Before we left India we set our program director, Ramachandra, up with a computer, internet access, and a digital camera.  He has been wonderful about sending us e-mail at least once a week and an occasional picture or two.  It is a real treat for us and a necessity so we can keep tabs on the operations of the workshop.

We received an e-mail on December 31^st telling us that the total number of water filters manufactured had reached the “century” mark.  At that time there had been 102 filters manufactured, 17 delivered to families, 16 ready to be delivered, and the rest either curing or being painted.  We are impressed!  They have several molds in use now and more being manufactured so that means the production rate is still on the increase.

In one month’s time we were able to leave a fully operating workshop that is manufacturing inexpensive water filters targeted for the lower income population in the villages in India.  They are easy to operate and require no electricity, no chemicals, no replaceable parts, very little maintenance, will provide enough clean water for drinking and cooking for 15 people per day that will last 25 to 30 years.

We had some people from the press come to the workshop on Monday and the concept has already been publicized in many of the area newspapers.  On Tuesday we conducted a demonstration in Chatra-Kodahalli, a village of 1,800 people located in Kolar.  The filters were well received and the two we brought for demonstration were sold on the spot and left there.  We understand there were five more sales yesterday and orders for approximately 50 more.  Wow!  There are more molds being manufactured so that production can be stepped up to meet the incredible demand.  We are still glowing from the entire experience and cannot wait to return to the wonderful people of India.

On Monday we attended a water filter dedication ceremony at the village of Attur.  The filters for this village have been sponsored by Peter French in honor of his parents.  Pete is a fellow Peace Corps volunteer who lived in India when Mike did and he has been wonderful in his support of our project.  He has plans to visit India sometime within the next year. 

The dedication ceremony at Attur was the most extravagant “program” we have attended to date.  When our caravan of SUVs arrived after dark there was a band playing music as we walked down a road lined with colored lights and a crowd of villagers marched with us and showered us with flower petals and lit off fireworks.  We learned later that this is usually done at weddings.  Very cool.  The ceremony took place on an outdoor stage at the school and Mike and I had to sit in elaborate chairs like a king and queen.  We felt silly but went along with the program.  Speeches galore, most of which we could not understand, but the wonderful thing was that there was a huge crowd of interested people at the event.  A professional photographer and video-grapher were there to capture the proceedings.  After a late dinner at our host’s home we traveled about an hour home and collapsed into bed close to midnight.  It was a long but gratifying day.

We have made one filter a day since Monday and they get better each day.  We have ordered two additional molds so we can made three filters per day.  The new molds will be ready on Monday.  We set up a washing station to wash the filter media (sand and gravel) and acquired all the tools necessary to complete and install the filters.  Tomorrow morning we will complete our first installation and demonstration model in the workshop (they take a few days for the concrete to cure).  Many interested people from Kolar and surrounding towns have been visiting the workshop to see what we are doing.  We believe this will be a home run.

It has only been a week since we last emailed you about our adventures in India but it feels like months to us!  We have been so busy the time has warped.  We are now in Kolar, the town where Mike spent two years in the Peace Corps and where we wanted to begin our water filter project.  We have been here for four days and we already have a workshop site, people to work in the workshop and probable orders for 200 filters!!!

The people here have been hospitable beyond words.  Whatever we want we get.  We are working through the local Rotary club to establish ourselves in this area.  One Rotarian, Ramachandre Gowda, has been an absolute saint.  He has been with us every day since we arrived.  He is an engineer by profession and offered us his factory area to establish our workshop.  Today a contractor poured a slab of concrete for part of the manufacturing area.  We have all of the tools we need and Monday after the slab cures we will pour our first filter!

Wednesday night we spoke at the Rotary Club of Kolar weekly meeting and people seemed excited about our project.  Friday night we will attend the meeting of the Rotary Club of Bangalore Cubbon Park to do a slide show presentation.  A week from Sunday we are attending a district Rotary meeting where they expect 600-700 people in attendance from 70-something Rotary clubs in this area.  Ramachandre is going to ask the current district governor if we can have 10 minutes to speak about our water filter project.  Ah….the power of Rotary!

Our expectations for what we could accomplish in 30 days in India has already been exceeded.  As we continue to have success implementing this project we keep raising the bar of our expectations.

Not only have we advanced our water filter program, but the Rotary Club of Hamden will collaborate on a second water project with the Rotary Club of Kolar to provide pure drinking water at three public bus stations which each service up to 5,000 people per day.  Our Rotary club has agreed to match a contribution by the Rotary Club of Kolar which we hope will be matched by the Rotary International Foundation in the form of a Rotary matching grant.  This was an unexpected opportunity to do a lot of good with relatively few dollars.

We slept (kind of) on the train from Bangalore that night and arrived at 7:30am the next morning.  We showered, had breakfast, and then were picked up at 10:00am by members of the DHAN Foundation, a nonprofit organization located in Madurai that conducts training sessions and builds and distributes the bio-sand filters.

The DHAN Foundation personnel ended up providing us with a three day program that consisted of meetings, site visits, education and an evening of sight seeing.  What wonderful people.  We feel like we have made some new friends for life.  They brought us to two villages that are using the bio-sand filters and we were able to talk to the local people (with interpretation).  It was extremely helpful.  The local people are all so friendly and the young children followed us around in groups giggling every time I turned around and smiled or waved.  We were also able to see some other water projects the DHAN Foundation is involved in such as rain water harvesting (tanks and ponds that collect water when it rains for used in the drier times for agricultural irrigation).

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!

We had a laptop computer donated to the project.  We are donating a digital camera.  A friend who is a regional sales manager at Dell is trying to get a projector donated.  We will leave all three pieces of equipment with our in-country director so he or she can give our PowerPoint presentation to American companies who have a presence in South India as well as other NGO’s who have water programs such as rainwater harvesting that might benefit from the water filter technology.  The computer will also give us the communication link through the internet so we can monitor the program and fundraise while in the States.

There is so much potential to develop this program into something quite remarkable I am bubbling with enthusiasm and optimism.  The support from my friends has been motivating and inspirational.  This technology is so simple and effective, it has a momentum of its own!