CIH Cambodia Safe Water Project is a campaign, initiated by the University of Toronto Centre for International Health (CIH), to provide ceramic water filters for vulnerable families in Kep, Cambodia.  Waterborne illness is one of the primary causes of child mortality in Kep and the rest of Cambodia.  Water filtration systems have been found to significantly decrease bacterial loads in drinking water, thereby reducing illness and disease. However, in most villages in the Kep Municipality, 75-90% of households do not own water purifiers, primarily due to a lack of money.

The CIH has already distributed ceramic water filters, a low-cost, low-tech water filtration system developed by Resource
Development International Cambodia, to the poorest families in the Angkoul Commune. The CIH also couples water filter distribution with a demonstration on how to use and maintain the filter as well as health education on waterborne disease to ensure that recipients can maximize the benefits of the water filtration system. Concurrently, the CIH will be continue to monitor drinking water quality in the Kep region, while keeping community members informed and providing necessary
information to help families improve the quality of their drinking water.

For more information, visit: http://intlhealth.med.utoronto.ca/programs/cambodia.htm

Past beneficiaries include:  Panzi Hospital Fundraising Campaign, Free the Children, the Kampot HIV Village, Orphelinat Mia-Mo', Venancius Rukero AIDS Orphans and Vulnerable Children Foundation, Hemoglobal, Albanian Book Project, The Fistula Foundation, Dahanu(India), The Huruma Centre(Nkubu, Kenya), Child Haven (child homes in India, Nepal, Tibet & Bangladesh), the HIV/AIDS village (Kep Region in Cambodia), The Mingha Project (Cameroon), MSMF (schools in Andra Pradesh, India), Guluwalk (Acholi children of Uganda), and other needy parts of the world that the Medical Society (student government) and UTIHP has sought to help.

Below are photos and descriptions of some of the children and programs that we have supported in the past.

                    
Children at school in Dahanu, India

                                   
Children at school in Andra Pradesh, India

                                  
Acholi Children, Uganda

The Huruma Center, Kenya

Child Haven International, Inspired by the ideals and philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, Child Haven International was founded in 1985. We assist children and women in 4 countries, who are in need of food, education, health care, shelter and clothing, emotional and moral support. Child Haven has four homes in India, one in Nepal, one in Tibet and one in Bangladesh. Our homes accept children who are disabled, parentless, or from socially disadvantaged situations - and who are destitute, i.e. do not receive even one good meal a day. Girls and boys are treated equally, and without regard to race, caste, colour, religion or culture. Living is simple and meals are vegetarian. We try not to Westernize the children, but rather attempt to raise them according to the highest ideals of their own cultures. We respect the heritage of each child, whether Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Sikh, Christian, Buddhist, secular or other. Destitute children from birth to six years of age are referred to us by local social welfare agencies. Child Haven Homes provide full care through high school (Tenth Standard), and then provide vocational training so that each child can enter the local society as a self-sufficient adult. Another aspect of Child Haven's Gandhian philosophy is our commitment to improving the condition of women through direct employment, education, medical aid, legal aid, and training opportunities.

The Butterfly Garden(Sri Lanka), The Butterfly Garden is a healing centre in the Northern region of Sri Lanka for children & youth who have been traumatized by decades of civil war. The healers use art, dance, music & theatre to rehabilitate these children and to let them express their feelings and retell their stories. The garden is a new world in the midst of a conflict zone, complete with a massive boat suspended in the air, tunnels and sandpits, photo galleries, live animals and faclilities for woodwork and handicrafts. The program is modeled on the Spiral Garden at the Bloorview-McMillan Rehabilitation Centre in Toronto and has had much Canadian input through sponsorship and training to a study of the extent of clinically-significant psychological trauma in these children.

The HIV/AIDS Village(Kep Region, Cambodia),The HIV/AIDS village in Kep Region, Cambodia is one of desperation and squalor. It is in the small geographic area of the country where we, the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine, are setting up a research and teaching field station. We want to work with this community of 100 HIV positive persons and their families to help them with their co-morbidities and with the AIDS itself. A young family doctor, now doing her MA in anthropology, is going to work in that village and do a feasibility study for us over the next six months. Any funds donated to this village would be put to good use in helping care for the many sick members present.

The Mingha Project(Cameroon), In the local Cameroonian Patois dialect, mingha means "my child." The Mingha Project reaches out to women in impoverished isolated rural villages of Cameroon to address mother-to-child HIV transmission - a means of HIV transmission that accounts for over 90% of infant and childhood cases of AIDS. Without the Mingha Project, these women would need to travel for many hours by foot and bush taxi to reach the nearest hospital, and the cost of the HIV test would be further prohibitive. Mingha educates these women about sexual health and HIV/AIDS, offers free prenatal HIV testing to pregnant women who are unable to afford testing, and provides counselling, care, and infant formula to seropositive mothers and their babies, including administration of anti-retroviral medications to the mother during labour and to the newborn. Based out of a small health care centre, the Mingha Project is a grassroots initiative run by volunteer physicians from Italy and local Cameroonian nurses. While only five villages are currently served, there are many more poor and isolated villages in the region that would benefit from Mingha's help. Funding is the only factor that is keeping the Mingha Project from reaching these other villages. Any funds donated by Earthtones to the Mingha Project will be used to pay for the HIV testing kits and infant formula that are central to this program.

MSMF (India) is an organization founded by Dr. Chandra Sankurathri in the name of his wife and daughters who were killed in the 1985 Air India Bombing. Dr. Chandra's organization has opened doors for young children in rural areas of Andhra Pradesh (the 5th largest state in India). These children, who would otherwise grow up thinking poverty was their allotted fate, are now attending, free of charge, the elementary school built by MSMF. The school employs ten teachers, and provides lunches, uniforms, equipment, transportation, medical check ups, eye care, glasses and medicine free ofcharge to these children. This school has provided children and their families with hope for the future.         

GULUWALK (Uganda) is an organization that raises money for the Acholi children of Uganda who live in constant fear of abduction, rape or even being killed by the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army), a rebel group. Tens of thousands of children ranging in age from 3-17 endure many hardships, including having to trek up to 20 km to urban centres each and every night in order to protect themselves. Guluwalk is an organization founded by two Canadians whose hearts went out to the suffering children of Northern Uganda.