It is estimated that 3-5 million people die of water related disease - more than AIDS and cancer combined. Join us for a rare opportunity to meet two women who are visiting the Bay Area from East Africa, and hear from them first hand on how they are turning water burdens into economic opportunities for their communities.
As water stewards for their families, women and girls are disproportionately affected by the lack of clean water and sanitation. Because they are often in charge of procuring water… Show more for their families and communities, women have a much deeper relationship to this essential resource. Yet in many places around the world their knowledge and hard work is ignored when it comes to community decision-making around the provision of clean water and sanitation strategies. In fact, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization discovered that the 'exclusion of women in community water and sanitation projects is the cause of their high rate of failure."
The Global Women's Water Initiative i s changing that.
GWWI is training and building a cadre of women water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) specialists steeped in holistic set of technical and entrepreneurial skills to uplift themselves from poverty and create self-reliance. Women have the capacity to construct technologies, provide health education and make money by professionalizing their services. Women are being transformed from being the passive recipients of failed water projects to water providers and entrepreneurs.
Gemma Bulos, GWWI Director, Rose Wamalwa, GWWI Regional Coordinator from Kenya and Godliver Businge, GWWI Head Technology Trainer from Uganda will share the work they are doing in East Africa transforming women from being water bearers to water providers and social entrepreneurs. This will be Godliver's first visit to the United States and first talk for an intern ational audience. This will be an event you won't want to miss.
About Our Speakers:
Gemma Bulos is a multi award-winning social entrepreneur, water champion and musician. Currently, she is the Director of the Global Women's Water Initiative, training women to be technicians and entrepreneurs who are able to build clean water and sanitation solutions in their communities. For her body of work, she has received national and international awards from Echoing Green, Ernst Young, Schwab Foundation and the Stanford Social Entrepreneur Fellowship. Her water programs have also won the Tech Equality Award and Warriors of the UN Millennium Goals. She was recently recognized as one of the Most Influential Thought Leaders and Innovative Filipinas in the US as well as one of the Top 10 Water Solutions Trailblazers in the world by Reuters Alertnet. To date, Gemma's work has provided over 200,000 people with clean water in Asia and Africa.
Rose Wamalwa Kenya/Tanzania Regional Coordinator was hired by GWWI after her exemplary work as 2011 GWWI Fellow and has since taken over the responsibility of managing all the GWWI in-country logistics in Kenya and Tanzania. She was named one of the '8 African Water Women to Watch' by WASH Advocates alongside President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and President Joyce Banda of Malawi. She is currently an IREX Community Solutions Fellow.
Godliver Businge, Head Technology Trainer is a trained mason, welder, bricklayer and is a candidate for a Civil Engineering degree in Uganda. She received a scholarship from the Uganda Rural Development Trust to learn these construction skills. She has consistently been the top of her class in all her studies and is quite often, the only woman. She is an incredible trainer, admired by the Grassroots Teams for her ability to train women in a way that they can understand even with no background in construction. She was recently featured in Reuters trust.org as a Female Water Role Model.
Show less