safe water project
Bech Khlok is a small very hard to access village in West Cambodia. In the village of Bech Khlok, like many other villages in the Cambodian Countryside, there is a significant lack of clean drinking water. The main sources of water for the villagers are man made ponds or other kinds of concoctions to collect rain water, as well as clean water brought in from neighboring towns. This however is expensive, so is not an option for everyone and is usually only ordered a few times a year. The water that is usually used to drink, cook or wash, is invested with dangerous bacteria. This leads to a lot of the children in the village often being sick, as well as stunted physical and mental development.
To aid in fixing this problem, Seed has begun to provide various water filters. At the school in Bech Khlok, we built hand wash facilities, installed rain water tanks and three Biosand filters in 2016. In 2018/2019, Seed provided 25 Biosand filters and rainwater tanks for a small contribution to families of the village. However we aren't stopping there, we are also providing trainings on how to use them, similar to the talks we organized to educate the villagers about safe and clean water. Through these we are hoping that we can ensure long term use of the filters.
technologies we use
The technology should be advanced enough that locals living in rural communities can maintain their tools independently.
Biosand filters can be constructed with locally available materials such as sand and gravel and require no electricity or chemicals to operate.
A biosand filter is simple. All water contains beneficial bacteria (probiotics) along with harmful organisms. The beneficial bacteria accumulate and thrive in the upper layers of sand to form a bio-layer. When you pour water through the filter, the bacteria in the bio-layer kill the harmful bacteria in the water and purify the water as it moves through the filter. Each biosand filter will purify 20,000 litres of water per year and avoid 3 tonnes of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that would otherwise be necessary to boil a portion of this water to make it safe to drink.
Biosand filters are a low-tech solution with a high effectiveness. Virus removal ranged between 85% and 95% after 45 days of usage.
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Clean and reliable water matters! Please help us to help!
