Unity Water: Drop by drop, we can…
In briefAI summary — tap to read
Sarah van Heerden, founder and CEO of Unity Water, presents innovative solutions to address water scarcity in developing countries, particularly focusing on how lack of clean water access disproportionately affects women and girls. Unity Water uses technology and GIS mapping to deploy scalable water solutions in Africa and has also provided emergency water assistance during natural disasters like hurricanes in North Carolina.
Key takeaways
- Water scarcity forces women and girls in underdeveloped regions to spend excessive time traveling long distances to fetch water, preventing them from pursuing education, training, and economic opportunities.
- Unity Water deploys innovative, practical solutions designed to reduce water collection time and enable sustainable community development in remote areas.
- Unity Water uses GIS technology and story maps to create transparency in how donations are spent and to document the impact on individual communities and families.
- Unity Water's solutions have proven effective not only in Africa but also in responding to water crises in developed nations, such as providing emergency water access after Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.
About Sarah van HeerdenSarah van Heerden is the founder and CEO of Unity Water, a South Africa-based organization deploying innovative water solutions to address scarcity and improve lives in developing regions.
AI-generated from the meeting recording — AI can make mistakes, so check the recording for anything important.
MEETING FOR THE WEEK OF Dec. 9, 2024
This Meeting at a Glance:
Program: Unity Water: Drop by drop, we can…
Speaker: Sarah van Heerden
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Message from our president
Welcome our members, fellow Rotarians, friends, and guests. Thanks for joining our weekly meeting!
Weekly Funny with Shags
We believe laughter is an important part of life, and we should all make time to laugh a little. This segment of our meeting is meant to tickle you just enough. These funnies are curated by member Steven "Shags" Shagrin!
The Husband Who Knows
While attending a marriage seminar dealing with communication, Tom and his wife Grace listened to the instructor, "It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other."
He addressed the men, "Can you describe your wife's favorite flower?"
Tom, smiling but looking a little nervous, leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and whispered, "It's self-rising flour, right?"
Inspiration
This week's inspirational video is drone footage by Simon Dommett. He provides a visual of the area that includes one of the informal settlements that our speaker Sarah van Heerden discusses in her presentation. In this, you'll see the settlement where they are currently distributing a number of Hippo Rollers, the beautiful waterfall at the settlement's edge, and a commercial area in the town beyond the waterfall where Unity Water (van Heerden's organization) is based.
Learn something new
Inflation Explored in Under 3 Minutes
And what does the US Federal Reserve have to do with it?
Club News For Members
We are pleased to announce a new tradition for the eClub of Silicon Valley. We will be adding a new club fundraising project in the Fall/Winter season. This year, our efforts will be for Sanku in Tanzania, Kenya, and other countries in East Africa. As you know, we also support the Walk for Alzheimer’s for our Spring/Summer fundraiser. Please watch this short video to learn more about Sanku.
Hi everyone,
It's the second week of the three-week fall service project, which raises awareness of hunger locally and globally! Last week, we focused on our work to end hidden hunger by supporting the work of Sanku, a particularly impressive nonprofit (here's the recording with its CEO).
This week, we'll look at learning about hunger in our own communities. Your challenge is to find a local organization that works to get food to those in need. Here in Silicon Valley, one of the choices is Second Harvest, which is currently working with companies in the area to provide two million meals to people in our community.
Once you have identified the organization, level up by contacting them to find out what items they need. That is, they probably receive donations of all sorts, and our goal is to be helpful by figuring out which things they don't get enough of. The idea is to take an extra step in our service by both donating and learning more about their work and systems.
We hope you'll also take a picture of yourself taking some of those things to the organization and share them in a reply to this email!
For those who have yet to contribute to the Sanku fundraiser, we hope you'll do so—any amount is helpful and, as you learned last week, has a great impact! Feel free to involve your friends and family, as well!
In service,
Rushton
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Program: Unity Water: Drop by drop, we can…
Speaker: Sarah van Heerden
We bring you a new program every week on innovation, entrepreneurship, and education and how they contribute to service to others.
200 million hours are spent by women and children every day collecting water. UN reports tell how in some countries with crippling water scarcity, girls are spending up to 8 hours a day on the long walk for water. Unity Water is deploying innovative common-sense solutions to reduce the time spent collecting water and to deliver opportunities for sustainable growth and development. By adding the power of technology, the Unity Water GIS team creates vast StoryMaps that chart, not just the stories of each individual, but allow donors, sponsors and the public to see where every cent is spent, while learning more about the communities that have been helped. This is how Unity Water challenges global water enslavement.
Our speaker, Sarah van Heerden, is a creative professional committed to purpose-driven work and ethical storytelling. Drawing on her 16+ years of NGO and media experience, Sarah is the CEO and Co-Founder of The Unity Water Foundation, a movement focused on addressing global water insecurity and providing development opportunities for communities, especially women and youth, by blending common-sense solutions with the opportunities offered by technology.
Sarah believes in the power of NGOs as sustainable investment hubs, and is passionate about realigning the narrative in the NGO space from one of sensationalized despair to one of proactive and empowering citizenship.
She is also the Editor in Chief of the Rotary Africa magazine, where she creatively engages volunteers and aspiring writers to help produce content that resonates with diverse audiences. Sarah has no hobbies as she has yet to learn that she can't save the world, and she keeps volunteering to help on committees and projects which have caught her attention.
Members and guests, please welcome Sarah van Heerden!
For more information: admin@unitywater.life
Rolling with Hope campaign: https://donorbox.org/rolling-with-hope
Website: https://www.unitywater.life
Hippo Hub: https://www.hipporollerusa.org/pages/learning
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