Andy Hill
While
on the smoldering bus from the Thai border to Siem Reap, I befriended a guy who
told me about a group that made water filters there. They were made out of
concrete, gravel and sand, and took ground water and purified it. My interest
was piqued. We got into town late in the evening, and did a grand tour of
nearly every single bar in the French Quarter.
The
next morning I shuffled into an internet shop, emailed the foundation, and got
a phone call an hour later. One of the founders gave me directions and said I
could stop by anytime, preferably before noon.
I
slurped down some noodle soup on the side of the road and grabbed one of the
thousand and one motorbikes hanging around. We sped east through town to the
Crocodile farm, made a right, and then another right at the Angkor brewery
about a half kilometer down. After a skip down a wide, dirt road, a flesh
colored gate approached on our left, with a sign that said “Trailblazer
Foundation.” I paid the driver way too much for the trip, thinking it
cheap, and went inside the gates.
There
was an office and several people milling about. I approached one and introduced
myself as the guy who’d emailed that morning. He said hello and motioned for me
to take a look around the place. Past the front area was a large garden with
experimental-looking irrigation pipes, then a smaller area with large piles of
sand, gravel, and sifting apparatuses suspended above and gathered about.
Just beyond was the area where
the concrete was mixed and the water filters were built, finished, and stored
before being distributed to local villages. Two Khmer guys were washing gravel
and mixing concrete, while an intern sifted sand. Several others were doing
some work with the pipes in the garden. There were a few dozen completed
filters along a wall, waiting to be loaded into a truck and taken to a village.
The Biosand water filters can
purify up to forty liters of water an hour, have no moving parts, require very
little maintenance, and last for decades. In a country of 14,000,000 which has 9,000,000 cases of diarrheal disease, the work the Trailblazer Foundation is doing is
absolutely vital. So far, they have created access to clean drinking water to
over 100,000 Cambodians.
It is absurd that anyone on this
planet, with all our technological wizardry, should lack access to clean
drinking water. Especially when a Biosand water filter costs roughly $60 via
donation, and produces enough for several families.
Anyone who wants to can show up
and help them build and distribute the filters. They also dig pump wells and
provide rural Cambodians with other life changing tools to improve sanitation
and access to water.
Visit the website of this
remarkable organization, and if you can, make a donation.
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