Silent Heroes use citizen science 2 solve problem

WAFA (Water Air Food Awards) validates, awards, and publicizes low tech, high impact sustainability breakthroughs from around the world. Mazhapolima from India, WAFA’s 2018 Water Awardee, attended the first United Nations Water Summit in February 2019 organized by Waterlex, UN human rights organization operating at the World Meteorological Organisation, Geneva. Waterlex organized the summit to support the Sustainable Development Goal of Water Security. 

With the theme of “No One Leaving Behind”, the unique event highlighted little known  sustainability achievements in rural Asia, Africa, Latin America and Island Nations. Jos Raphael, program director of Mazhapolima said, ”I was lucky to be the only presenter in this first UN Summit to present two themes on water security (quantity) and water quality. The first presentation was on ‘Nature Based Local Water Security Solutions befitting Developing Countries'. And the second was on “Fluoride Mitigation from Water Wells through Nature-Based Local Water Security Solutions for Developing Countries. 

The first  presentation focussed on Well Recharging from Roof Rainwater Harvesting (“Mazhapolima”) in Thrissur District, Kerala State, India. The second focussed on an exploratory project to mitigate fluoride from water resources, i.e. dug wells and tube wells. 

WAFA’s  financial support enabled Mazhapolima to present these two initiatives to global development decision-makers. In his email Jos said, “I express my sincere thanks to WAFA in bringing up the successful model to the World focus for learning from each other.”

WAFA thanks all you donors for your generous contribution of time and resources. You make our work possible. We also  appreciate your continuing support for future awards, including the 2020 Youth Climate Award! 

• Mazhapolima presentation for UN Summit (PDF)
  
• An introduction about WAFA that was presented (PDF)
  

Water Air Food Awards (WAFA) has a decade long track-record in identifying sustainability entrepreneurs at the bottom of the pyramid and providing them visibility in their own communities and internationally. It is one of the world’s recognised channels for providing visibility to experience-driven innovation in poor communities – “silent heroes”.

Each year WAFA undertakes a rigorous review and selection process carried out by an international network of volunteer sustainability-experts as well as sponsored events and media campaigns. Over the years, WAFA has demonstrated a consistent ability to focus on change agents in the world’s poorest communities, building up a substantial knowledge and contact base that is of increasing interest to potential commercial and sustainability-oriented funding sources looking for cost-efficiency, social buy-in and scalability. 

WAFA’s Mission is to support nature-based, locally developed sustainable solutions to the global problems in the light of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. More specifically

1. Identify, evaluate and award successful, sustainable, nature-based solutions that ensure access to healthy water, air, and food in communities. Especially, socio economically the least advantaged communities.
2. Support communities that work together to break free of the poverty cycle and achieve prosperous livelihoods
3. WAFA continuously strengthens its awards platform so that winners and finalists, and eligible award applicants can: 

• share their success stories
• connect with peers
• connect with and support communities in other areas with similar challenges
• form partnerships with philanthropists, impact investors, and responsible companies.   

 The number of applications has increased dramatically since the very establishment of WAFA. Total number of applicationst till date are 401. The number of applications increased from 10 in 2010 to 171 in 2017-18. 

Its interesting to note that most of these applications are from developing countries. Most of the innovation is happening in the developing countries where the need is greater than the developed world. One of the main reason is limited resources adn rising population. WAFA address 9 sustainable development goals, by identifying, nominating and exposing the best solutions that are low tech and high impact. Their solutions are innovative, proven, sustainable, replicable, and aligns with the local knowledge that is part of the tradition in every culture. The local knowledge of the poeple--"citizen science" is important to tap if we want to save our only planet Earth. 

WAFA is adding a new feature for more robust selection process as well as to develop a sustainable income generations strategy to conitnue their good work. 

WAFA wishes to strengthen its core role of providing exposure to these sustainability entrepreneurs and to develop a new dimension as a venue for a meeting of minds to ground-truth concepts (empirical evidence) in the fields of water, air and food. This includes

• Broadening the exposure among its body of participating entrepreneurs
• Facilitating a focused dialogue with innovators and impact-oriented investors
•  Strengthening the review and vetting process

In order to transform WAFA to the next level also, new dimensions will be added that will allow innovators in the water, air, food space and potential investors to enter into a direct dialogue with these silent heroes who are experts in their communities and in the application of accessible nature-based technologies. A media and communication platform will be set up for the community entrepreneurs, including assistance for story-telling and production. This will complement the data-driven coverage provided by the database.

It is expected that the ability for accessing both a broad range of community entrepreneurs and the possibility for a direct dialogue with a segment that is not normally accessible will be of great interest to corporate CSR, sustainability and impact investors and – importantly – innovators and companies wishing to form partnerships in this space.

Way Forward

The core revenue stream will come from a membership platform, leveraging network among partners in business associations and sustainability platforms. Other revenue streams will be from live and networking events. Members will gain from

• Access to forefront knowledge on proven sustainable solutions in areas of access to clean water, clean air and nutritious food;
• Participation in live events about the topics of sustainable access to water, air, food; 
• Knowledge sharing. 

If paid members, specially corporate members are attracted the membership and inclined to learn more about the sustainable solutions/ knowledge that is simple and profound. 

 Increased members will help grow the word of mouth and spread the knowledge through networking, 

The underlying network of community entrepreneurs will be scaled from the present 400 to an additional 500-1000/year to around 3500 over 3 years. These entrepreneurs will gain:

•  Recognition as well as potential partnerships, investment, to reach greater financial sustainability
• Access to direct journalism and the possibility to tell their own story
• Peer exchange

We wish to share a few success stories of our Winners.  

Greening The Desert Project-Jordan

Purpose of the project: provide nature-based solutions to support agriculture in the Jordan River Valley, beset by drought, salinity, deforestation, and desertification. Greening the Desert runs entirely on solar power and everything is recycled.

What has been achieved:

The project started in 2008, and the association working on it was created in 2011. Jordan is hot and arid, so the systems applied help with water conservation. At the same time, they save money by not relying on chemicals and, instead, utilizing natural process. While chemicals seem beneficial at the offset, they ultimately kill the soil and destroy fertility.

 Providing education about permaculture’s principles and food production with using fewer resources.

 Introduction of forestry techniques, but also adopted local food processing and animal husbandry techniques. 

 The food forest with stone walls and earth-backed swales moves through the landscape to rabbit and chicken houses, which combine manures in a system that creates a cubic meter of compost every five weeks. 

 Reviving the Farmers’ Life Project in India

What has been achieved:

• In collaboration with local communities, KJBF revived 135 watercourses in Maharashtra State, India by building 91 dams to conserve monsoon water.
• Before this, silted seasonal rivers would flood and destroy crops, driving farmers to suicide.
• Before this Project, there was a period of years, lots of siltation took place in the river beds in the small streams and tributaries.
• As a result of this Project:

o   The rivers’ flow has increased from four months to eight months so entire waterlogged land has been brought under cultivation

o   135 rivers and tributaries have been revived by deepening, widening and desilting of 250 km of river bed.

o   This has led to rechargement of 2128 wells.

o   9835 acres is under the micro irrigation

o   3934 farmers have started to use drip and sprinkler irrigation systems

• Now, conservation measures  have rejuvenate the soil, agricultural production has increased substantially and the water table has stabilized.
• There has been increasing productivity

Water Kiosk in Kenya

Only one-third of Kenyans have ready access to safe, affordable drinking water. In many communities, schoolchildren have to walk long distances to obtain safe water for their families before they go to school. This onerous task often leads them to miss class and drop out of school.

 What has been achieved:

• To date, the initiative has provided access to clean water for 4338 students and 70,587 community members.
• Drip tap technology reduces water wastage by 90%.
• The safe drinking water contributes to improved sanitation and health.
• The project has led to increased school attendance.
• The successful social business model has also developed community solidarity.
• Profits are directed to developing local education and an entrepreneurial spirit among the youth.

 WAFA has many more sucessful stories of its winners and we wish to continue to bring them to you so that the winners and nominee can be further exposed and their greater good can be shared.

  Fish Farm Project-Nigeria

• Over 600 women have been trained,
• and 345 have established their own fish farms.
• In many cases their household income has increased by 60%.
• Of these 345 women, 231 have scaled up their endeavours by establishing additional aquaculture businesses.
• A fish farm ‘micro credit scheme’ developed in each of the communities has generated income, providing loans to women for establishing other aquaculture businesses.
• Goals to have 35,000+ women entrepreneurs by 2035

 There are hundreds of stories of these silent heroes that is in the data base of WAFA and we want to expose it and bring this to the world. In order to do that we need to develop a systematic library with catalogue of the projects as that will help corporate, individuals, and philanthropists identify their favorite project and support them. We are hopeful you enjoyed these winner stories, if you are moved by what WAFA has been doing with the help of thousands of volunteer hour, then please come forward and make a generous donation and help us share the knowledge of our winners and applicants with the world. 

Links:

• WAFA award application description in video
• One of the nominees of Award in 2018
• Silent Heroes bringing water to farmers