On January22nd, Ken Puzy and John Brennan from the Burlington, VT Rotary club, addressed the Rotary Club of Nashua, regarding their project for safe water in Kenya. The prototype to use sunlight to purify water had just been created when a visitor from Kenya who was here on a mission to improve the quality of life in the Kisumu valley met Ken. The chance meeting led to the safe water project and a secondary project to help the orphanage in the valley.
Kisumu had the worst quality drinking water in the world as evaluated by the CDC. Many children die or are stricken due to water-borne illnesses or parasites.
The purifier is solar driven with a vacuum tube that uses solar energy from a reflector to raise the water in the vacuum tube to boiling. The water is safe for drinking in 40 minutes. The units can generate about 2 gallons per day.
The units cost $60 to make and the units last approximately 15 years. The club goal is to raise $30K. They are looking for stopgap funding of $4000 to get through to June. They are hoping to have funds to produce 500 units.
This project is also using a Rotary District Grant to help reach funding goals. The heated water from the unit also reduces the need for fuel to make hot cooking water. The very small earnings per year for most families does not allow them funds to buy fuel needed to boil water the conventional way.
A secondary goal is to help males and females aging out of the orphanage have a skill or livelihood when they leave. Some are being taught how to make the solar sterilizing units or how to sell them. The units can be produced in locally in Kisumu. With job skills, males can survive without joining gangs. Females leaving the orphanage without skills generally get pressed into a life of prostitution.
Sand filter waters as purifiers do not reduce the bacterial load as much as the boiling method utilized by the solar devices.
Rotary members are invited to come visit the project if they like. Kisumu is close to Lake Victoria.