I never thought I’d meet a spear master. But a part-shaman, part-blacksmith turned out to be just one of the unique figures I came across on a trip through Southern Sudan’s malaria-endemic state of Warrab.

Tagging along for a month with Population Services International (PSI) Malaria Program Manager Peter Matiop, we met with tribal chiefs, youth leaders, local administrators and, yes, the occasional spear master, hitting every corner of the state to discuss the critical issue of malaria prevention.

An estimated 70 percent of Southern Sudan’s population live in malaria-endemic areas, and in coordination with the country’s Ministry of Health, PSI is overseeing a mass distribution of long-lasting, insecticide-treated mosquito nets. With July 9 independence just around the corner, the government is quickly getting on its feet, but reliable information on village populations, the condition of roads and the priorities of local leaders is hard to come by.

And that’s where our trip came in.

Town by town, village by village, we met with everybody and their brother (often literally). Malaria is estimated to have been responsible for more than 20 percent of Southern Sudan’s deaths in the early 2000s, and the gravity of the problem was evident in the questions of the crowds that spontaneously generated in every town we pulled up in.

While Peter asked and answered questions, I snapped hundreds of photos of these discussions and the remote, vulnerable communities. Now that a fragile peace has come to Southern Sudan, on-the-ground assessments like this are more feasible, and hopefully will dramatically assist the nascent country’s steep battle against malaria and other devastating diseases.

View more of Keith’s breathtaking photographs on his website, www.expatmonkey.com.

In the documentary, Mary Wilson, a local mother of four, shares her story:

My name is Mary Wilson. I am a mother of four children in Juba. I gave birth to my first born in 1996 and the youngest child I have now is 1 1/2 years old.

We’ve used WaterGuard for one year, but before that we were just drinking water without any purification. Our neighbor works for PSI, so I went to an outreach session one day and learned about WaterGuard. WaterGuard chlorine tablet is good because it makes the water clean, pure, and safe for drinking.

The children used to be sick and have frequent diarrhea before I used WaterGuard. Especially my third child, I had to admit her in the hospital many times because she had diarrhea frequently and became very dehydrated. But my youngest child rarely gets diarrhea because since he was born we have been using WaterGuard consistently in the house.

Before I knew about WaterGuard, there were times when I knew the water that we used to drink was really dirty, so I chose to boil it. But in most situations I ran short of money to buy fuel and charcoal to boil my drinking water. So when I didn’t have money we just took the water as it is. But now that WaterGuard is available and it is cheap, instead of boiling and buying fuel, making it a long process, we just buy WaterGuard and use it. I am convinced that once I treat my water using WaterGuard, even though the color is not changed, I am sure that the germs are all dead in the water.

I know that WaterGuard is good because since it was introduced into our family, diarrhea cases have been reduced among the children and once we drop it in the water, we are sure that our water is clean, all germs are dead and it is safe to drink. Before that it used to be difficult. We appreciate that WaterGuard has been introduced and we are using it in our family.

Population Services International (PSI), a ONE partner, promotes healthy behaviors by educating individuals about purifying drinking water in the home, practicing improved hygiene and offering treatment for diarrheal disease if a child falls ill. PSI’s programs combine education to motivate healthy behavior with the provision of needed health products and services, which are attractively packaged and marketed in the local context. In Sudan, PSI’s water treatment products include WaterGuard chlorine tablets, and PUR Purifier of Water, which enable families to purify water at the household level. The availability of these products, along with effective communications, empowers individuals to understand the burden that contaminated drinking water has on their health and allows them take solutions into their own hands.

-Marcie Cook, Country Representative, PSI/Sudan

In addition to these events, along with GOOD Magazine we launched a cutting-edge video series to highlight global water and sanitation issues. The 13 organizations involved in the effort, including PSI, are thrilled with the outcome of our provocative series of videos which stimulate thought and action related to safe drinking water. Together, these videos have received over 1 million hits on YouTube!

Check out one of the videos!

In this video, kids slide down the chute of the popular kids toy, Crocodile Mile, only to splash into a big pool of sludgy, contaminated water. Viewers are surprised to learn in the developing world, a child dies every 20 seconds from severe diarrhea- a direct result of drinking dirty water and poor sanitation.

The videos weave the prevalence of diarrhea and unclean water into iconic moments in film and television, bringing the international crisis into popular culture. The videos were produced by GOOD, the integrated media company for people who want to live well and do good.

Among the organizations driving the effort to promote water and sanitation through this video series are PSI, the American Chemistry Council and Procter & Gamble Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program.

On WWD, we celebrate the importance of clean drinking water, but without collaborative partnerships like this one, water will continue to go unnoticed on the global stage. This seemingly com¬plex issue has relatively simple, cost-effective solutions; yet, it lacks global leadership. Until more partnerships are forged, responsibility will remain upstream.

Find out what you can do to take action on world water issues.

-Ashima Khanna, PSI

Day Six:

One day, PSI staff who go door to door visiting people to offer education about family planning arrived at their household while Victor was out. Therese listened keenly, told her husband what she had heard, and they went to the clinic I had visited earlier to learn more. Characteristically, Victor was concerned the birth control might have some hidden, long term detrimental affect on Therese’s health: he had already seen her suffer so much. Eventually learning from medical staff it was safe, they’ve been using an injectable birth control every 3 months.

We sat in the shade of a fine tree as this sweet couple shared their success with family planning.

-Ashley Judd

Read the rest of this entry, on Five & Alive’s website.

Five & Alive, a program of Population Services International (PSI), provides children and their families with the education, products, services and care needed to improve health and save lives in more than 30 countries. www.fiveandalive.org

Day Five:

There is a weekly call in radio show called “Abajene,” a rally cry for youth, which is hosted by a young idol we have empowered with medically accurate information. For kids without electricity and phones (so many!) our Cinemobile does tours to rural parts of the country gussied up with a audio/visual kit in order to attract kids, give them “infotainment,” and let them use the provided cell phone to call in their teen age dilemmas and inquiries. On site, there is dance, singing, games, recreational pursuits, a football pitch, and job skill training. Within these “services” kids learn everything from personal hygiene, prevention and treatment seeking behaviors (how/when/why to go to a medical clinic), and let us not forget, they have a chance to simply be kids, to play, to run, to forget, for a few precious moments, all their burdens and cares, the back breaking chores that await them at home, and how they will probably be going to bed hungry. Again.

I love this approach, not just because it is holistic, but because it embodies the ideal of collaboration with other grassroots organizations.

-Ashley Judd

Read the rest of this entry, on Five & Alive’s website..

Five & Alive, a program of Population Services International (PSI), provides children and their families with the education, products, services and care needed to improve health and save lives in more than 30 countries. www.fiveandalive.org

Day 2:

1 in 12 children born here will die before age 1, and then an additional child per 7 will die before 5. Malaria, preventable and treatable, is cause number 1. There are 2 million cases of simple malaria a year in public health facilities and 4 million cases that are not treated at all….children average 23 cases a year. Death by mosquito bite. I think of that the next time you play badminton and get all annoyed. At least it’s not killing you and your babies.
To take this on, we socially market a net called “Tuzanet,” which is pre-treated with the appropriate insecticide and lasts for 3 years. It is available at a very small price which research shows different sectors of society can afford (“market segmentation”), and we give them away for free in many areas as well. This approach of private sector availability combined with recent free distribution of 3 million bed nets to caregivers of children under age 5, pregnant mothers, and the HIV+ helped achieve a stunning 60% reduction in malaria cases in 2007!

For treatment, we have made Coartem available at government 227 registered pharmacies nationwide (registered is important to ensure correct education is given with the sale of the product regarding its use to avoid generation of myths and creation of resistance to meds). We have “over packaged” instructions from the manufacturer, one of my favorite things that we do. We make it a brand, “Primo,” which we “market,” and provide pictorial and local dialect instructions for the low/non literature. Even the photos of the babies guide care givers on correct dosage based on age. It’s a truly wonderful thing and I get very, very excited about over packaging!

-Ashley Judd

Read the rest of this entry, on Five & Alive’s website.

Five & Alive, a program of Population Services International (PSI), provides children and their families with the education, products, services and care needed to improve health and save lives in more than 30 countries. www.fiveandalive.org

Day One:

There is tough work to be done. I begin tomorrow the Genocide Memorial and a talk afterwards about the progress Rwanda has made since that insanity. I will meet our host country staff (PSI Rwanda) and begin to learn more about the burden of poor health that continues to unnecessarily cost Rwandans their children, their lives, and stifle their economic progress. Rwanda is the most densely populated African country, and malaria, lack of safe water (only 2.5% of Rwandans have piped water), the great need for family planning, STI’s, HIV, and other preventable diseases and issues keep the entire population subsisting on less than a dollar a day. I will see our programs in action, celebrate what works, and help carry the message of prevention and effective grassroots programs to those who can fund them and help change attitudes and policies for the better.

Gender based violence will be a core theme of this trip. I have already abdicated my day to see the Silver Back Gorillas in order to go to Goma, a city in the Democratic Republic of Congo accessible more safely from Rwanda (Dario is not amused but Papa Jack is here and has done his work. We’ll be okay, said to be more stable now, a very large UN presence, too). The refugee camps are filled with masses of women – victims of rape. The gorillas, much as I love them, can wait. I am glad to be here, glad to learn, glad to serve, and am more than a little perplexed as to why me…

-Ashley Judd

Read the rest of this entry, on Five & Alive’s website.

Five & Alive, a program of Population Services International (PSI), provides children and their families with the education, products, services and care needed to improve health and save lives in more than 30 countries. www.fiveandalive.org

Beginning Sunday, March 16 through Saturday, March 22, restaurants will invite their customers to donate a minimum of $1 for the tap water they would normally get for free. These donations to UNICEF will go towards improving access to safe water and sanitation facilities in schools and communities, while promoting safe hygiene practices in more than 90 countries around the world. Plug in your zip code to find restaurants in your city.

World Water Day 2008 will be celebrated by the UN on Thursday, March 20. In New York you can help bring awareness to the sanitation crisis by “standing up for those that can’t sit down.”

PSI will host a World Water Day discussion about their Safe Water Programs, the successes and challenges, and the way forward on March 20 from 3:30-5:00 PM. If interested, please RSVP to akhanna@psi.org.

Celebrate World Water Day with Water For People on Friday, March 21. Raffles and speakers-including Amy Hart – Filmmaker, WATER FIRST-will make the evening one to remember.

If in Louisville, KY, join Edge Outreach on March 21, 2008 for a night of music, water and film. Join speakers and hear stories of what is being done for those without water and sanitation.

The DC Environmental Film Festival will have several water movies showing on World Water Day March 22. There is also a panel of water experts at 4:00 PM that day from Water Advocates, the Global Water Challenge, Natural Resources Defense Council and ConservationStrategy.

Join the Global Water Challenge, Water Advocates and others at the Student Movement for Real Change event on March 22: “Water is Life: Youth Leading Change on World Water Day”.

In 2007, 69 cities across the United States passed resolutions acknowledging March 22 as World Water Day. Join those interested in promoting World Water Day in a variety of events across the country.

WaterAid America in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History present a panel discussion exploring the burden unsafe water and sanitation place on women, and the role women can play in water and sanitation development interventions. The discussion will be held on World Water Day, March 22.

Attention runners: join in an effort to raise awareness about the global water and sanitation challenge and help build a borehole well in the Azawak Valley, Niger – sign up for a Run for Water on March 22.

The Global Health Council will hold a briefing on Capitol Hill called “The Link Between Clean Water and Health.” The briefing will be on March 26 at 12:30 PM on Capitol Hill.