"Global Water Challenge"

Blair Gifford, PhD, Board Chair, GHC Inc

Karen Failinger, Executive Director, GHC Inc

The Global Water Challenge (GWC) competition addresses developing world and local water and sanitation issues through a student team-based competition at middle schools throughout the Denver Metro area. Global Water Challenge assists participating middle school teachers with curriculum regarding key developing world issues.  Often, these teachers are too busy to add such curriculum or don’t know where to start to learn about key issues.  In return, participating teachers have helped Global Health Connections develop curriculum over the years.  Plus, they have been advocates to other teachers who are interested in bringing the GWC to their classrooms and schools.

The GWC competition is a few weeks program.  With the guidance of their teachers, students form teams to research and identify local and global water issues, and then develop a solution to present in the form of a skit. Health professionals, water and civil engineers and others in the community go to the schools and mentor the student teams throughout the process. The top teams from each school advance to a one day Finals competition at the Colorado Academy in SE Denver (fall semester) or the Auraria Higher Education Campus (spring semester).  Each GWC competition relies on 15+ volunteers for: 1) administration/working with teachers, 2) mentoring of student teams, and 3) judging student teams at the competition. 

The Global Water Challenge is managed and operated by Global Health Connections, Inc., a small not for profit organization that operates out of the Posner Center for International Development in Denver.  Since its inception as a Rotary District 5450 program in 2003, the GWC has served over 17,000 students with participation from about 100 middle school teachers.  In addition, more than 50 mentors and over 200 judges have contributed to the success of the GWC program.  In total, at least 500 volunteers – many of them Rotarians – have been involved with GWC since its inception.