{"id":20709,"date":"2021-03-26T20:36:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-26T20:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adra.org\/?p=20709"},"modified":"2026-03-24T19:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T19:49:16","slug":"facebook-live-conversation-with-adras-water-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/facebook-live-conversation-with-adras-water-expert","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Live: \u0411\u0435\u0441\u0435\u0434\u0430 \u0441 \u044d\u043a\u0441\u043f\u0435\u0440\u0442\u043e\u043c ADRA \u043f\u043e \u0432\u043e\u0434\u043d\u044b\u043c \u0440\u0435\u0441\u0443\u0440\u0441\u0430\u043c"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meet ADRA\u2019s Water Expert<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Conversation<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Every month, ADRA hosts a Facebook Live to talk about our topic of the month and take questions from supporters about that, or whatever else is on your mind! For World Water Day this year, we welcomed Jason Brooks, ADRA\u2019s Senior Advisor for Water, Sanitation, & Hygiene (aka our very own water expert) We asked him all the questions that come up about the water crisis affecting so much of the world, how ADRA responds, and so much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you missed the live Q&A, you can read some of the highlights of the chat below or watch the whole thing online anytime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
WATCH NOW<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

RUBEN:<\/strong>
Why should everyone care about World Water Day and why is it so important?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JASON:<\/strong>
World Water Day is a special one for a water, sanitation, and hygiene advisor but I think we all get excited here. The day has been around since 1993 and it\u2019s just this annual event, every March 22nd, and we are encouraged to focus our attention on one of the most important resources we have as a human being and what that means for the people in the world that don\u2019t have access to safe water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year, World Water Day has a theme, and this year the theme is Valuing Water. Every year the goal is to draw attention to the global water crisis and I call it a global crisis not just because more than 2 billion people have never had access to safe water, but because there are many communities, cities, and even whole countries where water supply is running out. It is truly a global crisis and something worthy of our attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We certainly think about it here a lot at ADRA because we spend so much time working on issues of water supply, sanitation, and hygiene around the world but we want other people to get excited about it too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RUBEN:<\/strong>
Water projects are always popular with ADRA supporters. I\u2019m sure they would want to know where these projects are. Where does ADRA have water projects?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JASON:<\/strong>
They are literally too numerous to name them all, but I can tell you that in 2020 we had over 400 projects around the world in more than 40 countries! These projects include everything from smaller ones that serve one community with one water to supply to huge projects in the context of humanitarian disasters. Just to call one out, one of our largest is in Madagascar and it serves almost half a million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year, we\u2019ve really had an increase in our projects that are related to water, sanitation, and hygiene because hand washing is the first line of defense against COVID-19 so we had a large expansion of projects. I can\u2019t tell you how many lives were saved, but what I can tell you is that as water, sanitation, and hygiene projects reached almost 500 million people last year. It\u2019s just amazing to be part of that global effort. I\u2019m grateful for how interested our supporters are
in this type of work – everyone can relate and imagine how much more difficult their life would be if they didn\u2019t have access to safe water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RUBEN:<\/strong>
Speaking of the projects that we have around the world, one of the questions that comes up frequently is about the sustainability of this work so that the families and communities can support themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you talk about that with us? Is that a goal for ADRA\u2019s water projects?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JASON:<\/strong>
I am so glad that ADRA supporters have questions like this. It\u2019s so important to be an informed supporter and to do the research and understand things. We love the fact that you trust ADRA, but I want to assure you that the reason ADRA can be trusted is that we\u2019re thinking about questions like
sustainability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for those who may be asking, what is sustainability? It means that when we implement a project, we\u2019re thinking about how that project will be able to continue without external support, how the improvements and the well-being of the participants are going to continue into the future managed by the efforts of the community with local resources that they have there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not an easy thing, I\u2019ll be honest with you, when you\u2019re working with people who are often in very resource-deprived situations. And then on top of that, there are so many things that can happen, like a cyclone that comes along and destroys water resources or the place where we work are subject to droughts and things of that nature. We work really hard from the conception of the project to design it in such a way that we take into account the needs and the input of the local community and also build up their capacity to manage the resources themselves. At the end of the day, we want our end users not to get water access one time or temporarily, but to have a resource that they can sustain so that it really supports the improved health and improved productivity that people need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amazing thing about water is that not only can the people listening to this today understand how essential it is to our lives, water is fundamental for human life and human productivity. There is an expression where I used to work in West Africa, and it existed in all the languages in that region, in many different words but all with the same meaning: \u201cWater is life.\u201d The idea is that where there is water, everything is possible, but where you don\u2019t have water, or safe water, you really can\u2019t sustain life and productivity and health. That means that when we\u2019re designing a project, we have to take into consideration not just how it will be managed in the long term, but what kind of shocks and circumstances do we need to foresee to make sure that communities are prepared to support, maintain, and operate water systems because the worst case scenario is we come in and people see a temporary improvement in their situation and then somehow it breaks down or it doesn\u2019t last and people are worse off than they were before. And no person of conscience would want to see that happen, but I\u2019ll tell you, it is a challenge. What it requires is sound, long-term, local partnerships. It\u2019s not something we do alone. We work with local communities, we work with the local government, we work with other humanitarian actors, it\u2019s this huge team effort. Nothing good that we do at ADRA is done in isolation and it requires a huge team of people, most being our local workers. The vast majority of the people working for ADRA are working in the country where they are born and we are operating in. They know the language and the context, and we turn to these local experts and say \u201cHow can we work together with the community with the knowledge you have and the resources we bring to create something that will be contributing to people\u2019s well-being for decades. And that\u2019s so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RUBEN:<\/strong>
We have had viewers send in questions and I want to address one of those that has come in. Someone asked if you have a favorite project during your time working for ADRA. Now, you\u2019ve been at ADRA for quite some time, so is there a project that is memorable for you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JASON:<\/strong>
I\u2019ve been with ADRA for almost 20 years. It started with my wife and I working together when we were mere children and I think the most memorable projects were the ones where you are able to go in and partner with the community in a situation that\u2019s just so desperate, and to see how it transforms the lives of the people. I\u2019m thinking back to our service in the country of Niger in West Africa. Niger is a country that is 80% Sahara Desert and obviously very drought-prone, very hot, very dry. I\u2019ll just never forget being in this rural community, we\u2019d taken a break from the midday sun, it was 120 degrees, and sitting on a straw mat underneath an acacia tree with the village chief. This very devout Muslim man, very respected elder gentlemen, says to me \u201cWe thank God for ADRA.\u201d And I asked through my translator \u201cWhy?\u201d His answer was \u201cADRA comes to the community and they talk to us about what it is that we need help with and how we can work together to accomplish it. It\u2019s not like some others, there\u2019s no agenda, you\u2019re here because as fellow followers of God, you want to be a blessing. So we thank God for you.\u201d There\u2019s an expression that\u2019s sometimes used in that culture – when people say something that you deeply agree with and it moves you, you say \u201cYour mouth to God\u2019s ear.\u201d It\u2019s a way of saying \u201cAmen!\u201d
That still moves me and motivates me today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
WATCH NOW<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u041a\u0430\u0436\u0434\u044b\u0439 \u043c\u0435\u0441\u044f\u0446 ADRA \u043f\u0440\u043e\u0432\u043e\u0434\u0438\u0442 \u043f\u0440\u044f\u043c\u0443\u044e \u0442\u0440\u0430\u043d\u0441\u043b\u044f\u0446\u0438\u044e \u0432 Facebook, \u0447\u0442\u043e\u0431\u044b \u0440\u0430\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0430\u0437\u0430\u0442\u044c \u043e \u0442\u0435\u043c\u0435 \u043c\u0435\u0441\u044f\u0446\u0430 \u0438 \u0437\u0430\u0434\u0430\u0442\u044c \u0441\u0442\u043e\u0440\u043e\u043d\u043d\u0438\u043a\u0430\u043c \u0432\u043e\u043f\u0440\u043e\u0441\u044b \u043f\u043e \u044d\u0442\u043e\u043c\u0443 \u043f\u043e\u0432\u043e\u0434\u0443 \u0438\u043b\u0438 \u043e \u0442\u043e\u043c, \u0447\u0442\u043e \u0432\u0430\u0441 \u0432\u043e\u043b\u043d\u0443\u0435\u0442.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21998,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[615,336],"tags":[673],"class_list":["post-20709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-wash","tag-world-water-day"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20709"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45928,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20709\/revisions\/45928"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adra.org\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}