India Bio-Sand Water Filter Project Update 11-26-2007
Please see photos in the Gallery!
Dear Friends,
We are still reveling from two watershed events that have given the water filter program an incredible boost. On Thursday our program director, RamaChandra organized a press conference. Rather than the press coming to us as they do in the USA, in India the press has its own building where representatives from every newspaper and local television come to hear presentations of newsworthy items. We gave a presentation to 25 reporters and answered questions and passed out a press release along with technical information about the Bio-Sand water filter. The men from our workshop set up a filter in the press room and gave a dramatic demonstration of its ability by pouring muddy water into the filter while crystal clear water flowed from the exit pipe of the filter into a glass from which they drank in front of the astonished reporters. The following morning our pictures and the story of the donation of filters free of cost to the government schools in Kolar taluk (township) could be found in all of the local and regional papers. There was also a five minute spot which appeared twice on the local language television station. RamaChandra was fielding calls all the next day from people interested in the filters.
The second memorable event was the Saturday dedication ceremony for the Kolar taluk government school program sponsored by Rotary District Governor Ernie Luise and Rotarians in District 7980 in southern Connecticut. The planning went on all week for this event and we needed every minute of it to pull off the event without a hitch. There were dignitaries to invite, each with a hand delivered invitation which were designed and printed at the last minute. There were the school teachers, one from each school, who needed an official letter from the education department to attend the meeting on a Saturday. There were banners to make for the event, done by RamaChandra's son, who took Friday off from his high powered job in Bangalore as a print engineer trainer to design and have the banners printed. There was the caterer to hire to feed 500 people. There was the silk screened project information which had to be designed and painted onto each of the 100 filters brought to the event. Special shawls, garlands and fruit baskets were purchased for the honorees. The stage was decorated with 100 water filters, dozens of potted plants and two giant five by ten foot banners pinned to the backdrop. A singer was hired for entertainment. At 11:30am (only one half hour late!) the dedication ceremony began. A prayer was said, songs were sung, people were honored, speeches were made, a filter demonstration was held, a movie about contaminated water was shown, a PowerPoint presentation about the Bio-Sand water filter was given, and at 2:00 lunch was served. It was a whirlwind, it was wonderful, it was successful. Our workshop crew worked until 9:30 that evening to clean up and return all of the filters to the workshop, god bless them.
India is still a mysterious country which a westerner will never completely understand. No, they don't have magic carpets to ride but there is a gap in understanding in what goes on day to day. When we were first approached to supply water filters for the government schools in Kolar taluk we were told there were 411 schools with an average of 300 children per school. We finally received the enrolment report for each school in the taluk last week. As it turns out, some schools were closed because there is a shift from public education to private education and the enrolment was much less than 300 average students per school. We will now be giving clean water to 40,000 in 395 government schools rather than our original estimate of 120,000 children in 411 schools. This is a blessing in disguise because now we will have enough funds to provide each filter with the proper water jug with a tap to receive the filtered water so it can be used by the children easily without re-contamination of the water.
Yesterday we said a tearful good-bye to our many friends in Kolar and headed to Bangalore for some final meetings with Rotarians and to ready ourselves for our departure early Wednesday morning.
Every trip to India is unique with ups and downs and successes and failures. All in all as we reflect on this trip we are very satisfied with the progress of the program and are looking forward to a more mature project that we hope will expand and bring clean water to more people in Southern India.
Thank you for your on-going interest and support!
Cathy and Mike
South Asia Pure Water Initiative, Inc.
2832 Whitney Avenue
Hamden, CT 06518
www.sapwii.org
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