Discussion about entry: Water For Life Program: Using Biosand filters to save lives

The training institute provides a variety of courses including a 2 month diploma course in community-based health and development, a 1 month course for medical and public health students as well as short and custom tailored course to meet the needs of various non-governmental agencies and government departments.
We also conduct mobile training throughout the year, mostly in India and neighboring countries.
We would like to expand this training institute as the demand is high. However, this depends on financial constraints and staffing.
In addition, CRHP helped establish a similar training institute in South America.

Cynthia, thank you for your comments. The entry fields have been revised. Please see the above comments for more information.
As for the actual sand filters, they are an adaptation of a technology developed in Canada in the early 90s. The concept is pretty simple and you can learn more about it at:
http://www.jalfilter.org/FAQ/faq.html
and CRHP's website: http://www.jamkhed.org/AppropriateTechnology.shtml (scroll to the bottom).

Thanks for your questions, Dana. The entry fields for this competition were transferred automatically from a previous Ashoka competition so that's why it didn't quite match up. I've only just returned from the Schwabb Foundation meeting in Davos so I'll be glad to answer questions.
The biosand filter project was initiated by one of our Mabelle Arole Fellows who continues to be involved in the design and implementation upon his return to the U.S. We have also partnered with other individuals in this field for technical assistance. More information about the filter can be obtained at http://www.jalfilter.org/schematic/sche.html.
As of now, this project has been slow to initiate beyond a small pilot study due to lack of funding. However, should the required startup resources be met, it would be implemented in a manner similar to many of our other diverse community-based (and often community-managed) programs. CRHP acts to facilitate the process by providing the training and skills for our partner communities to take over the implementation and expansion. Our efforts are also focused on identifying the population that could benefit the most and ensuring equitable distribution of this technology. Although the household cost per filter is reasonable; undoubtedly we will need to subsidize this amount for the neediest families in each village. The presence of self-help groups and other community-based organizations will be vital to implementation. These local partnerships have been working for decades to provide support to the socioeconomically weaker sections of their own communities and will continue to build on that with this project as well.
One of the reasons this has worked so well is that CRHP provides value-based and holistic training. The self-help groups evolved from women's development groups, which were organized by the project as a means to fight malnutrition, poverty and disease. The people eventually realized the enormous impact of their combining and focusing resources on mutually beneficial goals. They now willingly accept such projects and work quite effectively to oversee the implementation with extremely low incidents of corruption.

Hi Brian, this is an important issue and highlights the need to provide education and training for all household users of this filter. Our community-based health and development project is in a unique position to provide such training and support through a well developed infrastructure. Every project village has at least one village health worker who acts as the liaison between her community and our hospital/training center at Jamkhed. There are also community groups such as farmers clubs and womens development organization/self-help groups. Al of these groups and individuals are quite adept at instituting and monitoring various community-based project, such as the Biosand filter project. Our organization, CRHP, acts as a facilitator and source of support for the communities with which we are partnered.
In addition, in order to contaminate those layers of sand (i.e. crushed gravel) which comes in contact with the filtered water, a user would have to disassemble the filter, which is quite heavy, and expose the clean water/sand to the environment. This would never occur as part of normal and proper operation and maintenance. It is certainly possible but very unlikely and indeed has never occurred in field trials. Also, this filter technology has been widely implemented throughout the world, in dozens of countries. It has been endorsed by many organizations including the WHO. What's great about it is its adaptability to various environments and cultures and we have likewise found a modification that works very well for people in rural India.

Thank you for your question, David.
Many qualities of this filter technology eventually led us to explore and promote its use in rural India. Some of the most important aspects include virtually maintenance free operation, indefinite life of the filter, durability, scalability, excellent filtration efficiency and, of course, acceptance by the communities. Although the cost of production is not "cheap" relative to the average household income in our project villages, they are nonetheless affordable. This is especially true when you take into account the potential number of years the filters can be used and the number of people who will benefit from a significantly reduced incidence of illnesses, some life threatening. We have found that people, for the most part, are willing to invest in the health of their families if the technology is shown to work.
In terms of a delivery model, CRHP has never operated as a charity. Rather, we facilitate the process of grassroots empowerment and capacity-building on multiple levels. As with the many other community-based health and development programs which we support, the people would be expected to contribute significantly to the implementation of the Biosand filter project and eventually take on full ownership. We will provide knowledge, training and support to enable this process to go forward as well as the initial investment to jump start this program. It is important to note that our philosophy has always been to provide a preferential option for the poor. We would therefore subsidize the cost of these filters for those families who are incapable of absorbing the cost or arrange for loans to be dispersed through the microcredit program or self-help groups that are found in each village.
In addition, the filters have been shown to produce more than enough potable water to support the needs of even the larger families. Water would still have to be carried into the house as before, then processed through the filter and stored in a proper storage container.