Greetings from Dr. Isis Mejias
Hello Rotarians, I wanted to reach out to you to share my excitement to speak at the Rotary International Convention this year. I want to share with you how I got to be a WASH advocate and why I was invited to speak at the convention.
When I ask myself why education is so important in the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) crisis, I always reflect on how education was rooted in my family for nearly a century and how this transformed my life. My answer is always the same: making education a top priority can open a world of opportunities for people to evolve. Having access to safe and sufficient water, sanitation, and hygiene is essential to living a life in dignity and upholding human rights. Yet, billions of people still do not have these fundamental rights, and continue being affected by water-borne diseases. Building local knowledge and skills in safe, acceptable, and affordable WASH practices can enable people to obtain these basic rights and search for their own evolution as human beings.
Education is what made me a WASH advocate today. I grew up in Venezuela, and during the early years of my life, I witnessed people being affected by water-borne diseases, such as Malaria. This was a spark to use science in the years ahead to build knowledge that could empower people to solve these kinds of problems. So here I tell you the story of how I continued this passion.
My grandmother Juana and my uncle Ali in Valle de la Pascua, Venezuela
THE YEARS IN WATER RESEARCH
My professional career started in the private sector. To further explore my research interests, I obtained my PhD at the University of Houston in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department where I focused on evolving water remediation techniques, particularly for water reuse applications.
My years of research focused on developing processes with nanotechnology and biotechnology for water treatment applications, and applying those technologies in the developing world. My research related principally to the removal of pernicious environmental contaminants in drinking water, particularly disease causing microorganisms and heavy metals, such as copper and lead. My investigation demonstrated that some derivatives of the revolutionary nanomaterial graphene can destroy harmful bacteria in water while causing no damage to human cells. I also demonstrated that some of these materials could remove heavy metals dissolved in water. This line of research has led to the development of a water filtration system.
Taking my research into the field, I spent two years in São Paulo, Brazil where I developed a column biofilter using microorganisms taken from a heavily contaminated river in São Paulo, the Tietê. I tested the resistance of these microorganisms in order to scale up the filter for heavy metal sorption. While in Brazil, I established an international research collaboration between the University of São Paulo and the University of Houston.
THE TIME IN AFRICA
My consciousness for environmental and global WASH issues increased further during my work in Kenya and Uganda, where I led water and sanitation projects in rural and underserved communities. It was in a rural village in Kenya where I truly discovered my passion for community engagement in WASH issues. I had the opportunity to manage the design and construction of a water distribution system in Kenya for the Maseno Municipal Hospital, through a partnership between Engineers Without Borders and Rotary. The success and visibility of this project resulted in an invitation to lead the project planning and management of a WASH in Schools program in Uganda with Rotary.
When I was offered the challenge of leading an assessment team to address water and sanitation needs in Uganda and Kenya, I was thrilled to envision solutions to uphold the principles of health, human dignity, and equality. My commitment to increasing the quality of life in developing countries is a reaffirmation of Rotary’s long history of reaching out to those in greatest need and to redressing health inequalities and their causes.
WHAT I HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
I hope to draw attention to innovative strategies that will lead to real improvements in WASH issues, such as metal pollution of surface waters and the impact that mining brings to humans and the environment. My research has supported my long-term career objective: to create worldwide incentives for the recycle and reuse of water, by supporting the development of sustainable and affordable water treatment technologies. My aim is to stimulate policy dialogue at county, state, and country levels, to inform actions by legal entities, consultants, the medical community, NGOs, and governmental agencies. But most importantly, my aim is to create awareness of our daily impact on this planet and ourselves. Ecotourism and voluntourism can bring an intercultural exchange to bring a meaningful learning experience for all involved. This is why my next efforts over the years to come will involve creating adventure charity challenges to support WASH education programs around the world.
Hope you can join me at the Rotary International Convention for my Keynote Address on Water and Sanitation, scheduled during the Third General Session, which is from 10:00 – 12:00 on Tuesday, 26 June 2018 in the Air Canada Centre. During this talk, you will hear why is so important to invest in WASH education and how we can focus on hands-on education by empowering our communities.
Another opportunity to connect will be during the World Water Summit on Friday, June 22, 2018. This year’s topic will be WASH and Health. I will be a leading a round table discussion for WASH Capacity Development. This summit will be held at the Delta Hotel by Marriott, 75 Lower Simcoe Street, Toronto, across from the Toronto Convention Centre, and you can register
HERE.
Hope to see you there!
Dr. Isis Mejias
International Services Committee | Rotary E-Club of Houston
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