Biosand Filters for the Caribbean Coast
Launching awareness about safe water in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, by locally producing Biosand Filters for the employees of blueEnergy and their families.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Field of Work
Water
Year the initative began (yyyy)
2008
YouTube Upload
Web site (url)
Positioning of your initiative on the mosaic diagram:
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Public information alone doesn’t change behaviors
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Increase accountability through design for the long-term
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic
This field has not been completed
Name Your Project
Biosand Filters for the Caribbean Coast
Describe Your Idea
Launching awareness about safe water in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, by locally producing Biosand Filters for the employees of blueEnergy and their families.
Innovation
What is your signature innovation, your new idea, in one sentence?
Launching awareness about safe water in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, by locally producing Biosand Filters for the employees of blueEnergy and their families.
Describe your innovation. What makes your idea unique and different than others doing work in the field?
blueEnergy is already specialized in locally made technology, manufacturing wind turbines in its workshop in Bluefields. Producing efficient low-cost filters complete this objective of offering affordable and efficient development technology to the impoverished population of the Caribbean Coast. Manufacturing household water solutions is complementary with blueEnergy community projects, appealing to the responsibility of every family.
The idea of starting filters diffusion in a group close to blueEnergy will permit to test easily the interest of the population for such a solution, in a place it has never been implemented before. We will address to a group of people with who we have daily contacts, and which is representative of the ethnic diversity of the Caribbean Coast. An easiest follow-up will ensure a better sustainability of this pilot project, letting us gain experience before offering our filter in more remote communities.
Delivery Model: How do you implement your innovation and apply it to the challenge/problem you are addressing?
The Biosand Filters will be produced in the workshop of blueEnergy, by the people who will directly benefit from them: blueEnergy's employees. This will lead to a good knowledge of this technology and a better understanding of how it works, how to maintain it/fix it. Daily contacts will facilitate communication about this filter, letting the international volunteers of blueEnergy giving complementary information.
This long-term contact will lead to sensitivity to water issues completed by the knowledge of an appropriate water technology.
How do you plan to expand your innovation?
Once an interest about water issues and Biosand Filters has been started by a first implementation at blueEnergy workers, a local demand for these filters should show up. blueEnergy already acts as a profit/non profit organization, selling energy services to interested people and investing this profit to serve communities with no capacity of payment.
This model will be reproduced with the filters: as they are low cost (between 15 and 30 $), a not negligible part of the population of Bluefields should be able to afford it. This income will be used to implement distribution in the remote communities with which blueEnergy already works.
Whoever the beneficiary is, no filter will be sold or distributed without a training about hygiene good practices, safe storage technologies, maintenance and use of the Biosand Filter. Each filter owner should agree for a regular follow up of his/her filter.
Do you have any existing partnerships, and if so, how do you create them?
We already have a partnership with the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technologies (Calgary, Canada) who should soon send trainers to Bluefields to train members of blueEnergy and community leaders from the Caribbean Coast. Training sessions will be about general water issues, hygiene good practices and sanitation, overview of existing appropriate technologies for water purification, how to make, use and maintain a Biosand Filter, safe storage.
blueEnergy also already works with the Caribbean communities of Monkey Point, Kakabila, Set Net Point and Punta de Aguila. blueEnergy recently received a funding from HIVOS to continue its development efforts in these communities, reinforcing existing energy services and providing new ones. Leaders from this communities, visiting us in Bluefields, already showed a great interested in the Biosand Filter, mainly because of its simplicity of use and robustness.
Impact
Provide one sentence describing your impact/intended impact.
The project will create local interest in water issues and will build experience for larger scale filters implementation and training in remote communities.
What are the main barriers to creating or achieving your impact?
The main barriers are educational and social. Water technologies can only be effective if people come to understand the hazards posed by dirty water and develop the discipline to drink purified water all the time.
How many people have you served or plan to serve?
In the first part of the project, around 20 families will low aged children should benefit from the filter. Then, the number of other people interested in buying a filter is hard to quantify, we estimated it around 100 families. When the project extends to communities, 1700 people from 4 different communities of the Coast should be involved.
Directly
In the middle term, 2400 people should be involved (beneficiaries in Bluefields and in the communities).
Indirectly
A success of this middle term project (until Oct 2010) would definitely embed the production of filter in the daily activities of blueEnergy. Consequently, new communities in new projects would benefit from water services since the beginning, included in a "package" of development services (energy, water, communication).
Please list any other measures of the impact of your innovation?
The main measure of this innovation will be health improvement of the beneficiaries (reduction of diarrhea problems, mainly). However, several indicator can certify the good acceptance of the filters: general state, flow rate, regular use and maintenance, ability to fix it in case of leak. A good acceptance will prove the sustainability of the project and the opportunity of extending it to a larger scale.
Is there a policy intervention element to your innovation, if so please describe?
This field has not been completed
Exactly who are the beneficiaries of your innovation?
blueEnergy's employees and their families: as most of the population of Bluefields and of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, blueEnergy's employees do not benefit from water treatment technologies, and drink water from contaminated wells or rain water catchment. Most of them a have low-aged children.
Members of the communities: communities of the Caribbean Coast are very hard to access, have a low average age, and do not benefit of the minimal resources: energy, clean water. Water come from wells often contaminated, springs and catchments.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative financed (or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)?
The first step (producing and distributing filters to workers of blueEnergy, training session by the CAWST) will be financed by HIVOS funding. HIVOS funding includes a part for water studies.
Selling filters to interested people in Bluefields will at least auto-finance. Eventually it will create an income for supporting community projects.
Filters implementation in the communities will be funded by funding applications.
Provide information on your finances and organization:
Budget was $180,000 for 2007, $100,000 for 2006 and $60,000 for 2005. Most revenue is generated from grants for energy system installations in remote communities. Much of this revenue is earned in the sense that reimbursement of expenses for the grants is contingent upon work being accomplished. In addition, starting in 2008, blueEnergy is moving to a higher percentage of earned revenue by selling systems to other NGOs working in development, but without expertise in energy. blueEnergy also receives contributed revenue in the form of prizes and private donations.
What is the potential demand for your innovation?
The Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua does not benefit of any structure for drink water supply. Even in the capital, Bluefields, households live with wells (very often contaminated, because of the lack of black waters network) or rain water catchment. The demand in the immediate environment is already very important (population of Bluefields is 48 000 people).
The communities are isolated and need robust, sustainable appropriate technologies for treating contaminated water. It appeared that the Biosand Filter is the appropriate technology best fitting its requirements.
What are the main barriers to financial sustainability?
Low capacity of payment of the beneficiaries and the difficulty in physically reaching remote communities to deliver training and maintenance services.
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
As a kid, I developed a passion for Nicaragua while twice accompanying my mother to the Caribbean Coast where she was documenting the Rama Indians’ dying language. Later, as an undergraduate in engineering I discovered that wind power afforded the perfect mix of technical challenges, international adventure, and social and environmental benefits. I was instantly hooked. In graduate school, I dreamed up a way to utilize my passion for wind power to help the impoverished region I connected to as a kid by organizing an interdisciplinary team in a class to develop the concept of what would become bE. Since finishing graduate school in 2003 I have labored around the clock to bring bE to life. I have experienced how emotionally draining and all-consuming launching a new organization can be. Despite the constant demands and non-existent pay, I have never wavered in my commitment to blueEnergy. In fact, my experiences during the startup phase have only emboldened me to expand my vision for blueEnergy. Under my leadership blueEnergy has opened its first manufacturing plant, hired and trained 14 local employees and built and installed 8 energy systems. I am excited to now be taking blueEnergy into the water space; combining locally produced wind power and water purification was my original vision for blueEnergy back in 2002. This biosand filter water project is only the beginning but it’s a promising sign of things to come.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material
Mathias Craig started blueEnergy as a nonprofit corporation in late 2003. As Executive Director and Chairman of the Board, he provides the organization with administrative, programmatic and fundraising leadership. Mathias has over seven years of involvement in wind energy and has significant experience in Latin America and Nicaragua in particular. He holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MS from MIT, both in Environmental Engineering. He is fluent in French and Spanish.
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 | 209 weeks ago Christopher Heald updated this Competition Entry. |
