Sakuji Tanaka, RIPN
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Good morning!
I am very glad to see so many bright faces here today. It makes me feel very hopeful forthe future to see many young people at this World Water Day event.
I am here representing Rotary International. Rotary has been part of my life for many
years. I became a Rotarian before any of you were born, and maybe even before some ofyour parents were born. Rotary is an organization of 1.2 million men and women, all over
the world. Rotarians meet every week in local clubs, to enjoy friendship, and to work
together to help others.
Rotarians live in more than 200 countries and geographical regions. We speak dozens oflanguages. We work in every field and run every kind of business.
What brings us together in Rotary is our belief in a simple idea. Our motto is Service
Above Self.
It is a very old motto, and Rotary is a very old organization—106 years old last month.
And in that time, people have understood our motto in many different ways.
To me, Service Above Self is a way of life. It is a way of life for anybody. It means thatno individual can live by himself, alone. We are always in a community. At home, atschool, at work, and in our countries—we share our lives with others.
It is human and natural to want to share our lives. Whether we are happy or sad, facing
success or difficulty, we want to know that we have others close by. And as much as wewant other people to be there for us, we each have a need to be there for others.
In life, the most rewarding thing is not money. Being useful, being helpful, being able tomake other people happy—this is what makes us happy people. In Rotary, Service Above
Self means that we look at the community before we look at ourselves. We put the needsof the community above our own needs.
In Rotary, Service Above Self is a living motto. The words are not empty words. They
are words that guide how we live. We live in our communities. We live for ourcommunities. It is obvious that in order to put the needs of a community above our own
needs, we have to understand what the community’s needs are.
Today, our communities have many needs. And if you looked at all of those needs, andchose the greatest need of them all, I think you would choose the need for water.
Why? Because water is a universal need. Everyone needs water. And we need it foreverything. Here in Japan, we are the fourth heaviest users of water per capita in theworld. The average person in Japan uses 374 liters of water every single day. In theSakuji Tanaka, RIPN
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United States, they use 575 liters per day. Where is this water going? It is not only thewater you see. It is not only the water that you use for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Itis the water you use in the bathroom, for washing your clothes, and for watering yourplants. It is also the water used for agriculture, in industry, and in health care. Every year,
we need more water. Every year, there is less clean water to go around.
In the poorest countries, there is not enough water for even the basic needs. In
Bangladesh, the average person uses 49 liters of water. In Cambodia, the average person
uses 15 liters. In Mozambique, the average person uses only 4 liters of water a day.
It is important to understand why and how people in these very poor countries are using
their water. It is also important to understand how this affects their daily lives.
In the poorest developing countries, people do not have modern bathrooms. Sewage goes
into the ground, and contaminates the water. Often, industrial waste goes into drinking
water as well. Most people do not have running water inside their homes, and have towalk great distances to find water. When you have to carry all of your water by hand, youmust use the water that is close to you, even if that water is not safe.
There are many terrible consequences to this. Waterborne illness is one of the major
contributors to child mortality around the world. Nearly 1 billion people worldwide haveno access to safe water. More than 80% of all sickness in the world can be connectedwith unsafe water.
Not only that, but where there is no safe water, there is often very little education.
Mothers and children spend too much time seeking water. Children spend too much time
ill to learn well. Money that could go toward schooling instead goes toward basic
survival.
I just explained to you that in Rotary, we believe in being useful to our communities. Soin Rotary, we see the water crisis as a very important way that we can be useful. All over
the world, Rotarians are involved in water projects.
Water projects come in many forms. Some are very simple. For example, the LifeStraw is
a device that costs about 450 yen. It is 31 centimeters long and weighs almost nothing.
But you can put one end of it into very contaminated water, and the other end in yourmouth, and drink through it—and it will filter out almost all of the bacteria and viruses
that cause illness.
It is a wonderful invention, and one that has saved many lives. It is extremely helpful insituations of crisis and places of great need. But it is a temporary solution to a long-term
problem.
When you are trying to be useful to others, the best way to be useful is to truly
understand their problems and their perspective. You must also look at a problem fromthe long point of view. If you help someone in a way that depends on you, they are only

Sakuji Tanaka, RIPN
World Water Day Event
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being helped as long as you are there. If you help someone in a way that allows them todepend on themselves, they can help themselves always.
This is taking a long view. This is the Rotary approach.
In Rotary, when we see a long-term problem, we look for long-term solutions. We look at
the problem from the beginning to the end. Where does the problem begin, and how far
does it reach? Where is the best point to reach in to help?
There is no single solution for the water crisis. But there is a great deal of knowledge thatcan be applied to many different situations. For example, the question of safe watercannot be independent of the question of sanitation. It does not help to clean water if thewater is constantly being polluted. Every water crisis has a context, and that context must
be understood for the crisis to be dealt with effectively.
If there is one word we must always remember when we talk about water projects, it issustainability. Every project has a budget, and the goal is to use that budget to make thebiggest difference, to the most people, over the longest period of time. That sounds
simple, but the decisions are not simple at all. And the decisions that we make today will
have an effect that will last for many, many years. They will affect all of you, and also
your children, and their children as well.
You are young, but you are capable. You have the heart and the motivation to make thechanges that will make all of our communities better.
The future of our planet is not in my hands, or in the hands of my generation. It is inyours.
My friends, I am heartened by this event and by your presence here today. I know thatyou will leave here with not only more knowledge, but more motivation to make apositive change. And I hope that in the years that come, you too will discover the joys ofService Above Self.
Thank you.