Water, Water but is there a drop to drink?

"Drink plenty of water" was the advice given to the team when in Sierra Leone. There are a number of pictures in which bottles of water feature. Here are some and you will notice bottles of water in many more as you look through the blog.

Break time for Andy and Margaret

Grace learning deportment at the airport

Our first morning in Sierra Leone. Bottle in hand, Linden is setting a good example as we cross on the ferry to Freetown.

However bottled water is expensive and way beyond the reach of many people who have no access to guaranteed clean water. This results in many cases of waterborne disease, sickness and diarrhoea. What are we doing about it?

While in Africa we taught a simple method of making impure water much safer to drink.

Fill a clear plastic bottle with water leaving a couple of inches of air at the top. Seal and shake the bottle to distribute oxygen through the water, then stand in full sun for a minimum of 8 hours. The ultra violet light from the sun will sterilise the oxygenated water.

A demonstration by a group member. To help with teaching this principle, they composed a song to go with the actions.

This method is getting wider acceptance. The web site http://www.worldchanging.com/  reports that in Tanzania, villagers have been placing plastic water bottles full of dirty spring water in the sun on their black tar rooftops. After eight hours (or less in very hot areas), UV rays and heat have killed off the bacteria that cause cholera, dysentery, and typhoid.

According to the site "What remains one of the greatest impediments to wider adoption of this approach is simply education and information. According to an organizer from Plan International, many villagers fear that the water bottles may not be an effective means of cleaning water, or may be vulnerable to further contamination when left sitting on the roof.

For all its potential problems, though, the method does seem to have a lot to offer - it's very inexpensive, and can be implemented by anyone, anywhere that the sun gets hot enough to kill potential contaminants. It's also spurring a new demand for the collection and distribution of plastic bottles."

Good to have our methods verified by what Time Magasine described as one of the world's top 15 environmental websites.

Since coming home we are negotiating with Links International to send some water filters for use in the school. A recent study by a leading UK University showed that use of British Berkefeld® drinking water filters in a community in Zimbabwe slashed cases of potentially fatal diarrhoea (a common problem in Africa caused by pathogenic bacteria and cysts in the water supply) to virtually zero. These water filters have been proven to work in the most demanding conditions. This is why they are used by the major aid organisations and recommended to us by Links.

A study in Zimbabwe and rural South Africa to evaluate the effectiveness of British Berkefeld®

filters found an 80% reduction in dysentery and watery diarrhoea through the use of the filters. General diarrhoea levels were also extremely low. The study concluded, “British Berkefeld water filters are an effective point-of-use intervention for reducing E-coli and diarrhoea in African households". In a Ugandan school in which clean water kits were installed, absenteeism due to sickness dropped immediately from 45% to less than 5%.

Due to a very generous donation that People in Partnership has received a supply of filter kits will be going to Freetown shortly.