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Solvatten: Sustainable Solution to Holiday Giving

If you’re still wondering what to give a Rotary friend or loved one – and struggling to find a gift consistent with your values – a Solvatten Solar Safe Water kit is a truly beneficial and sustainable choice. Here’s why:

• Your gift sends a solar water purifier kit to a Kenyan family who lacks access to safe water. Powered by the sun instead of wood or charcoal, the kit will provide safe water for seven years.
• As you can see from the website, Solvatten kits advance all seven of Rotary’s Areas of Focus, from preventing disease to community economic development.
• You’re not cluttering up your loved one’s house.

This is a perfect way to show a prospective Rotarian the good that Rotary does worldwide! You can donate at this link and download this cheerful gift card to give to your loved one.

Designed by Petra Wadström of Sweden, Solvatten solar water heaters are providing safe, hot water to almost 500,000 people worldwide. Each kit can heat and treat up to 40 liters of water a day, saving 6-8 trees and preventing 1-1.5 tons of CO2 emissions a year. Wadström and Solvatten have won many awards, including Aftonbladet’s Environmental Hero Award, the EU Prize for Women Inventors, the UNFCCC Momentum for Change, the WWF Climate Solver, the Swedish Design Prize, and the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology’s 2022 Grand Prize. European Rotarians have been championing this project, and their donations have saved 13,760 trees and prevented 1,925 tons of greenhouse gas emissions to date.

The video about Solvatten won first prize in this year’s I Fix the Planet contest! Read more about the Solvatten project and make life-giving gifts at www.solarsafewater.org

Rotary Leaders Put Environment Center Stage at Abu Dhabi Zone Institute

Dedicated to "Climate Stability Through Environmental Sustainability,” Rotary’s Institute for Zones 1b, 9 and 10 took place 2-4 December in Abu Dhabi. This Institute put the spotlight on urgent environmental issues and effective responses for close to a thousand Rotarians representing 42 nations, from Pakistan to Taiwan to Indonesia. ESRAG Projects Director Mina Venkataraman and I attended upon the invitation of RI Director M. Faiz Kidwai. RID Faiz, who lives in one of the regions hardest hit by Pakistan’s 2022 catastrophic floods, served as the Institute’s convener. He is an ESRAG member and was Regional Chapter Co-Chair with me before being elected to the RI Board.

Top Rotary leaders participated in each of the three environmental plenaries, starting with “Climate Carnage,” moderated by RID Faiz. That panel included RI Director Pat Merryweather-Arges, an ESRAG member, and RI Trustee Aziz Memon. I spoke as a panelist on the second plenary, “Environment Townhall: Climate Stability Through Environmental Sustainability.” RI Director Urs Klemm also served as a panelist. The third plenary was called “No Holds Barred: An Open Discussion with our Leadership,” also moderated by RID Faiz. The panelists were RI President Nominee Stephanie Urchick, RI Vice President Nicki Scott, RI Trustee Bharat Pandya, and RI General Secretary and CEO John Hewko. President Jennifer Jones and PRIP Ravi Ravindran also attended the Institute.

In addition, RID Frederick Lin gave an exciting talk about District 3520’s highly effective Save Food for Taiwan Association. D3520 joined forces with four other districts to win a Rotary global grant to build a commercial kitchen to divert food from the landfill and provide culinary training to unemployed people. Between its inception five years ago and May of this year, the project has saved over 59,000 kg of food and delivered almost 200,000 lunches to low-income people across Taipei, thus reducing both greenhouse gas emissions and hunger.

Read more to learn about the two important gains resulting from our attending the Abu Dhabi Zone Institute as ESRAG representatives.

Photo: ESRAG Projects Director Dr. Mina Venkataraman, RI Director M. Faiz Kidwai, and ESRAG Chair-Elect Yasar Atacik in Abu Dhabi.

Vital Connections Made at Visakhapatnam Zone Institute

ESRAG members dove into Rotary’s multi-Zone Institute Dec. 9-11 at Visakhapatnam, with zest and great success in raising the profile of environmental work. We connected with top leaders, from RI President Nominee Stephanie Urchick to current and upcoming District Governors from Zones 4,5,6, and 7. Networking throughout the weekend, we energized Rotarians about opportunities including watershed restoration, solid waste, cleaner cookstoves, and mangrove projects. We fielded a multitude of inquiries, and will follow up to support Clubs in their work, including global grant applications.

This region has seven women DGEs, all of them ESRAG members! The role of women was a major theme of this Institute, including RI President Jennifer Jones’ leading the first-ever Women in Rotary Conference, which emphasized girls’ empowerment. We can build on this by promoting low-cost, reusable menstrual hygiene resources to help girls stay in school.

I was ably assisted by fellow ESRAG members Dr. S. Rajalakshmi, Booma Mahendravarman, and ESRAG South Asia Chapter Co-Chair MK Sivabal, all of us from D3203 Environmental Team. By attending this Zone Institute, we gained access to and visibility with the DGEs from 42 districts. By attending Zone Institutes yearly, ESRAG members will gain more traction in expanding Rotarians’ environmental action and impact. I informed RIPN Stephanice Urchick about ESRAG’s Climate Action Plan, which ESRAG Chair Pat Armstrong then emailed to her.

This Zone Institute had only one environmental session, but we were able to leverage it by connecting conferees to river strategies championed by ESRAG.

Photo: ESRAG South Asia Mangroves Team. From left, ESRAG Projects Director Dr. Mina Venkataraman, PDG Ajay Gupta (D3141), and Biswajit Ghosh. Rtn. Ajay, a trustee of the Rotary India Water C0nservation Unit, conducted the mangroves breakout session at the 2022 RI Convention in Houston. Rtn. Biswajit serves on the board of the Rotary Action Group for Community Economic Development and as COO/CEO of Rotary India Humanitarian Foundation and Rotary India Literacy Mission. He helps build connections with organizations for community development and plays a key role in vetting the Sunderbans Mangroves project.

I Fix the Planet Winners

The results are in! Five videos have won top honors in ESRAG’s second international “I Fix the Planet” Contest. They illustrate an array of powerful actions Rotarians are taking across six continents to overcome human-caused pollution, restore ecosystems, and advocate for accountability.

Here are the winning videos of 2022:

• First Prize goes to the Stockholm Djurgården Rotary Club in Sweden, ESRAG’s Solar Safe Water Team, and WASH-RAG for “Josephine Using Solvatten.” This luminous film shows how a mother in Kenya can now keep her children healthy, pay their school fees, and buy them nourishing food because of money she saves by using her Solvatten solar-powered water purifier kit. Over 360,000 people are using Solvatten kits across Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and South America.
• Second Prize goes to the Rotary Eco Club of Kaka’ako for “Genki Balls Clean the Ala Wai,” a canal on O’wahu, Hawaii. The film documents a delightful community event making mud balls with beneficial microorganisms. The project's goal is to make this highly polluted canal swimmable and fishable within seven years.

• “Ecocide,” submitted by the multinational ESRAG Ecocide Team. Ecocide is the mass destruction of the natural living world by humans. With haunting images and music, the film urges Rotarians to sign the international petition to make ecocide a crime. It grounds this advocacy in Rotary ethics of the Four-Way-Test. You can read more at the website of Stop Ecocide International, a growing network of diplomats, lawyers, and all sectors of civil society.
• “ What I Would Like For You” from the Rotary Club Eco-Milano in Italy. In this poignant film, a mother speaks to her soon-to-be born child of “what I hope for you and what I will teach you” to fulfill our shared responsibility to care “for the world, which is our home.”

The People’s Choice Award went to the Rotary Club Jaipur Gurukul, India for “Tree Plantation Drive for the Dravyawati River in Jaipur.” “Let’s plant a tree and plant hope for the future,” they urge viewers.

Photo: Jenny Do, President 2022-23, Eco Rotary Club of Kaka'ako, from the video that won second prize.

If you fly this holiday, fuel climate solutions!

If you are traveling by plane this holiday, consider using ESRAG’s new Flight Carbon Estimator. Your donation goes into The Rotary Foundation’s fund for environmental global grants to support Rotary projects that reduce carbon emissions. By estimating your flight's emissions and making this donation, you’re increasing your awareness and turning it into action. Goal 4 of Rotary’s environmental global grant guidelines lists an array of eligible carbon reduction projects including solar power, sustainable transportation systems and cleaner cookstoves.

To use the calculator, all you need to enter is the total duration of your air travel, the number of flight segments (since takeoffs and landings add emissions), and the seat class. First class uses more space and accounts for a greater portion of the flight’s emissions. The calculator offers two levels of donation: basic ($10 USD per tonne) and premium ($30 USD per tonne).