Clean Water Pathway: Saving Lives and Empowering Women
Almost one billion people lack access to clean water globally. But in Bangladesh alone, an exorbitant number of individuals die due to the effects of chronic exposure to arsenic. In these low-income communities, women are also forced into roles they may not want or be ready for.
So what can we do?
We believe that it is possible to make a self-sustaining, yet efficient, arsenic water filter that will have a positive social impact for women in this region. Working with a girl's school in Bangladesh, we have developed a model that would allow the girls and the administration at the school to sell back over 2,000 gallons of water. At 1 cent per gallon, the girls will earn back the initial startup cost up to tenfold, and can put that money back into renovating the school, the community, and maintain clean water. Access to clean water saves lives, and opportunities like these help the girls live more fulfilling, active, and happy lives too.
Do it, and you'll say lives, and the quality of lives. One suggestion: have an obvious, unimpeachable, or even uncircumventable, "end of filter life" feature. If you achieve the goal of bringing safe water to a subsistence level community, the used-up filters will be valuable, used, and sold. Can't have that. If the feature is obvious, everyone will learn what the "red color" means. Okay, one more thing--you'll need to deal with disposing the arsenic that's been removed, whether it's still in the filter or has been washed out of it. In a subsistence community, making sure that a secondary arsenic issue isn't created by the accumulating storage will also require some creative problem-solving. Good luck.
Comment below to provide feedback on this solution. If you’re inspired by it and would like to take it in a new direction, you can build on this solution.