Safe Drinking Water Foundation (SDWF)
We will educate the leaders of today and tomorrow about drinking water quality issues to realize our goal of safe drinking water being available to every Canadian. To reaffirm and promote all people`s right to safe drinking water. With a focus on developing partnerships with rural communities throughout Canada and around the world, we intend to effect change at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels as well as within civil society and industries involved in the protection and production of public water supplies. We will deliver high quality, hands-on educational programs to thousands of classrooms in order to educate students, the leaders of tomorrow, about drinking water quality issues and solutions.
Company details
Find locations served, office locations
- Business Type:
- Professional association
- Industry Type:
- Drinking Water
- Market Focus:
- Globally (various continents)
- Year Founded:
- 1998
About Us
Our vision will be reached in Canada when the following goals have been achieved:
- National drinking water regulations are implemented and enforced, resulting in all communities in Canada having access to truly safe drinking water.
- The federal government of Canada recognizes at the United Nations that water is a basic human right.
- SDWF is a registered Canadian charity. Its primary purpose is to educate community leaders, politicians, engineers, health officials, students and the general public about drinking water quality issues and solutions. The SDWF accomplishes this by developing and distributing high quality, hands-on educational programs to thousands of schools, delivering webinars, and maintaining a massive website with lots of information available free of charge.
- SDWF is independent from municipal, provincial and federal governments and led by a Board of Directors.
- SDWF emphasizes sound solutions to poor quality water.
Organizations and individuals can donate in-kind support, monetary support or facility support to SDWF.
The Need for the Safe Drinking Water Foundation
Most source waters used for drinking water purposes in the world are not safe to drink without treatment. All too frequently, this water is consumed without treatment or with inadequate treatment. This results in human illness, which is a major concern in most rural areas in both developed and developing countries. The World Health Organization estimates that 5 million people die annually from water-borne diseases. The people that are most vulnerable to water-borne disease are the very young, pregnant women, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems.
People may think that unsafe drinking water is a problem only in developing countries and not in developed countries such as Canada. However, one need only venture outside the limits of major urban centres to find water treatment practices and source waters that have more in common with developing countries than with developed countries. Most people also believe that municipal, provincial and federal government agencies will provide safe drinking water. Unfortunately, the problems encountered by individual users and small rural communities in trying to make poor source waters safe for consumption are often too large, resulting in water that is not safe to drink.
Unsafe drinking water is a much greater problem than we think. Some diseases that are attributed to other causes are actually due to the drinking water. The presence of pathogenic microbes in drinking water supplies has prompted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to consider regulation of viruses, bacteria and protozoa in addition to several already covered by the Safe Drinking Water Treatment Rule. New microorganisms for regulatory consideration include, for example, the hepatitis A virus. SDWF has targeted the 'uniquely poor' source waters of the Canadian Prairies as the major recipient of SDWF activities.
It is vital that SDWF educate students about drinking water quality issues and solutions as they will become the engineers, health officials, community leaders, politicians, teachers, and scientists of the future. Hands-on methods are the most effective manner in which to teach students and, therefore, we send kits which include hands-on, real life activities to students in an effort to make the concepts memorable. It is by educating students that we will have future leaders who are well-informed and have the aspiration to improve the drinking water quality situation in rural and First Nation communities.
Our Mission
Operation Water Drop, Operation Water Pollution, and Operation Water Biology kits enable students to conduct authentic water quality analyses on their own local drinking water and other water samples. Students then compare their results to Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality. Additionally, students are supported and encouraged in taking action in order to share information with others and to alleviate drinking water quality issues.
Our Operation Water Flow, Operation Water Health, Operation Community Water Footprint and Operation Water Spirit programs are all available free of charge on this website.
We have created a list of tips to help online and in-person teachers to safely use our water testing kits in their classrooms in light of COVID-19.
We have also made the difficult decision to postpone our Student Action Competition until such a time that students interacting with community members and holding community events would be safe.
Safe Drinking Water Foundation keeps those affected by the virus in our hearts.
Many Canadian schools are on the waiting list for sponsored kits. Please click on the map to discover if schools in your area, the school your children attend, or the school from which you graduated is waiting for a sponsored kit. Please donate a kit to a school today! As little as $85 can educate 30 students about drinking water quality issues and solutions in a hands-on manner.
Please remember the name of the school to which you would like to donate the kit, order one or more kits for the school, and type the name of the school in the box that pops up when you add the kit(s) to your cart. Also, please note that the shipping address you need to enter is your own mailing address so that we can send you an official donation receipt for income tax purposes.