letters |  

Cheers to you for your magazine’s focus on clean water globally and locally (“Thirst,” Summer 2006). As the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s water programs, as well as an Emory law graduate, I’m encouraged by the work of Emory’s Center for Global Safe Water.

Ending world thirst may not be achievable in the next decade, but real progress is. The Administration has joined other countries in supporting the United Nations’ goal of cutting in half the percent of people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015, and the United Nations has declared 2005–2015 the “International Decade for Action: Water for Life.” The center, and the broader Emory University community, can make a huge difference.
I’ll drink to that.

Benjamin H. Grumbles 85L
Washington, D.C.


The Emory Magazine article on clean drinking water (“Thirst,” Summer 2006) brought back memories from Mexico. For many years I participated in the monthly clinic trips by Liga International to rural mountainous areas of Southern Sonora and Northern Sinaloa, where there was no other medical care.

The village of Chinabampo was on the bank of a small stream that was dry in the summer. Sanitation was via pit latrines scattered throughout the village. Water was from wells and from digging down through the sand to water level. Diarrheal diseases were rampant during the rainy season when there was visible surface water flow in the stream.

A grant from the Ford Foundation funded a diesel pump and a large cement-lined cistern. Unfortunately the inlet for the pump was located in the stream bottom on the down-stream side of town. And the dysentery problems continued every rainy season.

We tried to get the village elders to relocate the inlet, or at least to use hypochlorite in the cistern, but they argued month after month over the cost. Eventually the dry season returned, the epidemic abated and the issue was deleted from their agenda. And so the problem recurs every year.

Rodney E. Willard 65R
Redlands, California


I just received my Summer 2006 Emory Magazine, and it is wonderful. I have just returned from a trip to Kenya. The trip was to determine the feasibility of taking a medical mission team to Nakuru, Kenya.

I believe a public health focus is key to volunteer work in developing countries, and safe water has frequently been at the top of my list for public health teaching and intervention. I am trying to figure out the interface between “mission” groups and academic and corporate efforts to secure safe water.

The “Thirst” article is a great resource on how to “tap” into the collective expertise at Emory on Global Safe Water.

Professor of Pediatrics Lillian R. Meacham 80 MMS 84M
Atlanta, Georgia


In letters (Emory Magazine, Summer 2006), 1st Lt. Margaret J. Butler 03C, USMC, had complimentary things to say about her four years of undergraduate education at Emory and additionally commended Emory Magazine for focusing attention on those alumni who are serving in the war against terrorism.

She stated that she remains a political conservative, and consequently was among the minority at Emory. It could be argued stoutly that the survival skills she obviously had to develop as a political conservative at Emory have served her admirably as a Marine with two tours of duty in Iraq.

Professor Emeritus Dale E. Hunt
Atlanta, Georgia


I wanted to tell you how much I appreciated your article about transition (“Prelude,” Summer 2006) in Emory Magazine.

I work in Boston with my own consulting company, helping nonprofit organizations recruit new CEOs. I focus on the transition of the organization, but also help the outgoing CEO and the incoming CEO with theirs. I enjoyed this issue of the magazine more than any I can remember, particularly the article about Leah Sears. Thank you for highlighting a strong woman in a position of high leadership and making her story so accessible.

Susan Stewart Egmont 91EMBA
Boston, Massachusetts


The great cover of Emory Magazine’s summer issue (“Thirst," photo by Matt Freeman 05MPH) drew my attention and I opened and read the article about safe water! I admit that my usual move when I get the magazine is to put it at the bottom of my reading stack and never get to it. Thanks for working to make the magazine attract the attention of those like me. Great article, too! As you can see, it actually generated action on my part!
     
Diane Q. Hamrick 81L
     Kenyon Partner Ministries, Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church
     High Point, North Carolina

 


Has something you’ve read in Emory Magazine raised your consciousness—or your hackles? Let us know. Write to the editors at Emory Magazine, 1655 N. Decatur Road, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, via fax at 404.727.7259, or via e-mail at paige.parvin@emory.edu. We reserve the right to edit letters for length. The views expressed by letter writers are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or the administration of Emory University.

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