We need your help, please vote for Drop in the Bucket this Wednesday May 16th and help us start that conversation with you.

It would have a diameter of about 860 miles (about 1,385 kilometers) , with a volume of about 332,500,000 cubic miles, or 1,386,000,000 cubic kilometers, if you prefer your figures in the metric system.

Although about 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth’s water, all of the that water on the planet would still only fit into that “tiny” ball. Of course the ball is actually much larger than it looks like on your computer monitor or printed page because we’re talking about volume, a 3-dimensional shape, but trying to show it on a flat, 2-dimensional screen or piece of paper. That tiny water bubble has a diameter of about 860 miles, meaning the height (towards your vision) would be 860 miles high, too! So despite how it looks, it is a lot of water.But, the term “a lot” is still very relative. The fact still remains that almost all of Earth’s water is not usable in everyday life as it would be too salty to be used as drinking water.

Still the graphic is definitely eyeopening and a great conversation starter. To read the full article please go to http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/earthhowmuch.html 

The area around the school is very densely populated and the children from the school are not able to use the nearest borehole well, so they urgently need their own source of clean water. Also this existing well was not drilled deep enough, so during the dry season it dries up.

We will be providing this school with 10 toilets, a deep borehole well, our sanitation system, a water tower and a hand washing station.

In February students at the Wheatlands Elementary School in Aurora, IL held a “Penny War” to raise money help build a well for a school in Africa. Throughout the year the school had been practicing acts of kindness and had made several donations to organizations in their community. This time they decided to take their kindness global and make a difference to children in another part of the world. Thank you to everyone who participated in this amazing act of kindness.

Charity is doing very well at school and her test scores are excellent, however her parents recently decided they could no longer afford to pay the school fees for both her and her brother and they decided they wanted to get her married so that they would only have to continue paying for her brother’s education.

The bright 16 year-old was extremely frustrated by the whole situation and is exasperated by the fact that her community, and many others in this area think it is wasteful to spend money on educating girls. When you talk to the parents they say that the girls will get married and stop working once they have children, so therefore educating boys is far more of a priority. But as we have seen over and over again in the developing world, educating girls is one of, if not the most effective way of moving communities out of poverty,

According to data collected by UNICEF educated women are more productive at home and better paid in the workplace, and more able to participate in social, economic and political decision-making. Also educated girls are likely to marry later and have fewer children, who in turn will be more likely to survive and be better nourished and educated. Another key point UNICEF make is that educating a girl dramatically reduces the chance that her children will die before the age of five.

Christopher Elem, the head-teacher at Charity’s school decided that losing a student of her ability and potential was unacceptable, so he went to her parents and told them that he would take them to court if they denied their daughter the opportunity to get an education, and fortunately they relented and allowed her to stay in school alongside her brother.

For Charity things are going well. Because of her head-teacher’s intervention, her parents allowed her to return to class and she recently passed the national exams. She’s headed to high school next term and hopefully a bright future. With education everything is possible for these children.

This is a video Vans put together for their Pass the Bucket web series which runs on their Off the Wall TV site.

The following text is taken from their site.

Henry Rollins, lead singer of Black Flag, rock icon, author, and public speaker has become a bit of a social activist in recent years. Speaking on social injustices and international affairs, Rollins spends a lot of his time traveling the globe, standing in the gap for those living in the margins. More specifically Rollins has spent a lot of time in Africa, helping the organization “Drop in the Bucket” bring clean drinking water to the local people. The organization strives to alleviate the problem of millions of people being without safe drinking water in sub-Saharan Africa, by building wells.

To watch the video click here