Early Bird Registration Closes Feb 28th !

To learn, ask questions, share insights, and make new friends, join us on Friday June 21, immediately before the Rotary International conference for Wasrag World Water Summit V. Have a look at the draft program. 

The focus is on sanitation, but sessions on water issues and hygiene education are included as well. If you are interested in water & sanitation, REGISTER NOW! 

Rotarian Develops Affordable Drill Rig

In 2008, Rotarian Bob Hather of the Rotary Club of San Luis Obispo attended a conference addressed by Rotary International President D.K. Lee that would change his life. President Lee spoke of the lack of portable water. 

"My goal was to create a water well rig that was affordable and small enough to ship to all parts of the world," said Hather. Read More... 

Rotary Water Scholar at UNESCO-IHE

 Writing on his experience as a Rotary Scholar at the UNESCO-IHE Institute on Water Education, Kenechukwu "Kaycee" Okoli says that though the transition from Nigeria (hot amongst other things) to the Netherlands (cold etc.) is difficult, learning about the future of water and sanitation is a rewarding and important pursuit.    Read More... 

What is Nanofiltration?

Sometimes heralded as the big hope for inexpensive and effective filtration, nanofiltration is defined by Wikipedia as: "... a relatively recent membrane filtration process used most often with low total dissolved solids water such as surface water and fresh groundwater, with the purpose of softening (polyvalent cation removal) and removal of disinfection by-product precursors such as naturalorganic matter and synthetic organic matter." To help de-mystify nanofiltration, Wasrag's new Guidelines to Sustainable Water Projects contains a useful section on filtration options. For some other interesting reading on nanofiltration check out this article on Nanowerk or this interesting article on advances in heavy metal treatment using new techniques.

Update on Remba Island

In a much earlier newsletter we featured one of the first Wasrag PPP team trips, to Remba Island in Kenya. The report was completed and many clubs got on board to put together the required funding. Recently PPP team leader Dr. John Dracup returned to Remba. The University of California at Berkley news featured an update on the project which intends to provide 10 litres of clean water every day for each of the 10,000 inhabitants of the rocky island in Lake Victoria. Read more...

Rotary wins Charity Miles 

A big thanks to all the Wasrag members and contacts who logged on to the United Airlines website in December and voted for Rotary International. We came in second to the Shriners - but managed to win more than 2.5 million airline miles to be used for Rotary projects. Click here for Rotary's announcement of the win:  Charity Miles.  A big "thanks" to all who took part!

The Water & Sanitation Rotarian Action Group is a group of Rotarians whose purpose is to support Rotary clubs to effectively plan, finance, implement, monitor and evaluate water, sanitation, and hygiene programs, where they are most needed in a collaborative, cost-effective, timely, and sustainable manner, true to the principles of Rotary International. Wasrag operates in accordance with Rotary International policy but is not an agency of, or controlled by, Rotary International.