooners Without Borders, who outlined in detail opportunities for international service projects in these impoverished countries available to students of the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Sabatini addresses the Terra Verde students about the WaTER Center

Sooners Without Borders President Dean Huffine tells about engineering experiences in developing regions

The Terra Verde students’ interest in global water issues began through reading the book A Long Walk to Water, which inspired the students to learn more about the need for clean water.  Since that time, they have visited water treatment plants, learned about local pollution problems, researched companies providing water solutions, experienced gathering and filtering their own murky water, and began projects to raise money for those less fortunate, all the while, developing a sense of empathy and understanding. 

29 lbs of can tabs were collected for Sister Rosemary's vocational school in Uganda

During the visit from the WaTER Center, the students presented Dr. Sabatini with nearly 30 lbs of can tabs which are used by a vocational school in Uganda run by longtime WaTER Center friend Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe.  They also had hands on experience with what it is like to carry 40 lbs of water. Notes sent to the WaTER Center after the presentation, clearly revealed sincere student interest and desire to learn and become more involved in solutions to this most important global issue.  We look forward to learning more about the activities of these young students and budding problem solvers and philanthropists. 
 

Students experience what it's like to carry 40 lbs of water, the average amount carried by women in Africa