Passports with Purpose (PwP) is a non-profit organization created by travel bloggers for travel bloggers as a way to improve the world we see and write about as an expression of our lives. Since 2008 Passports with Purpose has run an annual fundraiser to finance a specific, tangible project for international infrastructure improvements.
This year the Passports with Purpose fundraiser goal is $100,000 to build two water wells in Haiti through the organization water.org.
A $10 donation to Passports with Purpose is a raffle ticket opportunity to win some incredible travel prizes procured by over 200 travel bloggers. It takes a lot of $10 raffle tickets to raise $100,000 over the next two weeks.
Hyatt Gold Passport 110,000 Points prize
Hyatt Gold Passport is sponsoring Loyalty Traveler through Passports with Purpose for the third year in 2012 with a prize for 110,000 Gold Passport points available for a $10 donation raffle ticket entry.
Your $10 donation to Passports with Purpose earns a ticket you can enter into the 110,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points prize or your choice of 200 other prizes.
110,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points are enough for 5 free hotel nights at one of the 25 top-ranked Hyatt Hotels around the world. Category 6 Hyatt Hotels are 22,000 points per night for hotels like Park Hyatt Paris-Vendome, Park Hyatt Maldives, Hyatt Key West Resort and Hyatt Regency Maui Resort; places where the room rates are often over $500 per night.
Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn, California
Or 110,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points is sufficient for 22 nights at category 1 Hyatt Hotels. These properties provide upscale lodging for 5,000 points per night in places like Bali Hyatt, Hyatt Regency Kinabalu, Malaysia and Hyatt Regency Kathmandu, Nepal.
Hyatt Gold Passport points may be used for free hotel nights at nearly 500 Hyatt brand hotels worldwide.
Hyatt Gold Passport Prize Terms: You must be a member or join Hyatt Gold Passport to claim the 110,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points prize. Hyatt Gold Passport membership enrollment is free.
Haiti Needs Clean Water
Haiti is the poorest country in the western hemisphere. That is a statistic that has been consistent during my lifetime and that line is frequently used in NGO reports about Haiti.
In a country of just over 10 million, more than 5% of the population suffered from cholera in 2010-2011.
One of the largest recent cholera epidemics to affect a single country began in Haiti in October, 2010, just 10 months after a devastating earthquake had struck the nation’s capital. Within a month, cholera had spread throughout Haiti and cases were being reported by its shared island neighbour, the Dominican Republic. In Dec, 2011, 522,335 cholera cases and 7,001 deaths had been reported in Haiti with an additional 21,432 cases and 363 deaths reported in the Dominican Republic. http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/domrepublic_61274.html
I have never been to Haiti. I visited the Dominican Republic in 2000. I stayed at a beach resort outside Santo Domingo. The poverty I saw there on the eastern side of Hispaniola was more extensive than I had anticipated. Within 24 hours I had an intestinal illness as a traveler on that trip. I assume it was the water.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti is 200 miles west of Santo Domingo, across the great divide between international banks providing funds for tourist beach resort developments on the eastern side of Hispaniola in the Dominican Republic and international organizations providing humanitarian aid for basic survival on the western side of Hispaniola in Haiti.
Haiti is the most underserved country in the western hemisphere in terms of water and sanitation infrastructure.
In 2008, 63% of Haitians had access to improved drinking water and 17% had access to improved sanitation, such as flush toilets, septic tanks, ventilated improved pit latrines, and composting toilets.
This low figure for access to sanitation had decreased from 26% in 1990, making Haiti one of the few countries where overall sanitation coverage has declined for reasons other than population growth.
By contrast, in 2008, 86% of Dominicans and 93% of people living in the Latin American and Caribbean region had access to improved drinking water, and 83% and 80% had access to improved sanitation, respectively.
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) encompasses a commitment to halving the proportion of the world’s population without access to improved water and sanitation by 2015. Failure to attain MDG targets in Haiti for access to improved water (74%) and sanitation (63%)7 will facilitate continued cholera transmission on the island, placing the entire region at risk.
Donate to Passports with Purpose from Wednesday, November 28 through Tuesday, December 11, 2012. You receive one raffle ticket entry for the prize of your choice with each $10 donation.
Water is fundamental to life and survival. Help us finance the building of a well to provide Haitians with clean water.