October 12, 2009
Bowling
Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University’s China Environmental Health Project (CEHP), in partnership
with the foundation A Child’s Right (ACR) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), has completed installation of 105 water purification systems providing safe drinking water to 27,178 residents of China’s government-run Social Welfare Institutes.
China’s Social Welfare Institutes provide homes to orphans and elderly adults, many with special healthcare needs. Orphans in these settings are among China’s most vulnerable residents with health challenges related to safe drinking water supplies in addition to the other challenges they face.
In China water treatment similar to that in the United States is largely non-existent, so drinking water from taps in general is contaminated with bacteria that can cause illness if consumed. For this reason, the Chinese typically boil water before drinking it, to kill these microorganisms. Unfortunately in some circumstances, including orphanages where there are sometimes insufficient resources to boil water many times a day for infant formula, people are forced to drink unhealthy water.
In the recently completed ACR-USAID-WKU partnership, water treatment systems were installed in 105 Social Welfare Institutes in seven provinces including several of China’s poorest. In these institutes, 14,884 children now have safe drinking water, along with 21,178 elderly residents, plus institute staff.
The systems were designed, and the social and political infrastructure developed for their installation in China, through the efforts of Eric Stowe, founder of A Child’s Right. Through other private donations ACR will install systems in every remaining Chinese orphanage over the next few years, along with similar existing efforts in Nepal, Cambodia, Africa and elsewhere. For more about ACR activities across the globe, visit http://www.achildsright.org.
“While all of us feel that our efforts in China are effective and will have positive benefits for public health there, the results of this project are particularly satisfying,” said Chris Groves, WKU geography professor and director of CEHP. “With Eric and his staff, a water system gets installed and by the end of that same day the kids have no more disease-causing bacteria in their formula.”
WKU’s China Environmental Health Project (CEHP) works to improve public health in China through partnerships, with a major effort focusing on water resources in southwest China’s extensive limestone karst regions, through support from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) made possible with the support of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
Geography and Geology Department Head David Keeling, who joined Dr. Groves and Stowe recently in Mengzi, China, to witness an installation, said that “the success of this project is a testament to the efforts of the Hoffman Institute faculty, staff and students. As a great example of WKU’s international reach, this project has led to very tangible and measurable improvements in the daily lives of thousands of people.”
For more information, visit the China Environmental Health Project website at http://www.wku.edu/cehp/.
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu and at http://wkunews.wordpress.com/. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.
For information, contact Chris Groves at (270) 745-5201.
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