I returned to Canberra on Friday 26^th March for an extended stay to coincide with the birth of my sister’s son, to raise funds and to participate in development of the organisation. I was happy to see that the work in Vientianne has continued thanks to Doug Handisides and Nom Chan. Tom Schwabble has arrived in Vientianne to bring his considerable talents to our project.

In Canberra the Ripple Effect fund-raiser has been a great success and will help launch the next phase – the training of potters from 8 remote villages so they can take the technology back to their villages. While in Canberra I have been introducing our project to many new people, many of whom are becoming supporters. We have also gained extensive media coverage so check out “media” and download and share the articles.

While in Canberra I have shared the clay-pot water filter technology with indigenous potters at the Yurauna Centre, CIT Reid. Janet Fieldhouse, the resident potter has embraced the clay-pot water filter with both hands and is incorporating the technology in her curriculum. Janet and her students are assisting with resolving technical details for the extrusion of the cylindrical filter. The Yurauna Centre’s enthusiasm for the project reflects interest in the CPWF expressed by other indigenous communities elsewhere.

I have been busily following leads of interest in the business community in Canberra. There are good prospects for getting businesses on-board and a number of volunteers have offered to promote a program enabling businesses to sponsor the implementation of the CPWF in a village. Schools have also expressed an interest in the program and we hope to have a volunteer team following up these expressions of interest.

All in all, it has been a busy but satisfying time. It is exciting to spend time with a growing band of volunteers and to feed off their enthusiasm and dedication. If you have been touched by the Abundant Water project or the Ripple Effect please get in touch and tell me about it. I look forward to hearing from you.

So how is the project going you might ask. The bad news is that the answer is boring our recent progress has increased the size of the filter according to plan and is continuing smoothly. Currently the filter is 2.7 litres. The aim is for a final size between 5 and 8 litres.

Over the past fortnight we have initiated information gathering activities to seek more feedback from the remote villagers who will be using it.

We are trying a few different techniques to determine the best way to gather information.

We are gathering feedback from three different communities with three different liaison officers using three different approaches.

The first approach involves a foreign expatriate traveling to remote villages where he will demonstrate the filter using a video of the filter and the production process. Villagers will be solicited for their feedback.

The second approach is based in the capital, Vientiane, and it focuses on migrant seasonal workers. Most of these workers are from ethnic minorities and will return to their villages after a short work stint in the city. Many of these villages have problems with liver and lung flukes. While the workers are in Vientiane an expatriate liaison will use actual filters to gather feedback from the ethnic workers.

The third approach relies upon a local villager who is a respected member of an ethnic village. He will be shown the filter and explained how it is made and used. He will then be provided with photographs of the filter and seek out feedback from his and several other local villages.

Our intention is to use the results from this brief test to inform our decision when we are choosing our communication and local engagement approach.