Ceramic Filters for Drinking Water Improving Health in Cambodia

U.S. private, public sectors promote local manufacture of basic technology

21 October 2008
By Nancy L. Pontius
Special Correspondent
America.gov (US Gov't)

Littleton, Colorado — In more than 100,000 Cambodian households, the use of ceramic drinking-water filters produced in Cambodia is estimated to have reduced instances of diarrhea by 46 percent compared to similar households that have not used the filters.

Ceramic filters are effective, affordable and easy to use, making them “among the very best health interventions available today,” Joe Brown, a University of Alabama assistant professor, told America.gov.

Brown and Mark Sobsey, a University of North Carolina (UNC) professor, led a study of ceramic-filter use in Cambodia that showed the filters removed microbial contaminants effectively for at least three years to four years in homes.

The study, carried out by the UNC School of Public Health and funded by UNICEF and the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program, received the International Water Association 2008 Project Innovation Award Grand Prize for Small Projects.

"Locally produced ceramic water filters are a new technology in Cambodia,” Brown said. “This project showed that people continue to use the filters effectively generally for three to four years, usually until the filters break.”

Costing less than $10 each, these easy-to-use filters can be constructed and installed using locally available materials. The ceramic filters, which look like large flowerpots, are especially valuable in rural locations that lack safe drinking water and electricity.

“Ceramic filters are a really attractive option to help people live healthy lives,” Brown said.

MANUFACTURING, MARKETING, DISTRIBUTING CERAMIC FILTERS

Two U.S. nonprofit organizations have helped with filter manufacturing, marketing and training in schools and households in Cambodia:

• Resource Development International (RDI), which receives U.S. funding from the Give2Asia Foundation, the Coca-Cola Company and partnerships with UNC, Stanford University, Dartmouth College and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

• International Development Enterprises (IDE), whose funding sources include the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Two other U.S. nonprofit organizations, the American Red Cross and Potters for Peace, were involved in early assistance efforts.

In 2002, the RDI ceramic-filter factory was built with a $10,000 grant from a private U.S. donor. That factory has been self-supporting from filter sales for the last three and a half years.

“Studies [including the Brown and Sobsey filter study] have shown that people who pay for filters use them longer, more effectively and are more likely to replace them than people who are given free filters,” Michael Sampson, RDI founder, told America.gov.

“Most of our filter distribution is through very low-cost sales to private individuals,” Sampson said. RDI introduces the filters in schools using catchy music videos and puppet shows teaching hygiene education. School teachers act as distributors, selling the filters in their communities and earning extra income.

“Sometimes filters are purchased using very small loans, such as paying $1 a month for eight months,” Sampson said. “Filter ownership empowers the Cambodians to solve their own problems — helping themselves and building their self-esteem.”

More than 100,000 Cambodian households now use the filters, including Noy and Than, a Cambodian couple who live in Preak Thom with their six children, Sampson said. The family lives near a lake that provides its drinking water.

Before using a ceramic filter, family members regularly were sick with diarrhea. In 2004, they began using a ceramic filter for their drinking water and their health greatly improved, Sampson said. “Because he is now healthier, Noy is able to work more, and the couple spends less money on medicine for their children because they get sick less often.”

Than was hired in 2007 to work in the filter factory on final filter-production steps. “She has realized the additional benefit of earning a good income,” Sampson said, “And her salary comes from regional filter sales that now pay for all aspects of running the factory.”

DEPLOYING CERAMIC-FILTER MANUFACTURING INTO OTHER COUNTRIES

Several U.S. organizations, including RDI and IDE, are helping other countries with this drinking-water technology.

In addition, a new USAID public-private partnership — Market-based Approaches to Scaling and Sustaining Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (MASSWaSH) — will focus on “achieving distribution of ceramic water purification filters and other household water, sanitation and hygiene technologies at a national scale in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos,” John Pasch, USAID regional water policy adviser, told America.gov.

MASSWaSH also will work to increase consumer demand for effective water and hygiene technologies, such as rainwater storage systems and latrines.

USAID is providing $8.5 million for this project, funding that is being matched dollar for dollar by private U.S. organizations. UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health will oversee the project’s research and a consortium of U.S. nonprofits will implement activities in Southeast Asia.

“A ceramic-filter factory does not require complicated technology, and can be set up virtually anywhere, using local materials, local labor and local technical expertise,” Tom Outlaw of MASSWaSH told America.gov.

RDI has helped set up filter factories in Burma, Sri Lanka, Laos and Indonesia, and is planning to help establish factories in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sampson said. “The key to sustainable filter distribution is having filters produced locally and distributed through existing local market channels.”

RDI worked with the nonprofit Engineers Without Borders to develop a detailed handbook — freely available to other nations — to help transfer filter technology and the lessons learned.

Information about manufacturing, marketing and distributing ceramic filters is available on the RDI Web site.

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