In May 2019, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Abundant Water (AW) began working together as part of an extension of CRS’ ongoing school feeding program by including AW water filters to provide access to clean drinking water for students.
The project targets 253 schools located across five districts of Savannakhet: Atsaphon, Outhoumphon, Phalanxai, Phin, and Xepon districts. The project’s goal of improving access to clean water and the health and hygiene of students will be achieved through the introduction of Abundant Water’s ceramic water filter sets and the training of local students, teachers, principals, and community leaders. The project is mainly funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
As Abundant Water is not providing the filters directly to every target school, CRS teams need to be trained before distributing the filter sets. From June to August, CRS teams participated in AW Training Workshops in order to understand how to install, clean, use and maintain AW water filters. Meetings with local government authorities, school representatives, district health officials, and members of both AW and CRS took place to introduce the project’s objectives and finalize details around implementation. In September, fifteen schools in Phin district were designated to serve as part of the pilot phase before scaling to the rest of the project areas. After completing an evaluation of the pilot in October, AW and CRS began the distribution of filters to schools of the different districts.
This blog details the supply and preparation of water filter sets provided by Abundant Water from 10-12th February 2020. Our goal was to pack 277 sets of water filters (141 small sets and 136 large sets for a total of 413 ceramic filters) for 84 schools in Phalanxai and Xepon districts.
The first task is to separate materials into cardboard boxes that will then be transported to each school. Each box contains:
- Ceramic water filters;
- Brushes;
- Clipboards with the ‘Do’s and Don’ts’ Maintenance posters;
- PVC pipes;
- Instruction manuals about how to use and clean the filter sets.
The number of items depends on the number of filters distributed to the school. Every box is weighed and inventoried.
The next activity consists of preparing the buckets for the filer sets. There are three types of buckets:
- Small black buckets (45 L);
- Large buckets (100 L);
- Blue buckets (20 L storage container for filtered water).
Every bucket must be drilled, cleaned, dried, and labeled with the sticker of the school and the logos of CRS, USDA and Abundant Water and stored in the CRS warehouse until its distribution by CRS.
As we had joined Abundant Water’s team only a few days prior to our trip, this field visit in Savannakhet was a great opportunity to see the work of AW and understand its role with its partners in Laos. This experience allowed us to discover that giving access to clean water is not only about social interactions and building filters but also about creating partnerships with a sustainable structure to help promote the use AW’s water filter technology at a larger scale.
Written by Ariane DAVENNE and Florian LEFEUVRE, Abundant Water Volunteer Program Officers