Project: Water Filters in Africa

Finalist discussion: http://www.omidyar.net/group/cmp s80j/news/72/

Earlier discussion for this project: http://www.omidyar.net/group/cmp s80j/news/49/

I'll put this in the beginning so that it's easier to find: Professor Davis asked us to put this question on our workspace so that voters can have an even clearer way of determining who should win -

Supposing you won $5000 to work on this for the summer, what will you accomplish with those funds?

Let me first be honest, the members of this group have other plans for our summer and would not be able to pursue this project this summer if we were to win. But at least two of the members are interested in trying to work on it during the next school year or the next summer. So voters who would like to see progress now and rather not wait would not want to vote for us.

However, if you were willing to wait, here would be a good reason. $5000 dollars would make a significant difference in making our project go quicker (possibly doubling the speed of progress literally). A huge one-time (hopefully) cost that we would rather not incur and put onto our loaners is the cost of transporting us over there to train loaners and intially install some filters. If we were to recieve the $5000, $2100 of it would cover 2 members' one-way plane fares to Africa where we would stay for a period of time until we feel that we have trained enough people and seen progress from our installed filters on the villagers' health. Another $2100 of it would cover our plane fares for coming back once this period of time is over.

That means theres $800 left which we could buy filter parts that could make 16 or more filters (the maximum cost of a Biosand filter is $50 so $800/$50=16, although we will probably get cheaper filters at app. $30-40 which could mean 20-26 filters) or to pay for transportation of equipment which is a cost also added to the filter loans we give. So paying initially for filter parts and transportation with the $800 will eventually be paid back to us by our loaners. We would then use the $800 we get paid back to get more filters which would then be paid back again. If this all works out we would always have $800 and any additional profits that can occur in the long-run.

The reason this award could possibly double the speed of our progress is due to the fact that the economics of this project makes no assumption that any free money will be given to us. I had worked out everything in such a way that the costs would all be covered by the filter loans we give. However, if we recieved this money and the $4200 plane fare is paid for, the extra $42 dollars I would have to add to each loan (until the 100th filter) would no longer need to be added which cuts the first 100 loans almost in half and thus doubles the quickness for paybacks of loans and distribution of more filters/loans.

Thank you Omidyar.net members for your consideration and to those who vote for us, thanks for your patience for progress and your support in our hopeful project proposal.

Summary

We are planning to send low-cost, efficient water filters to small communities in Africa (and hope to go international in the future). Our goal is that the whole community will eventually have clean water. This would lower the large amount of deaths caused by water-borne diseases and deaths of HIV/AIDS victims who need clean water for their weak immune systems.

Concrete BioSand Filters that cost $50 each. (Photo taken from Thirst Relief International)

For more information on the features of Slow Sand Filters that make them efficient and cheap you can visit : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slo w_sand_filter

Team

Samantha Riffle:

Originally from Fresno, CA. I'm a 2nd year transfer student who is majoring in community studies and minoring in theater. Later, I want to go to graduate school to get a masters in public health so I can help improve health in third world countries. This project is an example of the work I would like to do later on for a career.

Sarah Kahn:

I am 19 years old. I grew up in Southern California (Los Angeles) and decided to go to school in Northern California to persue my love for liberal politics and environmental studies. I have not chosen a major yet but I am leaning towards Environmental studies or History (possibly a minor in history). I have one younger sister who is 17 years old and when I am back in Southern California I live with her and my parents. This summer (2007) I am doing International Student Volunteer Program where you go abroad to do community service. I like using omidyar and hope to continue browsing after this year ends.

Tussanee Reedboon:

I am a 1st year student. Originally from Los Angeles, California. Hoping to double major in History and Economics. Perspective Careers: Political Advisor, Financial Advisor, Lawyer (all of which I would enjoy doing particularly for the government). Supporter of (but not strongly due to inexperience, young age and ignorance) : American Captialism, French Existentsialism, Thai Buddhism.

We are all students at UC Santa Cruz.

Social

• What social problem are you solving?

We are solving the social problem regarding the lack of clean drinking water in Africa (and other parts of the world). We are also solving many health problems that come along with not having enough clean water including bacterial infections (in the stomach, digestive tract, etc), deaths from water-borne diseases, and deaths of HIV/AIDS victims whose weak immune systems are most affected by bacteria and other things found in unclean water according to Thirst Relief (http://thirstrelief.org/facts.ht m#death).

• What is the magnitude of this problem?

The magnitude of this problem is large. According to Thirst Relief International, “ every 15 seconds someone dies of a waterborne illness. ” Also according to them “ 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to clean drinking water and nearly 2 million people die each year due to waterborne-related disease (90% of which are children under the age of 5) “. This magnitude is so large that “the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a worldwide water crisis among the world’s poorest people. Further, the UN has declared 2005–2015 Water for Life: The International Decade for Action. ” According to former WHO Director-General, Dr. LEE Jong-Wook, “Every week, diarrhoeal disease due to easily preventable causes claims the lives of 30,000 people, most of them young children… The consequences of our collective failure to tackle this problem are the dimmed prospects for the billions of people locked in a cycle of poverty and disease.”

Those in poverty have limited access to basic social services, safe water, all-year roads, electricity and telephone services. As much as 70% of African countries’ poor people (particularly in Ghana) live in rural areas where they have limited access to clean water according to the Rural Poverty Portal Organization (http://www.ruralpovertyportal.or g/english/regions/africa/gha/ind ex.htm). The organization explains that the incidence of poverty is highest in the northern rural parts of countries like Ghana, which we hope to target first. Therefore, we plan to start in a small community of Northern Ghana and then spread to the entire northern half , hoping to hit all the other communities as well.

By working in a small community in Ghana, we hope to have a successful outcome which will allow us to plan for a more national and eventually international approach.

• How will you evaluate progress/success?

When we find the community we believe needs the most help and would be the most fit for our experiment, we would find the statistics of the population including…

• What percentage of the community is below the poverty line
• What percentage of the community has access to clean water
• How many deaths are caused by waterborne illness yearly in this community
• How many HIV/AIDS victims are present and how many are dying each year in this community

Once we have gathered this information we would begin documenting these numbers (not the poverty line one as much) and see what change these statistics are having (be it negative, positive, or same) over a period of time. This would take constant surveillance and observation which we believe we can do with the right type and amount of people.

• What is your expected social return?

As Dr. LEE Jong-Wook said so nicely, we hope to stop the cycle of poverty and disease that will affect billions of people. We hope to lower deaths caused by waterborne illness and deaths of HIV/AIDS victims who don’t have access to clean water to protect their deteriorating immune systems. If we distribute our potential market of 100 filters (serving 5,500 people daily) we want to lower waterborne illness caused deaths of a village with approximately 5,500 people by at least 50% at first and hope for it to increase exponentially over time. We want to increase clean water accessiblity to 75%-100% once all 100 filters are loaned off. We want this to all happen within 10 years since that is how long the filters are warrantied to last. We want to see a postive change in the many problems those in poverty have to go through including finding clean water for their families and having less disease threats so that they can focus on education and working out of their poverty.

Background

What have people done with regard to this social issue already?

Many have been working to make cheap clean water filters, but none that we know of have the idea of water filter loans in communities. Some agencies have installed wells in communities that are safe for drinking.

W.H.O. The World Health Organization is the United Nations specialized agency for health. They aid countries in need through an alliance with one another and are trying to help Africa now. W.H.O and the policy-makers of African government, NGOs and external agencies who participated the first Regional Consultation on the AFRICA 2000 Initiative for Water Supply and sanitation, held in Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, 25-27 June 1996, discussed serious problems facing urban, rural and peri-urban populations, Discussions evolved around case studies taken from the 46 Members states of the African Region of the World health Organization. Ways and means of solving the problems were elaborated in a seven-point action programme for immediate follow-up by governments. Recognizing that nearly 400 million people more than half of Africa’s population currently have no access to save drinking-water, and even more are without sanitary means of excreta disposal, illustrating that sanitation in particular requires special attention because of serious past neglect ; they have, therefore, resolved to direct solutions to the continent’s critical water supply and sanitation problems. AFRICA 2000 is an initiative of African governments for accelerated progress for enabling all African to have access to save water and sanitation. This initiative puts leaderships of water and sanitation development in the hands of African governments.

SO, basically W.H.O. keeps trying to put all the water sanitation problems in the hands of the government when clearly that is not their top priority. There are wars going on in Africa, AIDS, many many other problems that are probably getting put before water sanitation. However, water sanitation is among the most important for health reasons so we plan to assist these people where the government has not.

ThirstRelief.org Thirst Relief asks people for money ($5 per person) so they can build a specific water filter and send it to people dying of water bourne illness. Their cost to build, deliver, and install a concrete Biosand water filter is $50, which in turn benefits on average 10 people in need.

Global Partners for Development www.gpfd.org, Global Partners for Development has worked to achieve an end to hunger throughout the world, especially as it affects the survival and development of children. The purpose of Global Partners for Development is to bring outside resources to communities that struggle with the innumerable problems associated with hunger and poverty, and to assist those communities in bringing about appropriate development, improved health, education, and economic self-reliance. Global Partners water projects Whether it’s a new dam in Arkaria, Tanzania or a new water collection system for Matata Hospital in Uganda, or nine local water spigots for the village of Loliondo, Tanzania, they work with their partners to build and maintain clean water systems vital for health and wellbeing.

www.WaterFilterComparisons.net This website should be useful because they have compiled data on water filters and which ones they think are the best. We could research the cheapest here and send them.

http://technocrat.net/d/2007/3/19/16478 A large private international humanitarian aid organization has announced they have developed a new [light weight large functional water filter] in conjunction with university researchers and a large plastics and chemical company. The new filter only weighs 15 lbs and will replace the filters they have been using that weigh 300 lbs. More information can be found on the website through: INTERNATIONAL AID NAMES ROBERT J. GOODWIN CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER [4/23/2007]

If anyone is pursuing a similar strategy, have they been successful?

It seems of the companies above some of them have been successful in raising money and helping some peoples in different areas. However Africa is still suffering a lot and none of these organizations have actually solved the problem.

Quantify past success or failure of similar plans Thirst Relief has many programs running now that they plan to continue in the future. Here is one of the programs that they are doing: Amazon Water Project The Amazon Water Project addresses the clean drinking water needs of the “forgotten river people” living in the hidden villages deep in the Amazon Basin. Approximately 80% of illness and disease among the river people is waterborne related. Further, the extremely remote and rural location of these people makes it nearly impossible to seek medical help in the more developed cities of the region. As a result, their goal is to address the problem at its source and provide clean drinking water to those in need, thereby preventing waterborne disease rather than treating it. The Amazon Water Project is implemented at the point of need through a partnership with The Xingu Mission based out of Columbus, OH and Altamira, Brazil. The cost to build, distribute, and install a concrete Biosand water filter is $50, which in turn benefits 10 to 20 people in need. The Amazon Water Project has resources/infrastructure ready and waiting to provide 60 Biosand filters per month. They also have the Zambia Water Project, Indonesia Water Project (Planned for 2007), and Tanzania Water Project (Planned for 2007). The two that are being planned have not had any success yet, however, the Zambia Water Project is implemented at the point of need through a partnership with Seeds of Hope International Partnerships based out of Santa Maria, CA and Ndola, Zambia. The cost to repair an existing broken well hand pump is $800, which in turn benefits 500 to 1000 people in need. The cost to drill a new well is $4,000, which in turn benefits 500 to 1000 people in need. The Zambia Water Project has resources/infrastructure ready and waiting to provide 100 filters per month, repair of 25 well hand pumps per month, and drilling/construction of 3 new wells per month.

Why are existing methods not solving the problem? Of all the existing methods it does not say that their groups are not solving the problem. They feel that they are solving the problem one step at a time. I feel that these other programs are probably not solving it well because they are moving to slowly and not reaching many communities in need, which we wil be doing.

Who is the “consumer” in terms of the social good you are providing? Poor people in rural African cities/communities (in Ghana).

Do the people you are serving think this project is a good idea?

We haven’t talked to people in Africa so we don’t know. Once we educate them about waterborne diseases, and we can prove to them that this causes many deaths in their community, we would hope they would like our idea.

Go ask them and provide evidence that they think so.

We have tried to contact them and unfortnuately have had no luck. Since the official language of Ghana is English, we hoped to contact someone who was working in a village there. However, pictures I've found have prove that many villagers already travel miles to fetch clean water from humanitarians who have been trying to provide clean water in Africa. Perhaps, we will get a response soon. However, people in Ghana probably get to check their email every few weeks so a response may come when this class is already over.

What are the risks of failure, in broad terms?

The risk of failure is that the people will continue to suffer and we will lose money. There are no serious risk factors considering our plan does not take a lot of money and the places we are hoping to reach are in such a bad state already that any failure will not set them back any more than they already are.

What are the potential pitfalls of your plan?

Because we plan to lend a filter to one person (like the cell phone idea presented in class) where one person is in control of the filter and then charges people to pay to use it, thus paying us back, there could be corruption where the person charges more than we say is allowed, making money instead of just making what he/she owes. Another pitfall is that the filter gets stolen because it would be of such value; crime rates in Africa are very high and the government does not have strict laws preventing such things. Those are the main problems we have found so far in regards to pitfalls.

What are the potential consequences if something doesn't go as expected?

We don’t know. We haven’t done the project yet so things haven’t gone wrong yet. That seems like it will be something we come across later.

Economics

• What sustainable business are you running?

• What are you selling, and to who?

Our sustainable business is to sell efficient, low-cost, effective and durable water filters to a small village in Africa (preferably one in Ghana) and hope that over time we can expand our consumer field to other poverty-stricken villages in Africa and possibly other high poverty areas of other parts of the world (like Asia and Latin America).

Technology

• Is the technology feasible?

• (provide citations/evidence/letters-from-experts if there is any question)

Yes! The concrete biosand filter has proven to be very effective for making water cleaner. In one study, it was found to reduce diarrheal disease by 40% (http://www.unc.edu/news/archives /mar07/filter031907.html). And according to International Thirst Relief, the filter removes more than 90% of bacteria and 100% of parasites.

Article about how Biosand Filters reduce diarrheal diseases: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives /mar07/filter031907.html

• What are the risks of failure associated with the technology?

The filter needs to be able to be effective over a relatively long time. After awhile, it may not be as efficient which would be a major problem.

Resource Requirements

• What resources do you need?

• (startup capital, contacts, information, technological inventions, anything that you don’t have right now.)

I think our two biggest resource needs are going to be in the form of technological inventions and contacts. We need to be able to have a good supply of water filters, either by donation or by purchase (in which case we will need a startup capital). And since our project focuses on loaning filters out to a few people per area, we need to find people who are trustworthy, responsible, and who generally need these water filters. This has been done with the cellphone program and the farming program in India so we are hopeful in finding those people. It would also be good to get reliable information about which areas in Ghana would need this project the most.

How long will these resources last?

Especially in the case of money, how long until you run out of startup funds and need to be making money?

How long things will last depend on the type of water filter we will use (since a contact is only needed in our intial startup so that we can start our plan in an Africa village). Since the Biosand Filter has a ten year warranty, we are already given a ten year period. Also, with the strong perspective that our average total cost should lower overtime (ten years is a good amount of time) due to more efficient practices such as a growing amount of trained villagers, less need for transportation and monitoring, we can continue making more filters and our resources should last as long as things go accordingly.

Objections

• (list each objection with an answer) Objections could be tech, econ, social or anything raising controversy

-The main controversy we have is about charging people for access to clean water. Many argue that having access to clean water is a universal human right, and believe me everyone in our group would agree with you. But one of the requirements for this project is to make a profit. Plus aid money can only go so far. We don't want to make these people go into debt: the pay back rate will be as small as we can make it to make a profit.