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Robin's New
"Location Kit"
Lets him shoot anywhere.
Check it out
Ottawa Photographer
Since 1980
Serving Ottawa, Nepean, Kanata and Barrhaven
www.ottawaportraitphotographers.com
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Supporting
WaterCan to Build Our 2nd Well in Africa .
 Latest Update!
Dec. 23, 2010
We have just reached our goal to donate a well in
Ethiopia and are now working on a second well. Woo-Hoo!
One of my life goals
is to provide at least one well to provide fresh drinking water to an African
village.
Spencer Studio has
teamed up with WaterCan and is running portrait promotions to help
raise funds
for a well in an Ethiopia.
The average cost of
providing clean water and sanitation for a village is $5,000
but we are able to take advantage of the 3 to 1 matching grant
from CIDA.
Quick Facts from
WaterCan– Clean water, sanitation, and hygiene education
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1.1 billion people worldwide lack
access to clean water (WHO/UNICEF)
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2.6 billion people – 42 per cent
of the global population – lack access to basic sanitation like toilets or
safe latrines (WHO/UNICEF)
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Each year, approximately 1.8
million children die from diarrhoeal diseases caused by contaminated water
and poor sanitation – over 5000 children each day (UNICEF)
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At any one time, half of the
world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water and
sanitation-related diseases (UN)
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Hygiene education and promotion of
hand-washing can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by up to 45 per cent (WHO)
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One of the United Nations
Millennium Development Goals (goal 7) is to reduce by half the proportion of
people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic
sanitation by the year 2015. At present, the world is on course for the
drinking water target. However, the world is unlikely to reach the
sanitation target at present rates of progress (UN)
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With sustained funding from the
international community, sanitation for the entire world could be achieved
within one to two decades. In relative terms, the cost of such investment
(approx. $10 billion globally per year) is less than one per cent of annual
world military spending, or about one-third of yearly spending on bottled
water (UN)
Update! Dec. 23, 2010
Our
first well to be built in
Bachoo-Ilu (Central Ethiopia)
I
am thrilled to tell you that our project to raise enough money to build a well
in Africa has finally happened, and just two days before Christmas.
It was so exciting to see our WaterCan fundraising thermometer hit 100% and
start to sparkle. I had set the goal to reach 100% before Christmas, but thought
that might be a little too optimistic. Truly a Christmas miracle for us.
My heart has always been with international causes and one of my life goals was
to somehow provide at least one well to people who need clean, safe, cool
drinking water the most.
This well will be one of ten going into the
Bachoo-Ilu (Central Ethiopia) see
satellite photo.
WaterCan's community Bachoo-Ilu Wash project includes: 10 borehole wells, 10
community laundry basins, 10 community shower/bath blocks, hygiene education,
training of water and sanitation committees. The anticipated project
beneficiaries are 4,200 people.
For the last year or so Spencer Studio has done several portrait promotions,
trading some of our services for donations to WaterCan. We were able to take
advantage of the 3 to 1 matching grant from CIDA. (We raised $1500, CIDA matched
it with $4500)
Thank you WaterCan for all of your support and providing us with a special
webpage, and of course to our clients and friends who have participated in the
various portrait promotions.
Our latest portrait promotion has already started raising funds towards a second
well.
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