One Drop fights deadly water around the world

Every 20 seconds, a child dies somewhere on Earth because of contaminated water. And 80 percent of diseases in developing nations are caused by contaminated water.

So while Americans react with disgust at sick-water news in Flint, Michigan, cities and villages around the world are much deadlier on a daily basis.

In India, home of 1.25 billion people, toilets are rare.

"That's why the prime minister, when he was first appointed, said India needed to build toilets not temples," says Catherine Bachand, CEO of the international water organization One Drop.

In the past decade, Las Vegas-connected One Drop, created in 2007 by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, has helped introduce clean and sustainable water systems to nearly a million people in India, Guatemala and elsewhere, earning a 2015 United Nations award for efficacy.

What drives One Drop's success are its methods.

It's not a charity. It's an international development organization.

What that means is, One Drop organizers don't just march into villages and build water structures. They convince locals to help build and maintain their own clean water systems. This is trickier than it sounds.

"If it really was just an engineering problem," Bachand says, "it would have been fixed a long time ago."

The obstacle to clean water is people. A lot of people don't want other people messing with their water, even if it's nasty water.

This is why One Drop organizers begin each new project with six months of research and development in a water-challenged area to find out what people's relationship is to their water. This is a "social/cultural diagnostic."

"A lot of times, there's a lot of religions and legends connected with water. We need to know all of that, because that's part of their psyche," Bachand says. "Oftentimes, we'll use these legends to carry a message around water."

In other words, some people greatly distrust clean government water systems and can stand in the way of progress.

(This is true in America, as well. In my early days of journalism, I covered contentious public hearings in East Tennessee, where many crackpots screamed at politicians that tap water chemicals were a communist plot to control their brains.)

So once One Drop finds out how villagers view water, it then works with local governments and arts leaders to train clean-water behaviors.

It does this by creating edutainment programs.

"We always use the local form of art, the local traditions, beliefs and forms of entertainment to impose that message," Bachand says.

"We not only do circus arts, we do theater, music, puppetry, television shows — we produced a (clean-water) feature film in India."

Then, One Drop gets locals to sign a pledge (a "mantra") to co-invest in, and help build and maintain, clean water infrastructures.

"Before they build the infrastructure, every single family in a village must sign the mantra," Bachand says. "The whole community needs to take their own destiny in their hands. One Drop is just there to help. We're not there to do the work for them. We do the work with them."

By the way, most drinking water is still incredibly filthy with disease and bacteria unless it is cleaned.

"We're still drinking the same water the dinosaurs were drinking," Bachand says.

("All the water on Earth has been through a dinosaur kidney," water expert Charles Fisherman told public radio's "Marketplace" in 2011.)

Here in Las Vegas, One Drop is known for throwing an annual fundraiser show. This year's "One Night for One Drop," on March 18 at The Smith Center, will feature singer Leona Lewis and Miles "Baby Boogaloo" Brown, with original choreography by performers from Cirque shows across the Strip. (Learn more or donate at OneDrop.org.)

That night, all Vegas Cirque shows will be closed to make way for this Smith Center event, a sacrifice of about 20,000 Cirque ticket sales on that Friday night, says publicist Pien Koopman.

That's in addition to One Drop's other investments in our community; having contributed $1.25 million to a new Springs Preserve exhibit opening in 2017; being partnered with MGM properties for visibility; and partnering with Desert Research Institute and the Nevada Center for Excellence, to innovate water sectors through tech.

"That's what Guy wanted, a very entrepreneurial organization that would punch above its weight, innovate, be creative, daring, audacious, agile. This is what One Drop does," Bachand says.

"It's good to have a dream, but it's better to have a plan."

Doug Elfman can be reached at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman. On Twitter: @VegasAnonymous.