Friendly Water for the World works with local communities across the globe as a partner in expanding access to low-cost clean water technologies and information about health and sanitation. We have a suite of technologies: BioSand Water Filters; rainwater catchment/Ferro-cement tank systems; MicroFlush toilets; non-fired soil-stabilized bricks (used in fabricating catchments and toilets); rocket stoves; liquid non-palm oil soap; and PermaGardens. We assist local groups in establishing micro-businesses and cooperatives, with the intention that these groups will become self-sustaining. We currently have projects in Uganda, India, Rwanda, Ethiopia, DRC-Congo, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Afghanistan, Kenya, Liberia, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Guatemala, Bolivia, Mexico, and Honduras. In 2019, we will begin work with Quaker-related organizations in Zimbabwe and Zambia.
In summer 2017, IQFA provided a portion of the funds for a tremendously successful training of representatives of 16 women’s groups in Tamil Nadu, India, affiliated with the Women’s Collective http://womenscollective.net/ . Sixteen new groups building, distributing, and installing BioSand Filters are now up and running!
Also, in summer 2017, IQFA provided a portion of the funds for training of people from six countries to learn how to fabricate MicroFlush toilets. They are now being successfully produced in Rwanda, and in orphanages in Goma, Rwanda.
In summer 2016, IQFA contributed to a very, very successful training program for four new groups of unemployed youth in Mudende, in western Rwanda. All four groups are now producing BioSand Filters, with members earning income for their respective families, and many people drinking clean water for the first time. Local authorities are extremely pleased. In fact, local authorities from the next district over (Musanze) were prompted by the results to put up almost half the funds for the training there, which IQFA funded.
In summer 2014, IQFA contributed $2,920 U.S. to Friendly Water for the World for the cost of 63 BioSand Water Filters and two all-day community sanitation/hygiene forums and training held in the Mugunga Refugee Camp, south of Goma, Congo-DRC. The results have been nothing short of sensational. I have sent IQFA a report, and what followed from it.
Friendly Water for the World received $1,650 in summer 2013 for three BioSand Filter steel moulds that are currently being used in Uganda. They are being used heavily! Previously, we had sent a report on the Kasaana People Living with HIV project that reflects one of the places where they have been used. This project is now part of our Building New Lives Campaign
Singida Clean Water Project
Singida is a semi-arid agricultural region in central Tanzania deeply impacted by both waterborne illnesses and global climate change. Waterborne illnesses – typhoid, amebiasis, cholera, dysentery – are extremely common. The few local clinics are overwhelmed; children are often sick, and child mortality is high. According to the Itigi Dispensary Director Dr. A. Shaban, eight out of ten visits to the clinic had been for waterborne illnesses. There is little health care access for most people, few clinics and few doctors, and when they have it, patients rarely get a full course of treatment, taking only those medicines given to them at the clinic as they cannot afford the cost of prescriptions.
It is not uncommon for children to miss 2-3 out of every five days of school due to waterborne illnesses. In addition, in some areas, women (often with their girl children ages 8-10 taken out of school for this purpose) walk as much as nine hours every day to gather water from distant ponds or waterholes. This leaves them both physically and mentally exhausted. And if a mother has to take a child to one of the clinics, they may be no water at all for the family.
In September 2018, Friendly Water for the World, with the assistance of local governmental authorities and Itigi Pentecostal Church, and under the leadership of our Tanzania affiliate CLAO (Community Life Amelioration Organization) trained six groups of women to fabricate, distribute, and install BioSand Water Filters, a simple, affordable household technology that removes up to 99% of bacteria, viruses, protozoa, amoeba, and worms, providing up to 23 gallons of clean water a day. They have since sold some 1,550 Filters, providing clean water for some 30,000 people, and realizing more than $65,000 in income (some of the funds have been put aside for this project). Since the program began, only 12 cases of waterborne illness have been seen at the Itigi Dispensary (there were hundreds in the three months prior). School attendance is up, and school dropout rates have been reduced. Between August 2016 and January 2018, there were 721 cases of cholera, including 342 deaths. The largest number were children. Since the implementation of the program, there has not been a single case of cholera among the 1,400 families with Filters, and not a single cholera-related death.
But there are still virtually no toilets/latrines in the region, and the long walk for water is becoming worse due to climate change. Diseases are still spread because of the lack of sanitation, and the physical stress that revolves around lives organized to simply gather enough water to live.
