The group consists of a range of both undergraduate and graduate students hailing from many different departments. Participants work with Blum projects such as Haath Mein Sehat, the Shuar Health Project and do research in China, India, Mexico and California as well as many other places. The group meets twice a month to network and collaborate on our respective projects. The chance to meet and exchange ideas with students from other disciplines who all share a focus on water and sanitation has been very fruitful for all participants’ work and research.
The Berkeley Water Group also serves as a hub through which participants can alert each other to talks, events and conferences addressing our shared interests.
For example, the Berkeley Water Group has organized educational meetings surrounded around important water-related current events, such as the Twin Tunnels, the Flint Water Crisis, and the Dakota Access Pipeline. We also have fun social events, such as World Toilet Day, which was centered around international sanitation issues. The Berkeley Water Group does outreach events such as creek cleanups, and a long-term project to reduce plastic water bottles on campus, called Take Back the Tap.