US soldier and clean water activist Benjamin Sklaver killed in Afghanistan

Oct 6th, 2009 10:37 PM UTC
By Chris Scott

I just came across the story of Captain Benjamin A. Sklaver, a 32-year-old Army reservist who was killed while serving in Afghanistan. Benjamin Sklaver was also the founder of a nonprofit called the ClearWater Initiative based out of New Haven, Connecticut.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Captain Sklaver’s family, and I wanted to be sure to make all of our readers aware of the ClearWater Initiative. According to remarks posted on the organization’s website:

A 1999 graduate of Tufts University, [Benjamin Sklaver] went on to obtain a graduate degree in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School, also at Tufts. He took a particular interest in assisting refugees and the poor in Africa. During his studies at the Fletcher School, he volunteered for the Army Reserve and following completion of his degree, he served with the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta in that agency’s International Emergency and Refugee Health Branch.

While on active duty with the army in Africa, Ben spent considerable time in northern Uganda, where he was shocked to learn of the chronic health concerns affecting children, pregnant women, and others in the region’s small villages stemming from the lack of clean water. During his deployment in Uganda, he worked to improve access to safe water and upon his return to the U.S. he founded the non-profit charity Clearwater Initiative in order to continue that work.

Since its establishment just two years ago, ClearWater has provided more than 6,500 people with clean, sustainable drinking water, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what the Initiative plans to accomplish.

Please take a few minutes to read more about the ClearWater Initiative here.

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