Man's work cleans water, saves lives

September 09, 2008
By Julianna Parker
The Norman Transcript (USA)

When Mickey Sampson first moved to Cambodia, he thought he would only stay about a year to teach chemistry in the university.

Eleven years later, he has created an international nonprofit in the country and doesn't plan to move away any time soon.

Sampson spoke about his organization, Resource Development International -- Cambodia, and its efforts to bring clean water to the people of Cambodia in Southeast Asia at the University of Oklahoma Monday.

Sampson visited Cambodia, a country about the size of Oklahoma with a population of 14 million, for the first time on a short-term trip with his church, he said. After he fell in love with the country he convinced his wife to move with him to the southeast Asian country for a year. He took a year-long sabbatical from the Kentucky university where he was teaching.

He taught chemistry in Cambodia, but got involved in water initiatives after his wife called him into the bathroom while she gave their children a bath. The water was only three inches deep, but it was so murky his wife pointed out she couldn't see the bottom of the bathtub, Sampson said Monday.

"And she said, 'You know, you're a chemist. Can't you do something about this?'"

So Sampson started working with other non-governmental organizations to improve water quality in Cambodia. He eventually started an NGO of his own after he saw the high overhead in many organizations.

So 100 percent of the funds donated to RDI go to community development projects. Sampson and the other staff members raise separate support for themselves.

But RDI eventually could become self-sustainable. Sampson's idea is to base his nonprofit efforts on a successful business model.

He told the room packed with about 150 OU students Monday about his company's practices that often go against the norm for charity organizations.

RDI provides education, water testing, water filtration systems and construction, among other community development initiatives.

RDI tries to look at the problems in Cambodian society in a strategic way. Clean water is the perfect example.

One in five Cambodian children dies before age 5, Sampson said. Diarrheal disease is the biggest killer of those children, and contaminated water is the main cause of the disease.

Many NGOs think the solution to that problem is drilling wells. But Sampson said those well-intentioned people often have not helped at all. Water testing was rarely done at these new well sites, and as a result, many Cambodians drank contaminated water for years, Sampson said. Much of the water in the country is contaminated with arsenic, which causes painful skin conditions and cancer.

"All this was done in the spirit of good development," he said.

So while RDI does dig some wells, they also spend time testing the water and mapping out where the healthy water is located in Cambodia. The organization also developed water filtration pots that look like big terra cotta flower pots. The pots are placed in the top of water storage containers and filter out contaminants.

But even here RDI does things differently than many charities. It doesn't give away the water filtration pots. Instead, each person who wants one must pay the equivalent of eight U.S. dollars for the pots.

It would be easier to give them away, Sampson said, but it's a proven principal that people who pay for something take better care of it and use it more than if it was free.

"Part of development has to be making people want what they will really need," he said.

Communities won't be transformed without behavioral changes on all levels.

The results have shown that Sampson's methods are working. After two years of using the water filtration pots, the Cambodian families who had the filters were 49 percent less likely to have diarrheal disease than their neighbors without the filters, Sampson said.

OU has established a partnership with RDI, said David Sabatini, professor for the School of Civil Engineering and Environmental Science.

Graduate students will do research here for RDI during the year and then be able to work on those projects in person in Cambodia during the summers, he said.

Sabatini is also director of the WaTER Center. The research center at OU is dedicated to helping solve drinking water challenges in impoverished areas. The WaTER Center brought Sampson to OU this week.

"I am extremely impressed and we are extremely fortunate to have Dr. Mickey Sampson here today," he said.
Julianna Parker 366-3541 jparker@normantranscript.com