Greetings!

This was a dispatch I wrote from the field during our recent Afghanistan Project in Dec ’11. Wanted to shed some further light on what I feel is truly a ground breaking initiative.

I knew this Afghan project would be significant, but today… today was hands down one of the best experiences I’ve had since starting W4W. We’ve spent the last 3 days embedded with the Wolfhounds, learning all about life in a war-zone – living in their barracks, eating with them, etc…

FOB Bostick // Town of Nari

Of course I see parallels between some of their principles and those of W4W. I have felt this way ever since we had the privilege of working side by side with the 82nd Airborne in Haiti. The entire military system is founded upon honor, respect, bravery, and discipline (to name a few)… but what they rarely get credit for is their compassion. Not only for one another, but for the local cultures they work amongst while deployed. I saw it in Haiti and I’ve seen it again here – these soldiers genuinely want to help the Afghan people to stop living in fear of the Taliban… and ultimately, help them stabilize their country in the process. That said, when I think of this project – the partnership between W4W and The Wolfhounds, I’m becoming aware that we are all a part of something very very grand… something bigger than all of us as individuals. In addition to the obvious benefits the filter program will have on this region, we have created a unique opportunity to change several perceptions surrounding this war – and war in general.

Waves for Water - Demonstration for Army at FOB Bostick

One of the main implementing strategies of W4W has always been a “train the trainer” approach, which is something we actually lifted from military DNA, long ago. It’s basically empowering people through a tiered system that enables each level to do what they do best. For instance, this project – we spent the first day here on base training a selected group of team leaders from this battalion. They are the ones who are constantly interacting with the communities in the region and have personal relationships with some of the key local figureheads. By empowering the first tier (the soldiers), we solidified them as the ones that would lead this project and see it through long after we were gone.

W4W trains troops on filtration

The next step was for the team of newly trained soldiers to coordinate a “shura” (Afghan for meeting or gathering to discuss important matters) to pass the training onto a hand picked group of village elders and/or community leaders. Then, based off of their extensive knowledge of the local communities, those enlisted individuals would devise a distribution plan for each of their villages. This is an old model… We’ve used this same approach in Haiti, with the ultimate goal being that we – the foreigners, do not retain any of the power once the program has been implemented.

Shura at FOB Bostick

This system really helps to integrate something foreign, like new technology, into a community – with the trust and understanding it needs to have staying power. If we try to push this solution directly onto a family in Afghanistan, the likelihood of them trusting us, and ultimately using it after we’re gone, is much lower than if it is presented to them by a friend or a community figure they know and trust. The ultimate goal for us is to implement a program this way, do an assessment of the region months later, and find that the families who are thriving because of it – have no idea who we are. Their relationship is with the schoolteacher or medical clinic that provided them with the filter system, not the guys from Waves For Water. If that is the case, we have done our job perfectly.

FET team member giving demo to Afghan woman

Today I saw cultural divides fall in a matter of minutes. We accompanied a group of female soldiers and their FET (female engagement team) team, lead by a Lieutenant named Lauren Luckey, into the nearby town of Nari. The FET team is tasked with trying to engage local Afghan women and work with them to help stabilize their communities. Women are simply not allowed to be seen in public – they wear full burkhas that leave no percentage of skin exposed. There isn’t even a slit for their eyes, only a little mesh window in the fabric for them to look through. Because of the relationships that LT Luckey and her team had forged a few of us men were allowed to be present during the demonstration. The rules and traditions of this region are so deep rooted that an invitation like this is literally unheard of. We watched in a secured courtyard as the FET team gave the very demonstration that we’d given them on base a day prior. We watched in awe as the brave few women who chose to stay – only 3 out of 10 stayed for meeting because they heard that (American) men would be present, started assembling and using the filter systems. The finale came when a young girl, a student of the school, took what might have been the first sip of clean water in her life, after filtering the water she normally drank – urban run-off collected from a ditch outside the school walls – animals visibly defecating in it up-stream.

Afghan girl drinks clean filtered water for the first time

Today was a good day…

~ Jon Rose

Watch video on Waves for Water in Afghanistan with the Wolfhounds from the US Army.

Christian Troy, Jon Rose & CPT Brabner

I write today with the great excitement of introducing our recent project in Afghanistan with you. About six months ago a US Army Captain by the name of Michael Brabner reached out to us through our website. His battalion, called The Wolfhounds, is stationed in Northern Afghanistan in the Kunar Provence. He contacted us to see if we’d be interested in doing a project to help the Afghan communities in his unit’s AO (area of operation). He said that there were about 5 villages in his area and none of them had access to potable water. Apparently the Kunar River, which every village is built along, is their only source of water. And since everything (I mean EVERYTHING) is dumped into it, waterborne illnesses crippling these communities is almost indefinite.

Afghan Village

Like many of the places around the world we work, these type of illnesses basically become a part of everyday life – for people in these places, there is just no way around it, no other choice… So they continue to get sick and even die from problems that are completely preventable. This is the very reason Waves for Water exists. Our single most important purpose is to bring the great solutions that already exist directly to the problem – stopping the widespread sickness and senseless deaths that follow.

Afghan Boy in Nari

So in the case of Afghanistan, CPT Brabner had relatively simple questions – would our program work there? And if so, would we be willing to partner up them to implement it? Right away I was deeply struck by the possibility of being able to help these people that were in such great need to the seemingly inaccessible.

Our translator Sahar telling Afghan women about filter system

It’s no secret that Afghanistan is considered to be a hostile place at the moment, especially for Americans. But the majority of the local population have the same basic needs as anywhere else – and the fact that it is still a kinetic war zone, brings the likelihood of humanitarian assistance down to a dramatic degree.

Filter distribution. Photo: Logan MB / Eyeconic Images

This brings me to my point – who is there, all the time? The US military. They are stationed throughout the entire country with great infrastructure in place. Whether or not you agree with the reasoning for being there in the first place doesn’t matter at this point – we are there. So it is even more important to make the absolute best of being there, which CPT Brabner and his crew are doing. Their first objective is to keep the insurgents at bay, so that the majority of the population can go about their lives without living in fear of being bullied and harassed by “mafia-like” Taliban forces. And in addition, through projects like ours, this military unit has actively sought out new innovative ways to help these villagers beyond their basic orders.
This is a pivotal time for US Operations in Afghanistan – I feel that this project could be instrumental in changing the conversation from the negative reports we so often hear in the media, to some of the positive impacts that are taking place – like this W4W mission! We are embarking on a path that could help to reinvent some aspects of the existing military model, and the perceptions that follow it. The military is not just a symbol of a nations strength – it is also a network. One that reaches far and wide, with great structure and organization throughout. If we can tap into this network and create program where every single military unit has water filters that they can distribute during their deployments – we are talking serious global impact!

Afghans recieving filters. Photo: Logan MB / Eyeconic Images

If our mission is to get clean water to every single person who needs it, then we need all hands on deck. This is one great example out of many that need to happen if we are going to achieve our goal. When CPT Brabner reached out, I could tell that he was genuine in his attempts to help the Afghan people. The military doesn’t get much credit for its humanitarian efforts – and while it might not be their primary focus during deployment, they do embark on a number of humanitarian initiatives… I saw it first hand just after the earthquake in Haiti when we worked side by side with the 82nd Airborne. Then, again, months later during our project with the UN Military – also in Haiti… and now in Afghanistan with The Wolfhounds.

US Army CPT Brabner & Jon Rose preppimg filters. Photo: Logan MB / Eyeconic Images

Town of Nari: Girl getting water for the first time. Photo: Logan MB / Eyeconic Images

Being raised by hippie parents and choosing a career path as a pro-surfer, I had literally zero experience with the military before starting my work in Haiti. The closest I ever came to the military was trying to sneak my way on to Camp Pendleton in San Diego because it is known to have good waves on base. But now having logged some serious time with our armed forces in two countries, I can speak with confidence when saying how incredibly grateful I am of their service. It is moments like these that truly showcase the greatness in humanity.

With the first phase of this mission already completed, Waves For Water and The Wolfhounds have effectively provided 20,000 Afghan’s with access to clean water. The project is now gaining momentum throughout the military chain of command and the private sector alike – phase two has already been funded (thank you Bill Nelson & HBO) and is set to launch in January with 500 more filters that will provide an additional 50,000 Afghan’s with clean water.

Please spread the word and help to bring a positive light to an otherwise dark subject, like war.

I’ve attached a sampler of personal images from the trip… We have a lot more (as well as some video content) that we will be sharing soon. Stay tuned…

~ Jon Rose

“The Golden Rule”

Do unto others…The Golden rule…How easy it is to lose track following thru on such a basic principle and of all the little moments in life that we should be thankful for!…This Thanksgiving, my little family journeyed to Panama to enjoy a little break from the chaos of our modern lives.  Most importantly, Kate and I wanted to immerse our little boy Jonah in a wealth of life experiences that will hopefully begin to shape his world view in such a way that service to others is second nature.  I am forever grateful to my good friend Jon Rose for sharing his vision of guerrilla humanitarianism with me this year on a trip to Liberia.  Get involved . . . Its so easy to make such a massive difference, it just takes action…Our mission was simple-deliver 16 water filters to two villages where clean drinking water isn’t available.  Hopefully the pictures tell the story and inspire you to go on an adventure, live life to the fullest, and along the way, change the lives of the people you meet forever.  No child should die from simply not having access to clean water. Its up to us…I want to say a special thanks to my wife Kate, my wildman Jonah, Mario and Brooks Inglese, Scott Balogh at Red Frog Bungalows, Jaime Noai, and most of all the villagers of Cusapin and Pedro Santos for helping make this Thanksgiving the most memorable in my life!

[View with PicLens]

Panelists - Jon Rose, Fabio Feldman (right of Jon Rose), David De Rothschild (next to Fabio), and Celine Cousteau (far right)

Hey Friends!

In route home from SWU Forum and wanted to send a few pics…

Was really an incredible moment in the Waves For Water journey…

There was an incredibly inspiring range of speakers – Neil Young was an obvious highlight and talked on the first of two panels on day one (was also his 65th birthday) about how we can all make this world a better place…

I spoke (and showed our Amazon video) the second day alongside Fabio Feldman (former Brazilian politician turned environmentalist bad-ass), David De Rothschild, and Celine Cousteau (Jacques granddaughter) – a panel I was deeply humbled and grateful to be a part of…

Then the last and final panel of the symposium spoke shortly after ours… including Sir Bob Geldof giving the final speech. I’ll just say one thing – Sir Bob is an absolute living legend!
His speech was incredibly inspiring and authentic – I’m still reeling from it…

I feel deeply honored to have been able to join Sir Bob, Neil, and the others in this experience… to help them shed light on the positive change thats occurring in our world, and not just the negative we hear about so often.

Thanks for embarking on this journey with me… it really is just the beginning…

Jon

PS – in addition to the 1500 people in the auditorium watching the forum, I was told that the online numbers were roughly 1.5 million unique views each day.

http://en.swu.com.br/

Our Amazon video played on the big screen behind our chairs on stage

Neil Young

Sir Bob!!!

Text Giuliano Cedroni & photography Vavá Ribeiro

Jon Rose looks like a regular surf dude: tan skin, pale blue eyes, and a friendly smile on his face. But for over a decade this former WCT top surfer mingled with the ‘Irons’ and ‘Slaters’ of the professional surf circus in search of great waves, trophies, girls and cash. Even though he never made it to the very top, young Jon travelled the world looking for action in the remotest places. His passport is a collection of exotic stamps: Indonesia, Hawaii, South Africa, Brazil, Peru, Tahiti. But knowing he would never make the big-time, Jon retired at the age
of thirty-one.
A bit lost after the dreamy lifestyle of the surf circuit, Jon took inspiration from his father, Jack Rose – who had worked in Africa helping people catch and filter rainwater – and travelled to Sumatra Island, Indonesia, with some simple filters in his backpack. It was during this surf trip, in 2009, that Jon felt a slight shake on his boat – an echo of the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that caused a tsunami killing over 1,000 people, and leaving 100,000 homeless. Surviving without a scratch, Jon decided to go inland to deliver the filters where they were needed. He didn’t know it yet, but this was the birth of Waves 4 Water.
“After helping people in Sumatra, delivering filters and teaching people how to use them, I knew that this is what I wanted to do with my life,” says Jon, comfortably seated in the open garden of Loducca, a fancy advertising agency in São Paulo, Brazil. “We’re the black sheep of NGOs, because we don’t operate like them, buying cars and trucks, spending a lot on infrastructure and personnel, hiring foreigners to do the job. That’s an old model, a ridiculous model, if you ask me. They hire a guy from Ireland to do the transportation in Haiti, and an Australian to do the security in Uganda. Why not the locals?”
Waves 4 Water is an NGO that delivers water filters to people who need them. Whenever there’s a natural disaster, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, Jon and his two employees go to action. Getting funds from brands like Hurley, a Nike surf subsidiary, or humanitarian organisations such as Red Cross, Jon and his staff buy the filters in the US and fly to the ground-zero areas where they hire local people to help distribute them. “I’ve learned everything from surf,” Jon acknowledges. “Like, how to be able to adapt; to be out of your comfort zone and yet manage to deal with it.”
After dropping a couple dozen filters to people during the flood in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last January, Jon and photographer Vavá Ribeiro joined forces with a few other surfers such as Guga Ketzer, a creative director from Loducca ad agency, and set up an expedition this summer to the Amazon
River. Their mission? To check the quality of drinking water for the people living around the largest water reserve on the globe.
“What the Amazon people don’t realise is that the water from the river is not clean,” says Jon. “At least not clean enough to
drink it. So we got there, filtered a few glasses and showed them the results. They were astonished.” Jon and his small team have delivered over 100,000 filters so far to places like Kenya, Uganda, Pakistan, Indonesia, Japan, Brazil and Haiti. “The idea is to get in, act, and get out as soon
as we can, so the local authorities don’t even have the time to tell us what we can and what we cannot do,” says Jon about their guerrilla approach. “Sometimes we have sixty people working with us and it blows me away!” Each filter delivered by Waves 4 Water costs fifty US dollars
and provides clean water to 100 people per day for up to five years. The device can be used with any plastic bucket by making a whole in the bottom and the filters are easy to transport. Jon may have already worked side by side with the Red Cross and the UN this year, but he plans to grow his outreach significantly in the future. “One in six people still don’t have access to clean water,” says Jon, “and that’s ridiculous.”
wavesforwater.org

You can download the full PDF article here

Rose in Port-au-Prince, Haiti Photographer: Mark Chioniere

Bright Idea: DIY Disaster Relief

By: WILLIAM WHEELER

In September 2009, California surfer Jon Rose was sailing toward the island of Sumatra, carrying ten water filters that he planned to deliver to a rural community while enjoying a surf trip in Indonesia. Rose was looking to move on from his career as a Quiksilver-sponsored surfing pro. Inspired by his father’s nonprofit, RainCatcher, which teaches African villagers how to filter rainwater, he hit upon the idea of recruiting surfers to deliver water filters in their travels through developing countries. He thought it would be a pet project. Then, on his first mission, an earthquake hit nearby, devastating the city of Padang. “It was like divine intervention,” Rose says. “Like, ‘OK, this is your life. This is what you’re doing.’ ”

Rose’s organization, Waves for Water, has since provided some 2.5 million people access to safe water, delivering more than 75,000 simple portable filters, which can be used with local water supplies and whatever buckets are at hand, cutting out the need to dig wells or use purification chemicals. The group is one part viral campaign—looking for volunteers to buy and distribute filters abroad—and one part action squad, running relief and improvement programs in Haiti, Brazil, Pakistan, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, India, and Liberia. It’s a style that Rose refers to as “black ops” or “guerrilla humanitarianism,” which he defines as working “under the radar and around the red tape.” That means a lean budget and a skeleton staff that coordinates with locals on the ground and moves into and out of target areas quickly.

Those years he spent far off the beaten path prepared him for his new job, Rose says. “It’s sort of the same way I felt about surfing as a kid,” he says. “But it’s greater.”

View actual article here 

Waves For Water was recently contacted by a group in Brazil that produces a giant music festival each year just outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil, called SWU – The letters stand for Starts With You. It is a festival on par with the ones we are so familiar with in the US such as Coachella & Lallapalooza. Some of this years headliners include – Kanye West, Faith No More, Snoop Dogg, Stone Temple Pilots, Black Eyed Peas, Duran Duran, among others. But the difference in SWU is it has a purpose beyond the  music. The entire thing is a sustainability/awareness campaign, with music as the common thread. The concept is simple – attract an entire demographic with great live music, but while you have them there, TURN THEM ON…! Shift their consciousness and create an army of educated soldiers in the fight for a new, more conscious, reality… It’s all about information – once you are informed, you are responsible… once you are in touch with your responsibilities, you have a better chance of carrying them out and actually helping to change existing paradigms that are either outdated or simply broken.

So, SWU walks their talk… and how they do so is by partnering with organization or groups that they feel are worthy of exposing to the massive audience at their festival. When they partner, it means that they co-create (and sponsor) a community driven action with each partner. In the case of W4W, through our program, they wanted to collaborate on a project for a specific slum on the outskirts of Sao Paulo that, in its first phase, would provide 900 families with clean water. Their concept is brilliant – execute a real action with their partners months before the festival… do a huge media push around each action to get people acquainted, and then physically showcase each project at the festival through a range of mediums – build outs, videos, live demonstrations, etc…

We completed the first phase of the slum project with them recently and it was incredible. It’s all about implementing change on the ground level and turning on the next generation in the process… I even had my girlfriends son, Dylan, come along to help and see first hand the harsh realities that many people face, day in and day out, around the world.

SWU was a flawless partner… and really helped get the message out afterwards on a national level… And along with the unwavering support (since the inception of this project) by the Hurley crew in Brazil, it was by and far one of the smoothest projects we’ve ever done – anywhere! I’ve attached images from the project…

Lastly, they have asked me to speak at their global sustainability symposium during the festival… I said yes, of course… and am completely honored to do so. The other speakers include Neil Young, Bob Geldof, and Donna Karen… to name a few.

Here’s a link to learn about the event – http://swu-admin.swu.com.br/en/

Wish us luck!

W4W+Hurley+Nike = GameChanger Kit (Phase 2) from Waves For Water on Vimeo.

We always feel good about giving the gift of clean water. In my opinion, water is a god given right – like air…

But the fact that there are still such staggering statistics, such as – 1 out of 6 people do not have access to clean drinking water – means there is obviously a hole in the equation. I say it all the time, but there is absolutely no reason that ANYONE should die from dirty water when solutions, like the simple water filtration devices we use, exist. So our primary goal has been to fill that hole by simply connecting the brilliant technology that already exists with the people who need it. It’s nobodies fault, there’s just missing links in the chain sometimes. In this case, the gifted minds who created this incredible technology did their job perfectly – they created user-friendly devices that can make almost any contaminated water, potable. But it isn’t necessarily their job to identify the individuals around the world who so desperately need them… or be the ones to deliver them for that matter. And the folks around the world who are in such dire need solutions like this, don’t have the slightest idea that they exist. That’s where we come in… and on behalf of W4W I will say we are honored to play a roll, of any size, in the big vision that so many people around the world share, which is – clean water for everyone!

I am very proud that we as individuals can always do our part in this fight… and make a difference one person at a time. Actually, it is inspiring to know that one person can provide a hundred people with clean water by putting just one filter in their luggage the next time they travel. This concept was obviously the inception for our Clean Water Couriers program – which, at this point, has legitimately turned into a movement. I like fantasizing about the one for one model – each of us individually doing our part to help one another, with the end result being a complete eradication of the problem. It really is the strength in numbers philosophy and I do believe it CAN be done. And when it is… the credit will not be be shared by a few, but equally with everyone that did their part, big or small.

That said, there are ways to speed up the process and one of the best is to form solid partnerships with other individuals, organizations, corporations, or groups who simply share the same passions for correcting the number of imbalances we face in the world today – in this case: clean water. Whether it’s a merger of large groups or one person doing their part, the fundamentals stay the same – what separates the two models is scale. For example, through our partnership with Hurley more people around the world have clean water – period. Without a partnership of this nature we would still be happily powering away, but the scale would be dramatically different. During our last trip to Haiti proof of this point was made very clear.

We went down to complete phase 2 of the GameChanger Kit project we launched last fall. The original concept for this project was simple: sport + water = GameChanger Kit. We decided that everyone in the communities we target obviously need (and benefit from) clean water… but we felt by adding a sport element into the equation it could, at the very least, provide them with a much needed escape from all the other incredibly hard problems they face each and everyday. Soccer, being the most universally played sport in the world, was the obvious choice. So for this project, in addition to the normal water filters we include, each bucket contained a soccer ball (and little cones to mark the field). We piloted the project in last Sep by distributing kits to two small villages in the Leogone area (epicenter of earthquake). The results were priceless… it was the first time since I started doing this work that all I thought of at the end of the day was the sound of children laughing. People are always grateful when we provide them with clean water, but in giving them an opportunity to participate in a playful activity such as soccer, truly was a game-changer for them… and for us!

The power of collaboration… is a beautiful thing! This time around, we provided access to clean water and sport to 80,000 people – That’s the scale I’m talking about! I feel incredibly lucky to have partnered with such committed and conscious partners as Nike and Hurley on this project… and furthermore, the partners on the ground that helped us get these kits into the communities that needed them most: Fritz Pierre-Louis, who really is the backbone of so much that we do in Haiti… and GOALS, a great grass roots organization that helped distribute the kits throughout their soccer driven community programs across the country.

I have reached a conclusion through the countless projects we participate in across the globe, that to correct the imbalances of the world we must first make the choice to do our part… but ultimately, the battle will be won by us joining hands and fighting together…

Attached are some of the images I shot with my phone during this project… but for a more comprehensive viewing, please see this amazing video shot and edited by Tom Aiello – http://vimeo.com/27752717

Thanks!
Jon

The beneficiaries of the GameChanger kit

Boy filling his cup from W4W filter and other boy drinking filtered water

Boys filling cup from W4W filter system

Families Getting filter system demo

Family on Moto with their new W4W filter system

Fritz and Tom DeBlasis handing out soccer ball to kids after Filter demo

Kids chasing new soccer ball from GameChanger Kit

Kids waiting while clean water flows into their cup

No rules on the soccer field

The Godfather Jack Rose showing kids the GameChanger Kit

Woman walking home with new W4W filter system

Christian Troy and Jordan Tappis revisit Pakistan on behalf of Waves For Water.

Pakistan’s floods of Summer 2010 were rated by the United Nations as the greatest humanitarian crisis that the UN has ever faced. And although it measured such magnitude, the disaster went largely unnoticed by the international community.

The UN expressed concern that aid was not arriving fast enough, and the World Health Organization reported that ten million people were forced to drink unsafe water.

Waves For Water responded. We overlooked the politics and the threats and focused on the human crisis. Within a month, we raised funds, shipped water filtration systems, and arrived in Pakistan to find partners in country to combine efficiencies for optimizing distribution of clean water to those in need.

Christian Troy gives a demo on water filter installation

Distributing water filtration systems in the rural Layyah District of Punjab, Pakistan

Waves For Water filtration system in use

A Pakistani farmer drinks clean water to the last drop before he raises his dry tin cup and smiles

A couple of beneficiaries acknowledge the camera after the one on the left recited an original poem of gratitude

As it turns out, any other color bucket may have just blended in…

These two bespectacled brothers left us with an indelible image of radiant, red buckets being carried off into the farmers’ fields

Read more about Project Pakistan