to fellow cast & crew members of the TV show The UNIT:
“A new rainwater harvesting system (tanks, gutters & filters) will be installed on several schools in Kenya in our name – The cast & crew of‘THE UNIT’.As a result of this gift thousands of students will benefit from having their own source of clean drinking water for years to come. I am happy to make this happen with you, Snake Doctor” -Christmas 2008
Fast forward to May, 2009: Spring rains bring overflowing water supply to the five ‘UNIT’ RainCatcher Schools in rural Western Kenya. Many teachers, student & parents, along with everyone at RainCatcher, would like to to express our gratitude to Mr. Haysbert and the entire cast & crew of the UNIT for your contribution. Special acknowledgement goes to Fred Mango of RainCatcher Kenya - the one who gets the job done.
After viewing a video showing villagers in Bali living with extreme lack of water, I wrote this email to my partner Mark Armfield:
Mark — Amana Nova, of Skills for Humanity, has asked us to catch rain for people living on the side of a volcano in Bali. I have already begun designing RainCatchers for the villages seen on the video. There is no reason local island people should be suffering from lack of water. What do you think? Jack
A few days later I received this email from Josh Bycel of One Kid One World (RainCatcher is collaborating on projects in Kenya with Josh):
Jack — I just returned from El Salvador. Trip was amazing. I thought about you because some of the schools we are working on are near the surf beaches and I was thinking about trying to tap into the surf community up here to organize trips where people can surf and help rebuild a school in the community. What do you think? Josh
Continued exchanges with inspired surfers and humanitarians have led to our first Waves for Water RainCatcher projects – in partnership with Azucar Surf Retreat, in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Designed to bring drinking water and education supplies to local school children in need, this project will act as a model for similar projects at major surf destinations worldwide. Our second Waves for Water project, in Sayulita, Mexico — www.colegiocostaverde.com — is slated for July 2009, in time for the rainy season.
The solution is simple
Just by doing what we love, and allocating $10 from adventure travel budgets, surfers will be able to help reverse the crippling water and education conditions students around the world must endure every day.
To accomplish this we will also join forces with leading surf companies and magazines, adventure travel companies and airlines. Waves for Water funds will go to the region each surfer is visiting: Africa; Indonesia; India; Central America; Mexico. . . everywhere.
To get to beautiful and exotic surf destinations we often pass through towns and villages that lack drinking water. Here’s one example: Fiji Water produces more than a million bottles of water a day, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have reliable drinking water. Now surfers and surf travelers will have a chance to correct this imbalance.
In 2008 I collaborated on a speech with Dennis Haysbert for an environmental summit in Japan (see video, below). As a result funds have been donated to set up RainCatchers on four schools in remote regions of Western Kenya.
With gratitude I would like to acknowledge the contribution of Mr. Shigeo Ohmori and Mr. Kokichi Nakata from the Youth Summit for the Environment — Kobe, Japan 2008 - and Mr. Haysbert for donating time, talent & resources to this cause.
Because of Mr. Ohmori’s, Mr. Nakata’s and Mr. Haysbert’s sponsorship of our rainwater harvesting projects in Africa, thousands of students are now benefiting from having their own source of clean drinking water for years to come.
Jack Rose
Here is the video of Dennis Haysbert’s speech to the Youth Summit for the Environment:
The simplest way to catch, store and deliver clean drinking water is through with a RainCatchrer. Along with impact partner, Raincatcher.org, HUB has installed raincatchers in schools in Africa and also supports efforts to dig water wells.
Unregulated irrigation along the shores of Lake Victoria in Africa has drastically lowered the availability of clean water. Women and children become critically ill through lack of water or usage of dirty water.
RainCatcher is a California non-profit corporation. Having filed for federal tax exempt status all donations made this year will qualify. Donations can be made out to: RainCatcher, INC
28990 Pacific Coast Hwy #109 Malibu, CA 90265 Jack Rose - 415-939-9396
The HippoRoller is a heavy-duty plastic drum that can be filled upright, then sealed and rolled like a steamroller across rough terrain. The 24-gallon (90L) tank weighs 200 pounds when full, but the rolling drum has a functional weight of just 22 pounds, so virtually anyone can use it. The current design has been tweaked to ease shipping and transportation of the carriers, which are manufactured in Johannesburg, South Africa. They are distributed mainly by local NGOs to communities throughout southern Africa, along with training on water purification and sanitation.
A single HippoRoller can hold a day’s water for an entire family of five. Great potential here to work with RainCatcher systems to help people transport water more easily and efficiently from a central location in a village out to individul homes. And what an improvement to go…
...from this...
...to this! (All photos: HippoRoller.org)
Another simple solution to the water problem: Rain ‘n Roll.
Mark Armfield is the owner of Armfield Design & Construction, Malibu, California.
MALIBU, California. As a boy on a bike, standing at the edge of Point Dume, gazing towards the blue horizon, Mark realized there was nowhere else to go — “This is it”. Right then he made a vow to love this land and to protect its beauty, and to one day give something back.
Fast forward a few decades and that day is now. After 25 years of working to bring environmental awareness to the construction industry, Mark takes pride in bringing to fruition only those projects that combine extreme beauty and optimum efficiency.
In the push to be environmentally responsible Mark has never forgotten about the very human need for beauty and serenity. The home as sanctuary: This is what the builder tries to create and how the family man tries to live.
Along with many environmentally advanced Malibu homes, Mark’s body of work includes:
President - Malibu Association of Contractors
Director of Malibu Chamber of Commerce
Chairman – Government Affairs / City of Malibu
Member – Malibu City Business Roundtable
Member – City of Malibu Sustainable Building Committee
As a surfer and a builder, Mark gradually became aware of our impact on the quality of the ocean. He has committed himself to learning about what hurts the ocean and what can save the ocean from further harm.
RainCatcher
Beginning at the shore, Mark eventually started looking upstream. This lead him to the sky, to RainCatcher, to Jack Rose. Mark and Jack are studying the effects of the vast runoff from rainfall, through our cities, to the ocean. Together, right here in Malibu, they are designing prototypes for residential rainwater harvesting and storm-water management. This work is their contribution to future generations of Californians.
California RainCatcher houses will collect and store tens of thousands of gallons of fresh rainwater each year during the rainy season and then use this precious resource for landscaping during the long dry season. By the middle of the century, the fulfillment of this design will cut in half the amount of water Southern California must import every year. See photos of completed
projects in the Central Coast region of California by a landscape design company called Earthcraft Landscape Design.
This is a big, slow process that will yield great dividends a half century from now for everyone in California. But many places in the world need the water from RainCatchers right now, so: In conjunction with their local projects, Mark and Jack are bringing the same rain catching technologies to places like Africa and India so that millions of people worldwide will benefit today by not having to suffer and die from water borne diseases.
From the same Point Dume office where they imagine and construct beautiful and brilliant Malibu homes, Mark and Jack create RainCatchers for schoolhouses in Africa. Current projects include two UN Farm Schools for 700 AIDS orphans in Western Kenya.
Jack Rose, founder of RainCatcher.
Jack Rose, Raincatcher: I grew up along the coast of California with a mountain range, the Sierra Nevada, in my back yard — surfing, climbing, skiing — Living in a place where every year, like clockwork, moisture would float in from the Pacific, hit the Sierra, and drop an abundance of rain and snow. These same mountains would later provide the RainCatcher model for my current work.
If I had to give myself a job description it would be: inventor/explorer/friend.
Jack Rose Design Studio — I design interesting houses in all the hideaway places up and down California. Having grown up in a dry climate, rain falling has always been alluring for me. While living on the north shore of Kauai I began catching and drinking rain. It was the best thing I had ever tasted. A couple years later, while living on the rainy Mendocino coast, I continued catching an abundance of delicious rain. So, one day, while enjoying a glass of water-from-heaven I suddenly realized that over a billion people around the world couldn’t participate in this daily ritual that I take for granted. As a designer I gave myself the challenge to come up with a simple, cheap way for all who are chronically thirsty to receive clean, safe drinking water direct from the sky. RainCatcher was born. The purpose and goal: H2O 4 Every 1.
Reversal-of-fortune
The value of rain received, rather than rejected, is immeasurable.
Architecture, up until now, is based on the premise that “Water is the enemy” — we must shed it and get rid of it as fast as possible. Residential, commercial, industrial and municipal architects and planners all adhere to this belief.
At the same time, modern culture has been relentless in promoting this attitude. Turn to the weather on radio or TV and we are constantly told: “It’s going to be a bad day”. . . because there’s a chance of rain. And if it isn’t a bad day here we are shown all the places where it is going to be ‘miserable’, because of rain — Boston, Pittsburgh, Des Moines, you name it.
Generations have been taught to fear nature, to loathe the rain, to complain each time the garden gets watered. None of this rings true. As children we loved the rain. When we weren’t inside playing board games and making forts we were outside discovering new lakes where bean fields used to be — building Tom Sawyer rafts and having big adventures.
A primary purpose of RainCatcher is to sing praise and gratitude for weather — to instigate an attitude shift from “rain is bad, let’s get rid of it” to “rain is a blessing, let’s catch it and treasure it.” When enough of us do this, countless people around the world will experience a Reversal-of-Fortune. Water is as precious a resource as oil. Instead of tossing it aside, one day we will collect it from the roofs of every home and business structure and put it to good use.
As everyone in Africa knows, “WATER IS LIFE”. . .
The purpose and goal of RainCatcher is: H2O 4 Every 1
Irena Salina’s documentary film, FLOW (For the Love Of Water), humanizes international water politics.
Water is the sleeping giant issue of the 21st Century and we all need to wake up about it. FLOW opens our eyes about the greatest threat of our time - the global water crisis. It is a compelling and passionate film. Its engaging narrative will grip the viewer. — Robert Redford
Check out the trailer and a review of the film, below.
Irena Salina’s documentary looks at all things water and the effects a dwindling supply has on health, prosperity and security.
By Kenneth Turan, Times Movie Critic
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about, the quietly apocalyptic “Flow” makes a good case that what’s going on with our planet’s water supply should make you very, very afraid. Any film that begins with a bleak W.H. Auden quote (”Thousands have lived without love, not one without water”) is not going to be a ray of sunshine in anyone’s life.
Made over a five-year period by director Irena Salina, who went all over the world and talked to an impressive list of experts, “Flow” (which also stands for “For Love of Water”) is a smartly done, involving look at a number of interrelated water issues.
For one thing, it seems that the planet is simply running out of water, which, given our dependence on it, is not a good thing. “We have wars going on over oil,” one of the film’s authorities says. “Water can be oil all over again.”
Also a problem is that as a society we are terminally polluting what water we have. “Flow” opens with a shot of India’s Ganges, kind of the poster image for polluted water, and it tells us that water-borne diseases kill more people annually than either AIDS or wars.
It turns out, however, that these kinds of problems are not limited to the developing world. Rocket fuel seems to have made its way into some American water systems, and herbicides such as Atrazine, banned in the European Union, are still in wide use over here.
More unexpected is “Flow’s” examination of the bitter, at times physical, conflicts that erupt when major corporations have tried to privatize water in parts of Bolivia, South Africa and other countries.
From the companies’ point of view, they are providing a service by bringing safe water to areas that don’t have it. But if the need to make a profit means that safe water will be priced above what the poorest people can afford to pay, those folks will continue to use the unsafe but free alternative. It is a dilemma we are likely to hear more about in years to come.
One of “Flow’s” most intriguing segments concerns bottled water, the alternative of choice for society’s most prosperous elements but a liquid that turns out to be less regulated and possibly less safe than what comes through the tap. In addition, we’re told, society could provide pure water for everyone on the planet for what we pay for the bottled kind. It’s something to think about, as is this entire film.
In 2008 
