I met Iverson for the first time at Star of Hope's school in Taytay, Philippines two years ago. A lively happy boy with a twinkle in his eye. He is a good student with several prestigious awards despite his young age. He lives simply with his family in a slum but they make the best of it. Even so, he has made ??a good start in life, thanks to Star of Hope.

A young boy with ambitions goals in the short and long term. I hope to keep in touch with him to see how it goes in the future. Some pictures below of him plus a video that I made 2010.

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dsvgzeS-ro&

Access to clean drinking water and sanitation - still the most important factor for development. Those countries with large portions of population that lack access to safe water and sanitation show slower economic growth than those have it. Unsafe water and sanitation is the cause of one tenth of all cases of sickness globally.

Urban populations have increased by 53 per cent since 1990, but access to urban sanitation grew by only 2 per cent. This cause big problems when countries and cities are not prepared for these fast pace changes. A poorly developed country, like Haiti, is a good example for that. Access to clean drinking water and sanitation are far and beyond even in the national capital Port-au-Prince.

At the seven schools and the children home sponsored by Star of Hope we always tried to supply clean drinking water. At all projects we have now increased the efforts for this very important issue. At all the projects we work the children, staff and villagers now have access to safe drinking water, but further improvements might be needed.

The need for safe water in Haiti has been extra important since the cholera outbreak in October 2010. With still many new cases of cholera two years later, there is a big risk that this will increase further after that tropical storm Isaac passed over Haiti over the weekend. There is also a major risk for other waterborne diseases. Is Haiti prepared for another outbreak?

At the time of writing the over all damages seems less than when Hurricane Thomas passed over Haiti in 2010 and left 20 people dead. However, some of the Star of Hope projects and schools are affected. Details are sketchy for me; at least a couple schools lost their roof. And many families close to other schools live in very poor houses and have moved in to the schools. Lets hope that damages are limited.   

Resolutions adopted by the United Nations in 2010 and 2011 recognize access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right. While several nations have implemented this right and worked proactively to increase water and sanitation coverage, some nations
still have chosen not to recognize this right.

But who is to pay for water and sanitation supply?

In 2002, World Leaders committed to the eight Millennium Development Goals, Goal 7 of which is “to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people with sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation”. The world is on track to meet the drinking water target, but at current levels of progress will miss the sanitation target by 700 million people. 

The sanitation and health story is usually told in numbers, and most of the news is not good. 884 million people – about half of who live in Asia – still rely on drinking water from unimproved sources such as ponds, streams, irrigation canals and unprotected dug wells. 2.5 billion (two in five) lack access to safe sanitation. 3.6 million people die each year from water-related diseases, 43 per cent of which are due to diarrhea. Most, 98 percent, are from developing countries and 3 million of which are children under fourteen. 5 000 children under age 5 are killed every day by diarrhea alone.

Star of Hope has improved the water issues at various projects around the world. In one of the poorest countries in the world, Haiti, Star of Hope has dug wells, built water reservoirs, and so on to improve the water security level for some 3 000 sponsored kids and their families. But we want to do more. More has to be done and we all have to it together. 

New water-related disaster in the Philippines. New water-related disaster in Haiti. At the time of writing we don't know how difficult Haiti is hit. But the little I learned so far several Star of Hope projects are affected in one way or another. Now we keep our fingers crossed that nothing really have happend.

Your gift is needed more than ever. You can donate here on the website.

I will in the next few days blog and tweet about water in general and what it means in various Star of Hope projects around the world.

Some facts about water: 97% of all water on Earth is salt water. 3% is fresh water, 70% of it is frozen in the polar ends.

Less than 1% of the world's fresh water is available for humans.

In the left column you can read about KSN news and see the TV report they did on Star of Hope, that was great for us to get the word out as our goal is to help the people who are marginalized and just don't have any resources to speak of.    

The article from the Great Bend Tribune is here and thus no blogging is needed from me.

However please take a moment and see if you might spare 10 or 20 dollars a month to make a real impact on a poor family; men women and children.

Mark Presson

Having lived in Kansas now for one year I have learned a small bit about agriculture and livestock. One thing I realized is that most people on this globe have no idea how this industry works; I am talking about how grain comes to be Ritz crackers or corn to Cornflakes and of course how a magnificent black Angus steak gets on my BBQ grill. (By the way that’s a good place for it too.)

I have not looked at industry statics or read the farmers journal I have just been observant and listened to the farmers when they talk about their fields and such; that is a rare thing in itself, farmers rarely talk about yields.

Shriveled wheat

Not seen in Central Kansas this year

When I arrived in August last year Central Kansas looked like something from what I imagine the dust bowl must have looked like or something from Stephen Kings Gunslinger series. Burnt auburn crops and dead grass everywhere, it mattered not if it was wheat, rye, corn or even private houses front yards, it was almost like the color green was outlawed and was subsequently nowhere to be found.

I learned then (last year) about the drought and the effects were spoken of: feed, food, ethanol prices would spike and even surplus crops would be affected, for example US government aid donations to poverty and disaster stricken nations would fall. Farmers would be the biggest losers even if they had crop insurance.

Fast forward to this year and the situation is even worse. Crops have shriveled and dried up. Fields with production worthy of going to market have produced low bushel figures per acre, and again the warnings have come.

The drought in the USA is real and I have heard if it had been any other country it would be the catalyst for an appeal to other nations. But it seems the US will be able to absorb another pitiful year in agricultural production, of course there must be many family farmers who are facing personal disasters; will we hear of them or not, who is to say.

Farmers tend to do different things with their failed crops and I presume that has to do with their own disposition and of course insurance. We passed a field this morning in Barton County Kansas and saw the cattle had been let loose in the stunted corn field. That must be like a kid in a candy store for the cows and a visual reminder of another failed year for the farmer. I do care and I am empathetic but I was wondering too how long until that beautiful Angus would take to wind up on my grill.

This post is a result of the fact that Star of Hope has in the past received generous gifts from farmers who have had a normal or good year and it goes without saying that in a drought we do not receive these gifts. This means we cannot help as many children or produce the outcomes we hoped for, yes hoped for.

There is not a point to this post I just wanted to share some observations, I would like to motivate you to support your local farmers and if you are able sponsor a child.

Have a great day

Mark Presson