By Paco Guajardo | Associate Director Caminos de Agua
Caminos de Agua will be piloting its ceramic filter and adapter (Aguadapt) to test its effectiveness in emergency situations and transition from emergency use to permanent water solution. The Aguadapt filter can produce more than 27,000-liters of drinking water over its lifetime.
To prepare for this pilot, we recently went out to the field to assess some of the first ceramic filters we placed with 47 families in the community near San Miguel de Allende over five years ago and talked to several of the participants. Pascuala, a critical organizer of the project in her community, shared the following:
"As a child, I drank river water because we did not know anything about contamination. It affected my siblings and me a lot, we all have stained teeth (from excessive fluoride in the water) . . . and during those years suffered greatly from stomach pain, nausea, and very bad headaches".
We know that our certified ceramic filter can remove 99% of pathogens and bacteria from contaminated water. Making it adaptable to any container in emergency response situations will allow it to treat water quickly, on-site, and with locally available materials and transition from emergency relief to a permanent water solution for families. Seeing that our ceramic filters are still effective after five years ensures many persons will continue to have access to safe and healthy water long after an emergency situation is over. Pascuala had this to say about her families' use of the ceramic filter.
"We have been drinking rainwater and using a ceramic filter for over five years. My oldest son, who drank (contaminated) river water before we had the (rainwater) harvesting cistern, has very stained teeth, but my three youngest ones were raised drinking rainwater and their teeth are white and healthy. The ceramic filter gives us the confidence that our cistern water is clean and that nothing bad is in it."
The Aguadapt universal adapter is now in its first production run and will be piloted with a partner organization, Concern America, in 600 homes in Southern Mexico in the coming months. We will be reporting on the results of this pilot to our Global Giving supporters and through our website. Our annual report has additional information on technical advances and human interest stories of the impact of our solutions are having in the communities we work with.
From everyone at Caminos de Agua, thank you for continuing support of our research and projects.
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