In a recent interview with Krista Tippett on American Public Media's Speaking of Faith, Rabbi Sharon Brous, of the IKAR Jewish Spiritual Community in Los Angeles, spoke about the significance of the Jewish High Holy Days. She explained that, for many Jews, a fundamental aspect of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is that these holidays present an opportunity to pause in the routine of everyday life and to observe inwardly and outwardly. It is a time to reflect on the ways that we all participate in the act of creating the world — through our relations with our loved ones, through our spiritual practice, and through our commitment to social justice.

This week, on the heels of those "Days of Awe," I have been called each day to reflect on this collective endeavor of creating the world.

First, with Columbus Day (observed October 13), also known as the Day of Indigenous Resistance, I reflected on the struggle of indigenous peoples all over the world for the sovereignty that is theirs to claim. After surviving a worldwide history of colonization, dispossession, and genocide — which in many places is still unfolding — indigenous peoples have built one of the most significant social movements of our time. They have also provided a model for living sustainably, respecting natural resources, and preserving the biodiversity of our planet. Now, indigenous communities, including many of UUSC's Environmental Justice partners, are at the center of the movement to defend the human right to sufficient, safe, accessible, and affordable water for all.

Then, I turned my attention to the International Day of Rural Women on October 15. In establishing this day, the United Nations recognized "the critical role and contribution of rural women, including indigenous women, in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty," and of their "economic contribution and the development of their communities, in particular with regard to the unpaid work they perform." At UUSC, through partnering with workers in the informal economy, we have found that women are at the heart of sustaining economies globally. I reflected, too, on the critical challenges faced by women, rural and urban, who make daily contributions by supporting families, strengthening communities, and growing institutions of learning and faith.

World Rural Women's Day is celebrated on the eve of World Food Day (October 16), which raises awareness about the huge challenges of hunger and malnutrition that result from what Food First calls "misguided agricultural and food policies." Rising food prices have only exacerbated the situation, but there have been no real rescue packages for this food crisis. What this boils down to is that hunger results from a lack of food sovereignty. I've especially been thinking about how food aid is distributed in the context of humanitarian crises, because in wars and disasters people are not all affected in the same way. Their gender, ethnicity, race, class, religion, and immigration status all deeply influence how they can access food in a time of crisis and whether they will be able to rebuild their lives to the way they were before the crisis.

And today, with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (October 17), I'm thinking about how decent work is essential for reducing poverty and strengthening economic stability; yet safe, stable jobs that pay a living wage are getting harder to come by. Millions of people face dangerous work conditions and inadequate wages that trap them in poverty, unable to access their rights as workers. In spite of this, at UUSC we have learned from all our grassroots program partners that just because someone is poor, it does not mean that they don't have a wealth of innovative solutions to overcome their marginalization and defend their human rights

In her interview, Brous also commented on the progression that takes place over the Days of Awe, which span a ten-day period, culminating in the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). It's a journey — from an accounting of the soul of the individual, to an accounting of the soul of our families and communities, and finally to an accounting of the soul of the world. She remarked, "[B]y the end of Yom Kippur, you're just, your soul is on fire, because you start to recognize that it's all connected. And it's not just...the conversation that I should have had...with my best friend that I didn't have that led her astray. It's also about...the genocide in Darfur. And it's about poverty and hunger and homelessness. And it's all connected."

Just as with the Jewish Days of Awe, these days give us a chance to stop and think about the continually unfolding birth of the world, and about how we may contribute, individually and collectively, to moral lapses. It is an opportunity to think about indigenous peoples, rural women, and those who live with insufficient food and inadequate income, and channel our efforts toward just solutions.

The following blog was written by Rob Robinson, mining engineer and volunteer expert who is providing funding and techincal assistance to the Sipakapense people. Robinson is the 2008 winner of UUSC's Social Action Leadership Award.

UUSC's support for the Sipakapa indigenous community through local partner el Comisión Pastoral Paz y Ecologia (the Pastoral Commission for Peace and Ecology) is paying off.

A grant from UUSC developed the Sipakapense people's capacity to monitor the quality of their water downstream from the Goldcorp, Inc., Marlin mine in the western highlands of Guatemala. 

COPAE Engineer Fausto Valiente is responsible for taking samples of the surface water, analyzing samples with equipment purchased by UUSC, and preparing reports.

COPAE's latest annual report was presented in a meeting attended by Luis Ferrate, head of Guatemala's Ministry of Ambient and Natural Resources. It was also widely reported in the Guatemalan press.

The report reveals COPAE's findings of toxic levels of arsenic and other metals above drinking-water standards.

Based on this report, Ferrate has called for additional water-quality monitoring by his agency, COPAE, and the mining company.

Many thanks to UUSC members and supporters for their support. Without it there would be more finger pointing, denials, and conflict regarding the impacts of mining in the Sipakapa area.

For more information on the ongoing effort to protect the water in Sipakapa from the damaging effects of mining, read a May 2008 blog by Rob Robinson and April 2007 blog by Patricia Jones.

While in the United States we are in high gear for one of the most important elections of our history and strapping in for an economic roller coaster ride, in other parts of the Americas, elections are being held and won on issues that affect the lives of each and every person - like the human right to water.

Can you imagine being able to vote on whether everyone will have water to brush their teeth, wash their clothes, cook, and clean, and be able to take a bath? Not to mention being able to use a toilet?

On Sunday, September 28, people in Ecuador went to the polls to adopt a new constitution. Winning with a clear majority of 60 percent, Ecuadorians affirmed, among other things, that each person has a right to access safe, sufficient, affordable water for daily human needs. And they affirmed that there are some services, like water, that should not be subject to chaotic market forces.

Since Sunday, privatization of water services is unconstitutional in Ecuador. Still, Ecuadorians didn't stop there. Now each Ecuadorian has a right to a safe, healthy environment. And nature has rights, too!

We all know that winning the election is the first step, making the human right to water a reality for each person is a ways off. But the door in Ecuador is open to those who have been locked out, and it is shut to those who have been on the irresponsible insider's trading track, holding all the keys for too long.

Take the Bechtel subsidiary InterAgua, the water and sanitation business in Guayaquil that shut off water to 40,000 households after raising its rates, but did not provide the services it was charging residents for.

The Ecuadorian courts caught up with InterAgua, fining the corporation $1.5 million for noncompliance with its contractual obligations. Now Bechtel has to ship its business elsewhere.

UUSC partner El Movimiento Mi Cometa / Observatorios Publicos worked hard to hold InterAgua accountable and get the human right to water in the constitution. Why? Because their families and many others were served water poisoned with disease and toxics from InterAgua's taps -- and even their poor water service was shut off when the rates were raised too high for average people to pay.

The good news is that the tide is changing, and not just in Ecuador. Other people are using the ballot box to get access to water. In Colombia, over 2 million voters recently signed a referendum petition to put a constitutional human right to water to the vote next year. Uruguay passed a similar constitution in 2004, and Bolivia is debating a new constitution right now.

Being able to turn on your tap by putting a vote in the ballot box won't just happen in the Global South. Pundits in California say that although Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's bond issue for water infrastructure was pulled from the November ballot, it will likely go to a special election next March.

California's $9 billion water bond raises some of the same questions as the recent, now failed, bailout package deal and subsequent fiasco: what about poor and working people? Who is really going to benefit from these big transfers of wealth and water? Will people in the rural areas of the Central Valley, who can't drink the contaminated water they have to pay for, get access to safe, affordable water after the bond issue passes?

People in Barnstead, N.H., passed a law to stop a water bottler from taking all of their well water. And residents in Maine and California are diving into water justice politics for people and the environment by blocking water bottlers until the environmental impacts of bottling can be truly studied.

Maybe there are more lessons from the Americas on how to make sure every person has access to water: democratic tidal waves that are changing the face of our earth and the lives of all of our families.

Catch or make a water justice wave in your home town and ride - all the way to the ballot box!

To read more about UUSC's work to promote the human right to water, download UUSC's Environmental Justice Fact Sheet here.

Rob Robinson, a long-time UUSC supporter and environmental activist, recently organized a special delegation to Guatemala to investigate environmental damage that may be connected to a new gold-mining venture. He filed this report from his home in Colorado.

I just got back from attending the PepsiCo Annual Shareholder’s Meeting in Plano, Texas, where the UUSC/NorthStar Human Right to Water Resolution got a fantastic vote – 7 percent! I know that might not sound like much, but in the shareholder advocacy world, it’s a big victory. For a shareholder resolution to appear on the agenda next year, it needs 4 percent support. Most first-time resolutions, such as this one, don’t reach that threshold.

At the meeting, which was highly choreographed, Claire DeWitte, of NorthStar Asset Management, and I were led to our reserved seats, not too close, but not too far away from where PepsiCo President Indra Nooyi would give her annual report. After a feel-good review of “great Pepsi commercials of the past,” Nooyi gave a glowing report of the company’s performance. She also predicted that the economic slow-down would be good for a company like PepsiCo, owner of Frito-Lay, because in hard times, people can still afford its "comfort foods.”

After her presentation, the shareholder resolutions were presented. Claire and I did a joint presentation of our resolution. PepsiCo was actually very generous with time, and we spoke for about seven minutes. We explained that by adopting a human-right-to-water policy, PepsiCo could take a step forward in showing that they respect their customers and the communities in which they operate. We also argued that the company could prevent massive depletion of water resources before it happens and that adopting our policy could reduce PepsiCo’s liability as it operates in many countries around the world that either have or are integrating a human-right-to-water policy into their national legal framework.

Nooyi responded to our presentation, that “as an Indian woman, the issue of water was very close to her heart.” She then went on to tout PepsiCo as a leader in the industry, while avoiding the issue of why Pepsi would not adopt our proposed human-right-to-water policy. She also failed to address the fact that bottling companies have created water-scarcity problems in the areas in which they operate. In India, it is has been documented that water tables dropped 26 feet in the last seven years in some areas due to beverage-company operations.

PepsiCo states it is investing in water-scarce regions of India by digging public wells and boreholes. But in many cases, it was their operations that exacerbated the water-scarcity problem in the first place.

Because Pepsi is such a huge water consumer – around 90 billion liters of water per year internationally – they have a legal and moral responsibility to monitor and correct the negative impacts they have on the availability and safety of water resources.

I pushed Nooyi with follow-up questions, but she didn’t get to be the president of PepsiCo without being able to deflect hard questions. I did have a chance to speak with her afterward, where I let her know that if the company is interested, UUSC and NorthStar are willing to work with them on developing a human-right-to-water policy, but that if not, we will be seeing them at the next annual meeting!

You can hear the complete PepsiCo Annual Meeting via webcast. Our presentation can be heard at the 43:00 minute mark.

You can also read UUSC's statement by clicking here.

In his decision, Judge Tsoka declared South Africa's prepaid-water-meter system to be unconstitutional because it denies residents access to water by physically shutting off supplies each month when a household’s free basic allotment runs out. He required Johannesburg Water, the municipal water utility, to increase the amount of free basic water per month to 50 liters per person per day, the amount set by the World Health Organization to be the minimum to live a life of dignity.

What I found amazing was that the judge took a further step than most other progressive South African judgments by saying that the human right to water does, indeed, include a “minimum core” responsibility to be met by the state. This idea of a “minimum core,” established in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, has been debated in South African courts. Previous opinions showed discomfort at setting a minimum standard that the state must meet because of a potential-lack-of-resources argument. But Judge Tsoka took a brave step forward by declaring that 25 liters per person per day was a national minimum, but 50 liters per person per day was required for a dignified life, another right in the South African constitution.

Law, and especially international human rights law, is built like a house. Each case is a brick that supports the overall structure and defines the various aspects of the legal framework. The South Africa water case will be a cornerstone in the development of the human right to water. It affirms that international human rights law can, indeed, have teeth. So far, as demonstrated in the South African High Court, it seems that human rights law is most effective when its principles are enshrined in national constitutions.

UUSC has partnered with CAWP for two years. We will continue to support their struggle to advance the rights of all South Africans to safe, sufficient, affordable, and accessible water. We are hopeful that this will be one of many more important victories won by our partners to promote and defend the human right to water.

To watch a UUSC video about the case, click here.

The following post was written by Mary Mitchell, of All Soul's Church in Braintree, Mass.

In November 2007, the Social Action/Environmental Committee and the Religious Education Program at All Souls Church in Braintree, Mass., collaborated on the planning and presentation of a worship service highlighting UUSC’s Environmental Justice Program. It was organized as part of our Guest at Your Table fundraising campaign. In a segment of the service, one of our youth portrayed a 15-year-old boy from Guayaquil named Alexis. He explained how he had contracted hepatitis A from drinking contaminated water at his school, and how UUSC had worked with El Movimiento Mi Cometa (My Kite movement) to help Guayaquil residents take action to get the government to provide the expensive medicine he needed to treat his illness. We never imagined that people from Mi Cometa, who were directly involved in this social-justice action, would actually be our guests here at All Souls just a few months later! But that’s what happened.

After six years without water, the people of Kwamasiza Hostel, a huge low-income housing block in the Vaal region of South Africa, finally got their water back. The news came from our partner the Coalition Against Water Privatisation (CAWP), after their year-long campaign for water rights finally led the municipality to take action.

CAWP had written a letter in January 2008 to the municipality's water provider, Metsi a Lekoa, concerning water and sanitation problems at Kwamasiza Hostel. Instead of sending a customary written response, as so often happens, the municipality actually went ahead and reopened the local water valve, which was closed in September 2001 during an attempted forced eviction of local residents.

Patricia Jones and I traveled to South Africa in November 2007 to visit the community. There, a community organizer, Elliott Nsundu, told us about the day that police, military, and private security were called in and used tear gas and rubber bullets against local residents to clear them out. Refusing to leave, community members fought back. They had no where else to go.

Eventually, the police and military attack was repelled, and the community stayed in Kwamasiza. But as the police left, they cut off all basic services to the community, including water, sanitation, and electricity. Thousands of people living in the 10-story building block were forced to use the surrounding fields for their sanitation needs and buy water from a water-supply truck that came through once a week.

In this case, it's important to remember that restricted access to water and housing evictions have a different tone in South Africa, with its recent history of apartheid and the new national constitution that protects the right to water and the right to housing. This progressive legal framework has enabled South African citizens not only to fight for what is morally right, but to fight for what is legally entitled to them.

In Phiri (pronounced "piree), Soweto, the community is waging a battle against prepaid water meters in the High Court of South Africa.

Now, with their water services reinstated, the Kwamasiza community can begin to live their lives again with the dignity, health, and safety all people deserve.

Ecuador has taken the first steps towards defining the scope of its constitutional provisions to protect the human right to water. Ecuadorians are currently engaged in a National Constituent Assembly process by which the nation's constitution will be revised. One expected outcome of this effort is the constitutional definition of the human right to water for all Ecuadorians, with special attention to the rights of the poor.

Under the Constituent Assembly process, any citizen can attend the on-going forums taking place in various cities around the country and make her voice heard. Each forum centers on a particular constitutional provision under revision.

I attended one of the numerous forums addressing water. The discussion focused on how to characterize the right to water (as a human right, a communal right, or an economic right), how to protect the environment while doing so, and a plan for development. I was struck by the power of this democratic process and the stamp of legitimacy it placed on the outcome. In the discussion group I observed, indigenous farmers, women, and youth were all vocal participants. The facilitator was even elected to her post. No one can question that the results of these meetings represent the will of the people.

The process works in this sequence: after the discussion group comes to a general consensus on the proposals they would like to present, the facilitator summarizes the group’s comments and presents them to the Assembly at large. After all the forums are completed, the elected facilitators will compile all of the proposals and these will be used to hammer out the final wording of the constitution.

The forum was in Portoviejo and the offices of UUSC partner Mi Cometa are in Guayaquil. On the drive back, we passed miles and miles of flooded land. Many people have been displaced or are simply living in a swamp. Ironically, one consequence of the flood damage is the lack of clean water to drink. It has to be brought in on trucks. The gap between policy and reality opened before me.

Ecuadorians hope that the legitimacy of this comprehensive and democratic process will compel Interagua, a subsidiary of the American corporation Bechtel, either to leave the country or improve its services. They also hope that the government will be invested with sufficient leverage to require these improvements. I too am hopeful.