As the countdown for the start of a new school year enters its final few days, the group’s excitement is growing rapidly. In a May post that feels only days old, I wrote that WDA was looking forward to the upcoming year. Well now it’s almost here, and those words feel like a drastic understatement. Of course, not too much has changed in terms of new project development, though the organization has not remained stagnate over the summer months. We’ve all been doing background reading on our upcoming project, the loosely titled Trans-Border Initiative, in addition to finishing up the Sadhana Clean Water Project and working on a myriad of smaller internal projects. One WDAer, Melissa, spent most of her summer in Peru polishing her Spanish and working with an NGO on a literacy project, among other things. Look for more information and commentary on her experiences coming soon.

But I should pause and fill in the newcomers with a brief description of this year’s project. In the Trans-Border Initiative, WDA will be conducting research among the migrant Latino populations of Eastern Washington in an investigation pointed at an eventual project that works to fight economic stagnation in migrant’s home communities in Mexico. Work will begin in earnest as soon as everyone gets back on campus and settled in.

Besides the new project, there is much currently going on with WDA. Look for us at the Student Activities fair on the Cordiner Side Lawn at Whitman on Monday, September 1st from 12-3pm. We would love to have some new faces to start off the year. Also, as I mentioned before in the last May post, for the first year ever WDA will be working with a Board of Advisers to plan for the future, get advice on the project and finances, and to have central, organized access to a wealth of knowledge and experience. The board is made up of volunteer faculty members and we are excited to announce this productive addition to the organization.

Also, WDA is looking to revamp its website in the near future, and is on the hunt for a student web designer who would like to join the organization and work with us on designing and launching a new site. Of course, we would love someone who wanted to work on the project as well, but I wouldn’t call it an obligation at this point. Please email me at johnloranger@whitmandirectaction.org if you’re interested or have someone to recommend we contact.

That’s basically it for now. Look for much more in the near future!
Peace and Love,
John

Whitman Direct Action (WDA) is excited to announce the web release of one of the most tangible outcomes of the Sadhana Clean Water Project: The Water Book.  WDA is a non-profit, student-run, and open-source organization from Whitman College dedicated to helping marginalized people by promoting economically and environmentally sustainable community development.  For the last year, WDA’s team has been working on the Sadhana Clean Water Project, a multi-faceted approach to helping solve India’s water crisis.  Our Water Book is a collection of case studies, reports, and stories from a diverse array of people and organizations working to address the socio-political and technological aspects of this issue.  The Water Book is intended to be more of a discussion starter than a manual, an addition to the growing discussion on water rights and access, with a hope to even perhaps spark collaboration among NGOs, social entrepreneurs, or school organizations working in the sector.  Four months after its debut at the Safe and Sustainable Water Conference, we’re pleased to make The Water Book available for free download on our website.

Creating this publication was by no means an easy endeavor.  After more than one missed school assignment and a couple of all-nighters in the library working tirelessly with Jessie Conrad, Jyotsna Shivanandan, and the rest of the WDA Team to get the book ready for publication, Tim Shadix had this to say about the effort:

I feel the small sacrifices we made were more than paid off in seeing the final product published.  It is immensely satisfying to have a concrete object, a book that I must say looks pretty smart, to present for all of our hard work.  The greatest goal and the most rewarding achievement of the book has been to provide both a forum for NGOs to share their experiences and, we hope, a catalyst of conversation and collaboration. All of the speakers at our Mumbai conference were experts in their own right on a particular aspect of the water issue, but so too were the members of the audience representing many NGOs that have been diligently tackling the issue for years.  In addition to giving our speakers a venue to share their knowledge, we conceived of the Water Book as another forum in which the rich experiences of the NGOs and the many lessons they have learned could be brought to light.

Producing this publication was largely a community effort.  First and foremost, we would like to extend a warm thanks to all the book’s invaluable contributors.  Thanks to the publisher, Smaran Advertising, who was so cooperative with us about getting the book off the computer and into print at such short notice.  And finally, a special thanks goes to ASWC, the Asian Studies Office, and to all those whose effort helped tremendously to make this resource a reality.

The Water Book contains the following chapters, for reading online or download.  We encourage you to check it out, and leave your comments at the end of each:

• Chapter One - Experiences of ARTS in Providing Irrigation Through Small Water Harvesting Structures to Rural Poor in India - ARTS: Action in Rural Technology and Services
• Chapter Two - A NGO’s Initiative on Community Participation on Water Management - Vigyan Vijay Foundation
• Chapter Three - India’s Water Future: Secure or Scarce? - Sudhirendar Sharma
• Chapter Four - Safe Drinking Water Scheme in Villages: A Sustainable 4P Model - Byrraju Foundatation
• Chapter Five - A Case Study of Three Villages under the ‘Pani Thiye Panjo’ Programme: A Multi Institutional Decentralized Solution to Drinking Water Scarcity in Abdasa Taluka, Gujarat - Arghyam
• Chapter Six - Water Security in Thar - GRAVIS
• Chapter Seven - Providing Potable Water to Millions of India’s Rural Poor: Creating Models for Sustainable Development - Bala Vikasa
• Chapter Eight - Clean Water by Riverbank Filtration - Dr. Thomas Boving
• Chapter Nine - Household Water Treatment: A Summary of Methods and Techniques - Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST)

We encourage you to share this resource to colleagues and friends.  Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

Hello All,
WDA has just finished up a great year, but that doesn’t mean we’re done with work. The successful Sadhana Clean Water Project is coming to a close, but Tim, Jessie, and Daniel are still working diligently at compiling the final report, an endeavor that will probably continue all summer. We also held an amazing WDA retreat on the first Saturday of May where we recapped WDA’s past and answered, or at least considered, a myriad of questions about the future. It was a more productive and meaningful day than any of us expected. At the end of the it, I think it’s fair to say that the group broke up feeling enthusiastic about the future, inspired, and full from all the good food.

We’ve had a few meetings since then, mainly dealing with structural issues and picking a project for next year. The board of advisors, comprised of faculty members, WDA is currently forming is one change we are super-excited about. We believe having a diverse group of mentors is going to be extremely beneficial for everyone involved and future projects alike. Tentative positions for people within the group have also been set. They are to ensure that “the ball is never dropped,” not to limit people to one or two certain jobs. Everyone is expected and expecting to play major roles in the actual project itself, as well as helping out with the dirty job of fundraising. The positions are as follows:

• WDA Co-Coordinators: Tim and Jessie
• PR/Technology Coordinator: John
• Grant Writing: Alisha and Melissa
• Budget Coordinator: Dave
• Faculty Communications Coordinator: Gauri
• External Relations: Aisha
• Fundraising Coordinator: Rotating Position
• Project Head: TBD

It should be noted that several members were unable to attend the meeting these roles were assigned.

Perhaps the biggest news to report is that WDA has tentatively decided on its latest project. I am not going to give too much information, mainly because of the uncertain nature of the project at this point in time (it doesn’t even really have a title yet), but we plan to conduct research among the Latino immigrant population in Eastern Washington about their relationships with the communities they come from in Mexico and what they believe would help fight economic stagnation there, with the ultimate goal of implementing a project to that end in a home community in Mexico. Once again, this is a very basic and preliminary project outline, but we’re all eager to immerse ourselves in this venture. Work for the summer has already been set out. Goal number one: Learn Spanish!

Before I go, I would like to mention that we have three seniors leaving us who graduated today, Jyotsna, Yukta, and Joseph. No words I could write have the ability to describe how absolutely wonderful these three are in every single way. So instead of trying, I will only say that they touched every single person in WDA’s life in so many ways and that their contributions to WDA, Whitman, and the human community will live on long after they leave this place. On behalf of the group, congratulations. You will be missed.

Peace and Love to all,
John

Hi all,
So the conference sub-committee has been hard at work the past few weeks sending out email invitations to a few less than five hundred organizations, social businesses, and trusts across India. The process has been long and tedious, and at times frustrating, but we have finally finished. As replies have been coming in slowly but steadily, the hard part of keeping everything organized and up-to-date begins. Yukta, Spenser, Alicia, and I will also be beginning to make calls next week to NGOs confirming details and urging the ones that haven’t responded yet to do so. We also have a growing number of travel scholarship applications to review, but that won’t begin until after the February 15th deadline for applications. Overall, we find people are much enthused about the conference, and we have also had a large number of groups willing to contribute to the Water Book. As the number of confirmed attendees grows, so does our excitement!

One Love,
John