Cash Flow Slows Water Flow At World Help Foundation

By Nancy K. Crevier

It is scarcity of space and money that hinders the World Help Foundation (WHF) in its quest to provide people worldwide with the ability to have safe drinking water.

World Help Foundation is a public charity dedicated to providing clean drinking water to places afflicted by disaster and to developing countries around the world. Harvey Sellner, Ed Osterman, Skip Roberts, and Fred Parrella, all Newtown Rotarians, founded World Help Foundation in 1991 as a means to give the basic right of safe water to all the people of the world.

“Clean water is one of the biggest problems now in the world,” says Mr Osterman, president since January 2005 of the board of directors for World Help Foundation. He adds, “Every two minutes, eight children die from a lack of safe drinking water.”

According to literature published by the World Help Foundation, not only are children dying from lack of pure water, but 1.2 billion people in underdeveloped countries do not have access to clean water and more than one billion people are affected by diarrhea, roundworm, or schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms, all due to unsanitary drinking water and unsafe hygiene practices.

The technology exists to make clean water available to all, says Mr Osterman. Through a system of filters and ultraviolet light, water-purifying units manufactured by a Newtown business, Water For Life, allows water that would be otherwise unusable to be inexpensively purified.

Says Mr Osterman, “It costs about $7 a gallon to transport bottled water and get it to people. The cost is 25 cents a gallon with one of these purifying units. Each unit can supply about 1,500 people with clean water.”

Even though World Help Foundation buys the units at cost from Water For Life, owned by Mr Sellner (who is no longer with WHF), it is not financially feasible for the foundation to purchase more than a very few units at a time.

“The cost for 40 disaster units is somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000,” Mr Osterman states. Permanent units cost close to $30,000 each.

 Many of the units go to clinics in undeveloped Central and South American countries. Permanent and household units have been set up in Haiti and Ghana, for example, and temporary units have provided safe water for countries stricken by natural disasters that rendered water unpotable. WHF was there when Venezuela suffered horrendous mudslides and when Ecuador was recovering from devastating earthquakes, Mr Osterman says. It provided temporary units to areas of Indonesia after last December’s tsunami, and is presently hoping to install another ten units to the Medan area of Indonesia, as well as install mini municipal units to three communities in Ghana.

They would also have liked to rush units to the southern United States following Hurricane Katrina. But they were not able to do so. It costs money — lots of it — to assemble and ship units, and WHF just did not have the funds or units on hand.

World Help Foundation relies on public donations, contributions from Rotary clubs, and contributions from the Rotary Foundation to purchase, install, and maintain the units. Right now they are lacking the final funding needed to buy and ship the units to Ghana and Medan, let alone order new units for the beleaguered southern United States. There is another glitch that holds up their ability to provide units, permanent or temporary.

Water For Life is in need of a space to manufacture and assemble the units. Presently, Mr Sellner is working out of his garage on Scudder Road in Newtown, but space constraints there prevent him from putting together enough of the units for all of the areas in need. Of these permanent water purification units, Mr Sellner says, “The panels are three feet by four feet. It is difficult to assemble them [in the garage] because of their size.”

Water For Life was formerly housed in the old Newtown Manufacturing building on South Main Street. When that building was sold this spring, the company was forced to move to Mr Sellner’s small garage. The company is presently seeking other headquarters, but until WHF has the funds to purchase units, Water For Life is unable to pursue renting the 2,000 square feet of space it needs.

And money, or the lack of it, rears its ugly head, once again. The World Help Foundation has purchased one of the large, solar powered distribution systems he is assembling for the Ghanan villages, but assembly of the remaining two is dependent upon a Rotary grant that may provide funding to WHF to pay for them.

“You have to give back what you receive in life. World Help Foundation is trying to help the people of the world, but it needs your help,” Mr Osterman pleads. He asks that tax-deductible donations be sent to: World Help Foundation, PO Box 500, Danbury CT 06810. “World Help,” he says, “needs your help.”