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NOTE Automatic audio transcript; may contain errors.

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My name is Dennis Beckwith. I'm here in Panama as part of the group that

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came with Healing

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Fund and I actually learned about this through my brother who has come for several

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years.

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Most of this group came out of the Seattle area by myself and from California. But

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when

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I heard about the connection to Rotary I was kind of pleased. I'm a recent Rotarian

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myself

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about a year and a half, two years, and I'm actually out of a club in Glendora,

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California,

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and it's been a long, long-serving club that has involved many, many things, both

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locally

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and internationally, of course, through Rotary International.

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And I got excited about it, shared about it with my club, and they were pleased to

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hear that connection.

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I'll be president actually, president-elect, not this year, but next year at my

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club.

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So it was just an amazing experience.

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I didn't really know what to expect.

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The water project part of it was something pretty new to me.

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I heard a little bit about it, but the catchment process

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is actually quite simple.

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Simple, it's beautifully simple, and yet,

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because things are difficult to get into Panama

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and out and travel across water into these villages,

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there's still quite a bit that's

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involved in getting the infrastructure there,

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getting the tanks there, getting the components there,

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having all these kits made up, having kits prepared for them so that they can

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maintain these systems. But once the system is up it's really an amazingly

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simple system that works really well and it's it was really fun to be part of

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that team that's this team that's been doing it for a number of years and has

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had an impact, seen the impact already on what they're doing and how you've

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continued to improve the process, get better at it, get more organized with

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with it and it was fun to be part of it.

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When they have a roof that has the corrugated metal,

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it creates a nice flush edge.

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So by simply taking the PVC pipe,

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placing along the edge of that metal rim,

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the water just naturally runs down those channels

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into that pipe.

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Pipe is led off the edge of the roof

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like a downspout on many of our homes

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into some type of a tank that collects it.

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Now, if we can get a larger tank to them, that obviously allows them to save much,

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much more

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water, put a tap on it, and then others besides just that home or just that school

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can have

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access to that clean water, because it does rain a lot there.

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The rain is heavy, I should say, from experience when it does come.

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So it's a great system.

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It's not hard to do.

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It's kind of cool to see.

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and here when we went into a village how you said oh yes there and there and

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there we did those you know two three four five seven whatever years ago I know

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from other experiences traveling around the world and other places that water

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is such a such a huge huge issue for folks people that live in in these

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kinds of places where where they just don't have access to good clean water

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and of course as we all know poor water leads to poor health and leads to

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many, many, many other systemic issues.

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So it's such a key core component

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to people who are in these kind of situations.