Guest Blog by Nicole Hancock
Executive Director, Safe Drinking Water Foundation

In May 2017, my charity had a booth at the Canada-Wide Science Fair. People came by, I did some water testing with children, and it was an interesting event. Then, one man came by who was very excited to see our booth at the Science Fair. His name was Wilson, and the reason he was so excited to see our booth was that one of our water testing kits had been used by one of his students and that was the reason that student was at the fair. He told me that I had to go check out his student’s booth, and I knew that he was right and I knew that I needed to snap a photo.

He was so excited that one of his students had made it to the science fair, by winning the Manitoba First Nations Science Fair. They were from Little Saskatchewan School in the Little Saskatchewan First Nation in Manitoba and his student had tested the quality of the water at Little Saskatchewan First Nation. Wilson said that,

“Working in a First Nations school is very rewarding and yet challenging when it comes to resources. Our students are very enthusiastic to learn about the water quality in their environment. This desire to learn became a reality when the Safe Drinking Water Foundation (SDWF) provided us sponsored kits which we used in the classroom to perform experiments on water testing. To my surprise, one of our students made it to the Canada-Wide Science Fair 2017 in Regina, Saskatchewan after doing a science project related to Water Quality in our community.”

Wilson now works at Lawrence Sinclair Memorial School on the Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation in Manitoba and has requested sponsored water testing kits for his students. He stated that the kits are very useful in delivering lessons related to water experiments. His goal is to duplicate, or even surpass, his students’ previous achievements at Little Saskatchewan School, and since his new community is located along Lake Winnipeg, he believes that the dream of getting into the Canada-Wide Science Fair will again be realized.

Being the Executive Director of a charity can be disheartening some days… you get funding rejection email messages and letters, you struggle with tech issues, and there are never enough hours in the day. However, when I think about this story and the fact that this came about from one school, of the over 3000 Canadian schools that have used our water testing kits, I get my second wind.

I also really hope that the approximately half of a million Canadian students who have used our water testing kits in their classrooms have made their own ripples by informing others about water quality issues and solutions and by taking action to alleviate drinking water quality issues in their own communities and beyond.

I hope that, someday, I will be at that science fair again and will see a project by one of Wilson’s students from Lawrence Sinclair Memorial School in Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation in Manitoba about testing water quality!

For more information about the Safe Drinking Water Foundation, please visit www.safewater.org.