The clean elixir of life

The first thing that strikes you when you meet David Albert is his affability. I interrupt his Tamil class, yet the 61-year-old chairman of Friendly Water for the World (FWFTW), a non-profit organisation based in Washington, greets me with a warm smile. Friendly and unassuming, Albert has a way with words. With our conversation peppered with interesting anecdotes, I am left at the end of an hour longing to hear more. Then I remind myself of the Tamil class he has to go back to.

This is not Albert's first visit to India. He has been visiting the country since 1977. He was 27 when he arrived in Gujarat as the American representative to the Asian seminar on non-violence.

"I have been coming here almost every year," says Albert, who also serves as senior planning and policy analyst for the Washington State Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse.

However, it is his first attempt to learn Tamil and he is enjoying his classes. For someone who took up the violin in his forties and opera singing at 52, Albert is unfazed by the limitations of ageing.

Was he here merely to learn a new language? Not really. As an old friend of Krishnammal Jagannathan (founder of the Land for Tillers' Freedom and recipient of international awards), Albert was in Nagapattinam (326 kilometres from Chennai) to train village communities in using bio-sand filters, a mission FWFTW is involved in.

"We built houses here and each home has a bio-sand filter. In India, one third of patients in hospitals are laid up with water-borne diseases," continues this resident of Olympia, Washington.

Recalling his first meeting with Jagannathan in Gujarat in 1977, he says: "She was this little woman who told stories. It was just after the emergency was lifted. Her husband had been released from prison."

One story was about the police arresting her. As she was being taken in a Jeep, enroute the policemen stopped for tea, leaving the van door open.

"Krishnammal escaped into the jungle, where she lived for 18 months. She even met a tigress," Albert guffaws. "After the seminar, I was free to travel anywhere, even visit the Taj Mahal, but I chose to follow Krishnammal home. Since then we have been like family."

Albert, a Quaker for the past 40 years, has been actively involved in social work with several organisations. During one of his Quaker meetings, he met Del Livingston, who belonged to a different Quaker group.

"Del had learnt the technology of bio-sand filters and was keen on taking it to Kenya. One thing led to another and last January, FWFTW was formed. Its aim is to work with local communities across the globe and promote the use of bio-sand water filters. We raised funds and sent our team to Kenya, Burundi and India," continues this home-schooling dad, who claims to have received the best education from his two daughters.

"We have been in touch with Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers for quite a long time. One of their mothers told us, ‘Forget the war, what we need is clean water.' We trained three people — Larry Kerschner, Jody and Douglas Mackey. They are in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, to train members of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers in the use of bio-sand filters," Albert adds.

According to statistics, one in five Afghan children do not live to the age of five, largely due to water-borne diseases. Only 45 per cent of the people have access to potable water.

"For about $20 [Dh73] a family-sized water filter can be made for an Afghan home by the Afghans, who in turn can teach others in the village. We are involved in projects around the world. To me the most exciting part of our work is that we build families across national borders in the process," says this writer with a masters degree in four fields.

Nine board members from different walks of life make up the core team, which is headed by Albert. There is the husband-wife duo, Del Livingston (honorary chairman and technical adviser) and Suzanne Livingston, 67, a retired schoolteacher. While Del imparts training in building filters, Suzanne gives lessons on sanitation and hygiene. The couple has been working in Kenya for the past four years.

"The health and wealth of each family has changed because of clean water. Children can now attend school regularly and learn better. A family's medical expenses have come down. We have placed filters in schools, colleges, health clinics, hospitals, churches, orphanages, private homes and even in the Turkana area, a dry desert along the trails where people travel to get water. It has been most rewarding," Suzanne says.

Dennis Mills, 67, another board member and a retired professor of education, accompanied Del and Suzanne to Kenya, serving as their videographer and webmaster. Mills is entrusted with fundraising, besides creating training videos to upload online.

Nik Dunbar, 64, a former sheriff, is in charge of field activities and developing database on these projects, besides helping with the website.

Growing up in Greece till the age of 10, where water had to be carried in buckets to houses, Dunbar learnt the value of water early in life. "Even in Vietnam, getting potable water was an issue," says this war veteran.

The official treasurer, Ginny Stern, is a hydro-geologist working in the US Department of Health. The other board members are Ken Haqq, Vince Schueler, Ed Sullivan and Santosh Wahi. Eric Lung Aholijodi is the African representative.

Ask Albert about their Burundi project, and the hearty guffaw is back.

"It started off with goats ending up with bio-sand filters, bridging the animosity between Tutsis and Hutus, a rivalry going back several years," he says.

Burundi, a small landlocked country in Africa, is counted among the ten poorest countries in the world and has the lowest per capita GDP. Ravaged by ethnic war that divided the Tutsis and Hutus, Burundi's problem was compounded further by cholera, typhoid, dysentery, malaria and Aids.

"It was through my association with African Great Lakes Initiative [AGLI], a not-for-profit organisation, that I received a request for 12 goats from a Pastor Sara in 2005," Albert recounts.

Pastor Sara was a Quaker minister living in Burundi and the leader of "Rema", a cooperative of widows. It included women from Hutus and Tutsis who were trying to rebuild their lives after the genocide.

Albert remembers writing back to her: "Why only 12 goats for a cooperative of 54 widows and children?" Pastor Sara replied: "Well, we really could use more than 12, but no one has any."

In Burundi goats are not used for milk, and rarely for meat, but their manure improves fourfold the yields of bean plants.

FWFTW raised funds for 27 pregnant goats and agricultural implements. Each goat was shared between a Hutu and a Tutsi woman. They named the goat together and cared for its wellbeing. Soon they were visiting each other's homes. And when a new goat was born, they decided which family would adopt the kid. When the goats reproduced, the surplus goats were taken to the neighbouring village to set rolling this unique programme of rearing one goat between two warring communities.

"Word about our work spread. In 2009 it was taken up by the Goldman Sachs Social Entrepreneurship Fund to initiate 15 additional groups. Each group takes ownership of the programme and allows women to continue this relationship-building exercise," Albert says.

In May and June last year, Del and Suzanne Livingston conducted training workshops in Burundi, in which Rema widows also participated. This year another training workshop was held, led by Eric Lung Aholijodi.

Assisting him were former combatants who were keen on becoming constructive members of the community. These people, who were viewed with suspicion and distrust by other community members for having killed their kinsfolk, found an opportunity to prove themselves.

Del and Suzanne also travelled to Rombo, Kenya, where they trained 25 Masai members. "We have been able to eliminate water-borne diseases by 80 per cent. The filters helped check a cholera epidemic in the Turkana region of Kenya," says Albert with a sense of fulfilment, and shares an anecdote about an African whose cattle was fat and healthy and much envied by neighbours. "It turned out they did not have worms since they were given clean water," Albert guffaws.

"Our focus is on building local capacity through training and encouraging people to start micro-businesses. We don't give anything away. We teach people to make filters, and that builds relationships."

So what about funds?

"Well, we have to raise them," he says, his tone business-like now. "Sometimes other organisations help us. People for Progress in India, a Seattle-based organisation, funded the Nagapattinam project."

Any road blocks on this journey?

"The biggest road block," explains Albert, "is that people in Africa don't understand the germ theory of disease and we don't want them to think it is some kind of magic. Making them understand that it is these little bugs that cause sickness is a challenge."

"The second hurdle," he continues, "is that people believe that the government will save them. This attitude exists in India as well. We teach them to take responsibility for themselves. You don't need to depend on the government."

What about bureaucracy problems?

"Local governments don't come in our way. They love us because we are solving their problems," he says.

On the anvil is a training project in Gisenyi, Rwanda, for 25 people next month. This workshop will include ten women from Congo and ten men of the Twa community in Rwanda. The women are part of a large group who were raped during the Congo war. With children in tow, they were unwelcome in their families.

"Apart from providing clean drinking water, the programme aims to give them business opportunities in making bio-sand filters," Albert says.

That could usher in a new dawn, raising their status and self-esteem.

"Yellam Seyalkoodum!," says Albert in Tamil, signing off. Yes, with David Albert and his team, "everything is possible".

Mythily Ramachandran is a writer based in Chennai, India.

How the bio-sand water filter works

Invented in 1993 by Dr David H. Manz of the University of Calgary, bio-sand water filters are a proven method for preventing typhoid, cholera, dysentery and other water-borne diseases. Standing at a height of 3 feet, it consists of a shell made of cement or plastic. Inside, it has layers of gravel at the bottom, with coarse sand above it and fine sand on the top. Above the fine sand, stands two inches of dirty water. There is a diffuse plate covering the mouth of the filter.

The layer of dirty water creates a biologically active zone. When new dirty water is poured into the filter, the resident bacteria here will cannibalise the new bacteria that enter. Most of the larger bacteria — cholera, faecal coliform, typhoid and bacterial dysentery — are killed here. The dead bacteria not only provide food to keep this bio-zone active but their debris also form a layer on top of the sand, providing additional filtering. The fine sand layer is made up of quarry sand or high riverbank sand and is specially prepared. It has coarse, sharp edges that carry a slight electrical charge. This attracts certain bacteria and viruses, which adhere to the surface of the sand and die. This is called adsorption.

Since the filter is full of water, there is little or no oxygen in the sand column below the top. Most bacteria and pathogens die here due to suffocation; called anaerobic die-off. As water percolates through the filter, sand provides a final physical filtration straining out parasites, worms, remaining bacteria and fine-grain sediments.

Bio-sand filters have shown to eliminate 95-99 per cent of bacteria, viruses and virtually all parasites and worms. The filter is also effective in removing iron and manganese, and can be adapted to remove arsenic as well. Plus points of this simple technology are its low cost of installation, ecofriendly nature and its 30-year free maintenance. Initially a metal mould is prepared for the outer shell, which can be done locally.

"This is not a storage unit, only a filter," David Albert emphasises. "Water can be collected in a container once a day or as and when you require. Our favourite system is to capture rainwater and pass it through the filter."

-http://friendlywaterfortheworld.com