As a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, I used to take bucket baths and pour a bucket of water into the toilet to flush in lieu of running water. I had to chase down cistern trucks just like everyone else and then carry buckets of water indoors. Various government aqueduct projects came and went, and after two years passed, I really wanted to do something about the problem. Though I had neither the resources nor the time to build an aqueduct, I was able to borrow a video camera from a fellow volunteer and shoot a documentary to raise awareness.

My goal was to spread word about the precarious water situation in the community where I lived. After returning to the states, I edited the documentary, sent it around, and posted it to Google Video. Later, a friend of mine in Oviedo, D.R informed me that the water situation had improved. I don’t believe my documentary had much effect, but it was screened at several film festivals and perhaps helped some Americans become aware of their water use. Here is the video:

Tags: Documentary, international development, scarcity, video, Water, water management documentary

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 4:29 am and is filed under Conservation, Development, Documentary, Environment, Movies, Politics, Water. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.