This is part of a series of originally reported stories from Daily Kos on the impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico’s infrastructure, communities, children, and more.
Alejandro Calaf and Ian Stewart might not seem like the kind of men who would start a nonprofit to bring water filters to Puerto Rico, but as they say, necessity is the mother of invention.
Calaf, a paralegal and law student living in San Juan, began receiving calls from friends around the world after Hurricane Maria, asking what they could do to help. What began as a conversation with a friend in Switzerland (and soon encompassed a friend of a friend in Austria) ended with a long talk with Stewart, his friend from high school who’s into carpentry and the preservation of barns and old homes. (Not to mention his affinity for medieval combat.) The random series of conversations had identified a need: Water filters that could be used by individuals and communities across the island to provide access to clean water.
Water for Puerto Rico, the foundation that resulted from those conversations, allows people outside of Puerto Rico to purchase water filters online, which Calaf and a team of volunteers can then distribute to people across the island.
While Calaf may be the main contact point for this effort, it truly takes a village to go about the enormous task of getting aid to residents in need. Stewart is the co-president and co-founder of the organization and coordinates fundraising and partnerships with organizations stateside. Calaf’s niece and sister-in-law created and maintain the organization’s website and its fundraising page.
Water for Puerto Rico has also partnered with Sawyer, an outdoor and sporting goods company based in Safety Harbor, Florida, which sells insect repellent, sunscreen, first aid supplies, water filtration devices, and other products. Through its company disaster relief fund, Sawyer has provided discounted pricing for mini water filtration systems, personal water bottles with filters, and a filter which can be attached to a plastic bucket or container to purify water.
“With these filters and instructions, people can take a gallon jug, fill with water from a creek, screw on the filter and can drink from there,” Calaf said in telephone interview with Daily Kos. “I advise people on ways to care and clean them. At first, people are often skeptical, but once they see that they don’t have to buy water and wait in line for it, they are willing to try it.”
Handing out filters and a dose of hope
Sixty-nine days after Hurricane Maria, only 56 percent of the island’s power generation has been restored and many Puerto Ricans are still without access to a clean and sustainable supply of drinking water. According to Status.PR, 92 percent of people have access to water, though a boil advisory remains in effect. However, these numbers are self-reported by the Puerto Rican water utility (Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados, or AAA). They may not be fully reflective of how much water the utility says has been returned to faucets.
Just one month ago, residents in various locations were complaining that tap water was both infrequent and discolored. And with so many people without power, it’s questionable how they’d be able to boil water short of using gas stoves or lighting fires outside. In short, the number of people who have regular access to clean drinking and cooking water on the island may be vastly overestimated by officials.
Calaf recalls the very first time he went to hand out filters and supplies just a few weeks after the storm, in a small town called Barrio El Maní in Mayagüez. One strategy in disaster relief operations is to go where there are concentrations of people in order to distribute aid quickly. Thus, Water for Puerto Rico arranged its first distribution point at an aid center in the town, where people had been already standing in line for several hours in order to get assistance.
“People were surprised we drove all the way from San Juan, and were thankful we had something, anything, to hand out,” Calaf said. “The amount of destruction there was significant...some homes were swept into the ocean, other’s had wind damage, some were lost to sinkholes. The first time you see destruction like that, and people still making the most of their lives, and thankful for the help they’re getting... it’s humbling. Ever since then, I thank them for trusting me and receiving my help. That is a real privilege to me.”
Of course, people need multiple things after a disaster like Hurricane Maria. To that end, Water for Puerto Rico doesn’t just give out water filters. It has worked with other organizations on the mainland to get supplies to people across the island, including Oregon para Puerto Rico (Oregon for Puerto Rico), which helps to collect donations of first aid kits, non-perishable food, solar chargers, and other items which are then sent on to be distributed to rural parts of the island. Calaf and his colleagues also have partnered with Together for Puerto Rico and Veterans for Puerto Rico.
Taking fate into their own hands
In times of extreme crisis, a sense of self-determination and resiliency often emerges among individuals. Relying on ingenuity and a sense of the collective good, people may make a way out of no way. That’s what seems to be happening in Puerto Rico. Failures and mishaps on the part of the local and federal government have forced people to do for themselves what the government seems unable to do.
This is demonstrable through the work of Water for Puerto Rico, but it also can be seen in the way that Puerto Ricans around the mainland have stepped up to help. People of Puerto Rican ancestry have mobilized far and wide to get much-needed supplies and funds to relatives, friends, and communities at large.
These efforts have largely been framed through the work of celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony and their Somos Una Voz (We are One Voice) campaign, as well as rapper Fat Joe, who teamed up with Jay-Z to charter a plane filled with supplies. Much less known are the ways that everyday Puerto Ricans have started organizations and charitable giving drives to assist the recovery effort. They are vital to what happens to the island, and always have been.
“We are most definitely stepping up and taking care of ourselves,” Calaf told Daily Kos. “Screw whatever Trump said… this is about self-reliance. And the [Puerto Rican] Diaspora has been instrumental in this effort. Helping us to get farming equipment… and finding companies that are willing to help. That is not just going to be key to aid now, but also in getting us representatives in federal politics and the state level who can listen to our community.”
Water for Puerto Rico has big plans to help the island access sustainable water sources. Its next steps are to go beyond personal water filtration systems to procure large-scale water filter systems for entire towns. The organization has a You Caring fundraiser that is accepting donations for this effort. You can donate to that here. They continue to raise money through Facebook and are receiving matching gifts from both Facebook and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Giving Tuesday.