Discovery of an Inexpensive Water Filter
When Mike returned from his trip last year he thought about the problem a great deal and did a lot of research. He discovered an inexpensive water filter that was developed in Canada. In June he spent four days in Calgary at a seminar learning how to make the filters and implement a program to build and distribute them. The filters are being used with much success in many developing countries around the world. We hope to start a program in the town of Kolar India (which is in the southern part of the country near the city of Bangalore) to make these filters and distribute them to the poor.
As many of you know I am a member of the Rotary Club of Hamden. We received a very generous grant from the McKenzie Foundation to start this water filter program. We have e-mailed many Rotary clubs in the Bangalore area where we will be and have had positive responses from four of them. One of the people who responded was the district governor last year. We hope to make several presentations of the filter technology at Rotary meetings and develop some long lasting relationships. Rotary offers some matching grants when clubs from different countries work together, so we hope we can find a club that shares our enthusiasm with this project.
We have also made some contacts with another non-profit organization, the DHAN Foundation, which is located in Southern India who train people to make these same water filters we are interested in producing. When we first arrive in India we will travel to see them. They are currently building us a mold which we will purchase in order to make filters. The DHAN Foundation has been contacted by the Indian government to start a rain harvesting project in Kolar (where we will be) and have scheduled a meeting with us to see if we can collaborate on our projects. We are very excited about the prospects!