In February, as part of the ongoing ‘Clean Water Project’ within LEAPS II schools in Savannakhet, Abundant Water and our partner Catholic Relief Services (CRS) held a Project Introduction and Vendor Training with local district implementing partners in two new districts (Nong and Vilabouly). The aim of the training was to brief the new vendors on the importance of clean drinking water, provide detailed training on how to install and maintain Abundant Water’s filters, and review marketing strategies and sales techniques.
Abundant Water and CRS teams with representatives from Nong and Vilabouly districts during the vendor training.
One of Abundant Water’s current successful vendors took part in the training to share his experience and recommendations to new vendors.
Mr Somboun sharing his experience as a successful vendor.
For the first time, the Project Introduction Training and Vendor Training were done simultaneously, enabling District Health Office and District Education Office supervisors to be included in the vendor training portion of the training. This involvement of a larger number of district-level officials could potentially lead to greater sustainability and participation by district partners in the vendor network.
With this new training, Abundant Water will be working for the first time with vendor teams instead of individual vendors. Each team is composed of at least one Health Office staff member and one Education Office staff member, which will ensure regular contact with schools who will be receiving filter sets as part of our partnership with CRS. The second day of the training included an opportunity for each vendor team to practice the sales techniques discussed on day one by visiting a project target school and introducing the filter to the village leader and school staff. This practical application was followed by a feedback discussion with training participants, providing an opportunity to discuss the challenges that the vendor team faced when introducing the filter set.
To finalize the training, Abundant Water introduced a new ‘Vendor Business Plan’ template to help vendors establish a more detailed action plan to follow in the months after participating in the training workshop. This new business plan will be used by Abundant Water for additional follow up with newly trained vendors and was a successful addition to the training, as the vendor teams and district representatives worked together to develop a schedule and specific targets to be achieved over the next 6 months.
Vendor teams and district supervisors working together on the vendor business plan.
Abundant Water filter sets were provided to each district office, and a demonstration filter set and an electric drill, used to prepare filter sets, were provided to each vendor team to support them in their first filter sales.
Abundant Water providing a demonstration filter set and drill to vendor teams.
Our local partners began installing filter sets in target schools in March and our vendors will look to engage with schools and local community members to further expand the number of people that will have the opportunity to benefit from access to clean drinking water in their own school or household in the months ahead!