Peter Cleary, Communications Director for Vestergaard-Frandsen LIFESTRAW: Delivering Clean Water for the Developing World presented with Engineers for a Sustainable World Thursday, November 29, 2007 8:00pm, Beckman Institute Auditorium, Caltech

Every day, 6,000 people (mostly children) die from drinking dirty water. Half of the world's poor suffer from water borne diseases. The Swiss-based Vestergaard-Frandsen company has developed a revolutionary device called LifeStraw to ensure that simple access to safe drinking water becomes a basic human right. LifeStraw is a personal, mobile, water-purification tool that turns even the dirtiest water into safe drinking water.

Sharing a passion to achieve the Millennium Development Goal of "reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water" by the year 2015, Vestergaard-Frandsen recognized the immense sense of urgency. Safe water interventions have vast potential to transform the lives of millions, especially in crucial areas such as poverty eradication, environmental upgradation, quality of life, child development and gender equality.

LifeStraw offers relief from waterborne diseases of major public concern such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery and diarrhoea. As a personal and mobile water purification tool, LifeStraw is designed to turn most of the surface water into drinking water, thus providing access to safe water wherever people are.

Peter Cleary is the New York-based Communications Director for Vestergaard-Frandsen (VF). He has over 20 years of experience in the field of communications. Before taking the position at VF, he was a Press Secretary on Capitol Hill for a Member of Congress, and worked at leading nonprofit organizations and global public relations firms. His current position allows him to promote the people, the products, and the global issues most important to the company.

For more information about VF's Lifestraw, visit: http://www.lifestraw.com/