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Archive for the ‘5 Killers’ Category

One5 Will Help Demonstrate Innovative Pump To Purify Water in Remote Areas

Monday, March 15th, 2010

Many of the deadly diseases that afflict children in the developing world can be traced to unsafe water supplies.  Millions of people around the world do not have access to clean water day in and day out. When a catastrophe on the scale of the recent earthquake in Haiti comes along, thousands more are suddenly thrust into an environment where the water sources can be deadly.

As you know, the One5 Foundation has been working with orphans in Haiti for some time and was able to make a real difference for thousands of people after the earthquake struck in January. Because of our experience in Haiti, the One5 Foundation has been selected to demonstrate an innovative water pump that could help provide communities around the world with safe sources of water.

The hand-operated Feltenberger Pendulum Pump is manufactured by Gravitational Energy Corp. of Akron, Ohio. Representatives of the company and One5 Foundation will make public demonstrations at 7:30 and 11:30  a.m., Thursday, March 18 at Leawood City Park, Shelter C, 10601 Lee Blvd.

The device uses gravity (via a pendulum) to help the operator work, making it much less tiring than traditional lever-arm pumps.  It is designed for use in areas where there’s no access to fuel to operate motorized pumps.

Built into the machine is an Aquashield water filtration system that can produce more than 1,000 gallons per hour of clean drinking water, which meets or exceeds the World Health Organization standards.  Virtually any type of contaminated water source can be filtered to these standards.  It can also be set to produce 400-500 gallons per hour of hospital-grade pure water. Larger scale versions of the pump are under development.

This particular pump, the first one manufactured, is on its way to Haiti where it will be put into action by the end of this month, donated by Gravitational Energy.

The Feltenberger Pendulum Pump is the sort of invention that is desperately needed in Haiti and other developing countries. It allows people in specific communities the means to improve their lives dramatically, giving them a foundation of basic health. We hope that other charitable organizations will take notice and sponsor pumps in communities where there is a need.

Posted in 5 Killers, Children, Haiti Efforts, Health Care | No Comments »

The Importance of Basic Sanitation

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

When I first heard of World Toilet Day, which was observed Nov. 19, I thought it was a joke.  But after all the trips we have made to developing countries, I can assure you that this is no joking matter.  Basic sanitation is a big deal – a life and death kind of deal.

What we have seen in Haiti, for example, is an infrastructure that is woefully inadequate to properly dispose of the waste of its population. Human waste eventually leaches into the water supply, exposing people to all the associated diseases that we no longer consider threats in the United States.

In some of the poorer parts of the world the people just don’t have the education to know the very basics of sanitation. The goal of the One5 Foundation is to help build sustainable societies unburdened by thousand of people suffering from cholera, diarrhea and all the others.

The name of the One5 Foundation refers to “One Child, One World, Five Killers,” which are the five greatest disease killers of children around the world. Included in those five are the diarreal diseases that result from poor sanitation. With our partners, the One5 Foundation believes in designing and providing optimal, as well as comprehensive care, for orphans and vulnerable children who are disproportionately affected by poverty and insidious diseases. In addition to providing medical treatment, we specialize in designing programs that focus on prevention and education.

Here is a link to an article about the world’s “forgotten” killers of children.

Below are some facts about World Toilet Day and the effects of poor sanitation:

  • Every day 5,000 children under the age of 5 die needlessly from diarrheal diseases caused by dirty water.
  • For every $1 spent on sanitation at least $9 are saved in health, education and economic development.
  • In the future the flush toilet will become extinct. It makes no sense to flush excreta with precious drinking water. It’s costly in terms of money and energy. In rural areas dry toilets have already become the best accepted technology. It’s called Ecological Sanitation.
  • At current rates of progress the Millennium Development Goals sanitation target will not be met until the 22nd century. That’s over 80 years too late!
  • Children will continue to suffer the most with shortened life spans, missed schooling, disease, malnutrition and poverty.
  • 60% of all rural diseases are caused by poor hygiene and sanitation.
  • More than 433 million school days are lost each year because of water-borne disease.
  • At any one time, half of the world’s hospital beds are filled with people suffering from water-borne diseases caused by pollution from untreated sewage.
  • A baby born in sub-Saharan Africa is 500 times more likely to die from diarrhoeal diseases than a baby in the developed world. Even worse, diarrhoea can lead to severe malnutrition which contributes to 6 million child deaths a year.
  • In Africa it is estimated that 5% of GDP is lost to the illnesses and deaths caused by poor sanitation and water.
  • 40% of the world’s population have to use fields, streams, rivers, railway lines, canal banks, roadsides, plastic bags, or squalid, disease breeding buckets due to lack of proper facilities.
  • Without toilets, disease and death are rife. Illness prevents people from working. It stops children going to school. It stops peace being built.
  • Without toilets, human waste can contaminate water, food and causes the majority of illness in the world. Illnesses like diarrhoea, which stop children growing healthily and lead to malnutrition.

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One Child, One World, Five Killers

Monday, October 12th, 2009

As you probably know, our foundation embraces a holistic strategy in partnership with other organizations to address the basic needs of communities in the developing world –

housing, education, health care, nutrition and economic development. Countries can’t depend on international handouts if they are to pull themselves from poverty; they must learn how to do it themselves, once given the knowledge and tools

Because Nueterrra’s business is health care, our end of the bargain is to encourage our providers to donate their time, expertise and materials to directly tackle the health care needs in specific communities. Our partners build on their own areas of expertise to provide the housing, food and education needs.

In keeping with our health care expertise, we will be changing the name of our foundation from Integral Life Foundation to the One5 Foundation, which comes with the tagline, “One child, one world, five killers.” This refers to the five greatest killers of children in the developing world:

  1. Acute respiratory infections (pneumonia)
  2. Diarrheal diseases (cholera, typhoid, dysentery)
  3. Malaria
  4. Infectious and parasitic diseases (measles, whooping cough, TB, worms)
  5. HIV/AIDS

We believe the new name will more accurately portray our role in the overall philanthropic strategy – health care. We will help one child at a time to make this one world smaller by connecting them to the health care they need to avoid the five most deadly diseases in the world.

It is tragic that so many children in the world must succumb to these very treatable diseases. We think the new One5 Foundation will be more descriptive of our role so we can better tell our story to potential donors. Countries can only pull themselves from poverty once their basic needs are met, which include basic immunizations, food and clean water.

We continue to support the NCM-C3 Global Growth Fund to provide the financial means to help communities sustain the move from extreme poverty.

The name is changing but our commitment is unwavering.

Posted in 5 Killers, Children, Haiti Efforts, Health Care | No Comments »

Planting the Seeds of Fulfilling Lives

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Consistent with Integral Life Foundation’s mission to provide assistance to many of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world, we have come to a few conclusions following on-site observations in Haiti and Africa. Specifically, no matter where you go in the world, people just want to have the resources available so they can help themselves and their own communities.

The growth of sustainable orphan care in Haiti and in several African countries is a case in point. We are focusing our efforts in existing orphanages through education and health care delivered through Nueterra Healthcare resources and personnel. By offering these very basic components of a full life, we are helping to build communities of young people eager to take control.

It’s amazing to observe the incredible desire of these young men and women not only to better themselves, but to help their communities and their countries as well. They already know in their hearts that they have the solution to building sustainable economies and eliminating extreme poverty.

Because of the horrendous AIDS pandemic that has decimated the parents of these young people, they have lost the entrepreneurial mindset that gets passed from one generation to another. As they learn more and more of their own potential and talents, it’s obvious that they will be able to take advantage of micro-lending opportunities as they mature, individually and collectively.  We have established the NCM/C3 Global Growth Fund in order to provide these types of loans for local business ventures designed to address specific community needs such as agriculture, food distribution and consumer goods among others.

Wherever we go on our monthly fact-finding missions – Haiti, Uganda and Kenya – it’s obvious that the young people we are working with are smart, eager to learn, are hard workers and assertive about their goals. They are not looking for handouts; they are looking for knowledge and skills.

It is so fulfilling to see their faces, hear their voices, to understand their hunger for success and strong ambitions to help their communities. We’ve helped them plant the seeds of their own success. The harvest will be impressive.

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