5/22/22 ENews: Intertribal Water Gathering

Your business or nonprofit or community organization can highlight your great work or outstanding products and services while supporting clean water for Native and Indigenous peoples. Water With Blessings and our planning team continue to move forward with presenting the first-ever Intertribal Water Gathering scheduled for October 6-9, 2022 in Veterans Memorial Park in Jeffersontown, Kentucky.

Sponsorship benefits include passes to the Intertribal events, weeks of publicity featuring your logo and business or organization name listed on our website, social media accounts, educational materials, media releases, e-mail updates, event advertising and event signage that will be seen by thousands of viewers and potential customers.

This four-day event will feature Native dancing, drumming, music, art, crafts and food to highlight the need for safe drinking water in the Navajo Nation and other indigenous communities across the U.S., in Kentucky and around the world.
Presented in partnership with the Ohio Valley Native American Veteran Warrior Society, October 7 will be a special day dedicated to educating area school children and their teachers about Native ways and wisdom along Chenoweth Run Creek. You can view the accompanying schedule with this article.

Our special guest will be Roger Willie, a Navajo actor, artist, educator and military veteran who will serve as Navajo Ambassador for the event. Roger may be best known for his co-starring role in the film, Windtalkers, which highlights the heroic efforts of Navajo soldiers to devise an unbreakable code during World War II.

Water With Blessings will also host a special VIP event for ITWG sponsors on July 27 beginning at 6:00 pm at The Jeffersonian in J-town for guests to meet Roger Willie and view a special display of his art that focuses on horses and Navajo life. For sponsorship details, please contact Rebecca Stutsman at rebecca@waterwithblessings.org or 502-749-5492.

I discovered a new photo exhibit at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky that highlights our lifesaving mission. Entitled Women and the Weight of Water, the extraordinary photos featured in this exhibit shine a light on the daily struggles to find water in many countries that Water With Blessings serves and the physically difficult work faced by women and children around the world.

This year’s theme is Water, specifically global water scarcity, relating to women’s activities, health, work, and overall lives. We know that women are disproportionately affected by water scarcity and typically have the primary duty of water collection and household management of food preparation, sanitation, and overall health. These daily tasks are compounded by women’s lives being marginalized and their vulnerability in the area of hygiene needs related to menstruation, pregnancy and childbearing. Many young girls and young women must forgo getting an education or pursuing paid work because of the time required for gathering water each day. Your investments in our Water Woman filter program help ensure a healthier reality for women and their families in 50 countries around the world.

The final panel of the exhibit describes the life-saving work that Water With Blessings helps provide to eradicate waterborne diseases, protect women’s lives and ensure better health for children. Our Executive Director, Sr. Larraine Lauter, is a 2018 recipient of the Kentucky Humanitarian of the Year Award from the Ali Center. We are grateful to the Ali Center for featuring these powerful images and emphasizing the essential need for safe water sources for everyone.

The Ali Center received 827 photo entries from more than 55 countries for this year’s photo competition. The exhibit features 35 photographs, including those from three winners and ten honorable mentions. The photos will be on display on the Ali Center’s 3rd floor through August 7, 2022. Access to this exhibit is included in the regular admission price. For museum hours, you can visit www.alicenter.org.
–Rebecca Stutsman
Chief-Donor Impact