The Rescue Project is a non-profit organization that acts as a subsidiary of HAVEN HANDS Inc. What differentiates The Rescue Project from Haven Hands can be boiled down to a few key differences: Haven Hands deals mainly with children left orphaned all over the world and helps in aspects such as education, food, toys, clothing, shelter and more. The Rescue Project can be summed up as an organization that helps children and adults in areas that need clean drinking water, improved sanitation and proper healthcare, and operates mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, but will go where needed as well.
While The Rescue Project does help all of the 884 million in need of clean drinking water across the world, an emphasis is placed on children, as they are the most susceptible to eye based diseases and disorders caused by unclean drinking water. Across the world, 289,000 children under the age of five die each year due to diarrheal diseases due to poor water access and sanitation, which is 800 children a day or 1 child every 2 minutes, which is completely unacceptable in today’s society.
The Rescue Project uses raised funds to help both in the short term by bringing clean water to areas in need but also in the long term by digging wells, installing irrigation systems, building filter systems as well as build proper latrines for sewage and set up pop-up medical facilities to screen individuals in need for eye diseases and help them accordingly. Unclean drinking water affects those in these areas far more than just by tainting the drinking water, impure water is also used to fertilize crops which either outright destroys the crop or makes those that eat from the crops sick as well.
By helping supply destitute areas with fresh water, it makes a lasting impact on the well being of those that live there, especially women and children. Far too often, it is the responsibility of women to walk up to three hours to fetch clean drinking water for their family, which often takes them away from their duties at home and their families. And children are often pulled from school to help fetch water as well, or even those that are afflicted by eye diseases are pulled out as well, as schools are not equipped to help those with eye problems, which impacts and limits their futures greatly.
A major initiative of The Rescue Project is Vision 2020, which is about to celebrate one full year of fundraising. After launching last November at a Benefit Gala in New York City, Vision 2020 is well on its way to reaching its goals of raising $20 million to help 200 million people by the year 2020. These raised funds go directly and totally to the mission of The Rescue Project, both through its own efforts as well as other partnered organizations to help us fulfill their mission in destitute areas.
If you would like to help The Rescue Project or to be a part of it, donations or tickets to fundraising events can be found at visiofor2020.eventbrite.com
