By: Kaylee Pratt, Intern
Water, sanitation and hygiene thought leaders from all different backgrounds met at the annual conference to share their experience, research, and lessons learned about how to build a more sustainable future for all at the University of North Carolina’s (UNC) 2015 Water and Health Conference held on October 26-30. The main focus of this event directed toward drinking water supply, sanitation, hygiene and water resources worldwide.
Carolyn Meub of Pure Water for the World can attest that the conference was comprised of pretty impressive group of organizations.
“It’s a very stimulating and exciting place to be,” said Meub. “It’s a great opportunity to learn what’s happening in the field and a place to share our own work too,” Meub said.
Organized by the Water Institute at UNC, Meub was able to collaborate with leaders from academic institutions, non-governmental organizations government organizations, and the corporate world.
Although this was Meub’s second time going to one of these conferences she said content of the schedule was comprehensive and overwhelming as this is a large and dramatic sector. She believes it’s the wealth of information and the many connections you can make while listening and talking with others that make this conference all worthwhile.
The end and all goals are to help the people they serve live a more maintainable life and if you can get ideas from other practitioners to improve what you’re already doing, you should take the opportunity and run with it. In fact the lessons she learned at this conference she plans to incorporate in the various programs they do in Haiti and Honduras.
Some of these topics are WASH for the future, which deals with Sustainable Development Goals, innovation, resources, integration, and urbanization. Other topics involved hygiene and behavior, WASH in emergencies and outbreaks, water supply and quality, as well as sanitation.
Even though PWW is a smaller organization, PWW has contributed to the body of knowledge of what it takes to implement a sustainable program.
“We aren’t a very large organization but I think we have significant impact on what we do.” Meub said.
