Chairman Ron Denham of WASRAG addresses water

March 22 was World Water Day. Ron Denham, chair of the Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group, addresses Rotary’s commitment to water at an independently organized TED event.

 Ron is a member of the Rotary Club of Toronto Eglinton, Ontario and chair of the Water and Sanitation Rotarian Action Group.

A change is taking place in the way Rotarians approach water and sanitation programs.

We realize that the challenge of meeting the Millennium Development Goals is something that no organization can achieve on its own; not even Rotary with its 33,000 clubs and over 1.2 million members. To be successful we need leverage, the leverage that comes from collaboration with others who share our goals.

The most notable example of this is the International H2O Collaboration, an alliance between Rotary International and USAID. Rotary clubs in Ghana, the Dominican Republic, and the Philippines are working together to bring safe water and sanitation to hundreds of communities and schools.

There are many other examples, less publicized but equally effective. In Uganda, a very successful relationship between World Vision and the Rotary club of Gulu is improving the lives of up to 50,000 villagers through a joint bore-hole and behavior change program. The World Vision project leader says “having local Rotarians explain the importance of hygiene and handwashing is much more compelling than when presented by visiting experts from outside the country.”