Clean water and sanitation
Working with simple, environmentally friendly tools, the WaterFoundation helps to improve and maintain the water supply of the world’s rural population. We take care to ensure that families, women and children benefit from our efforts.
We sponsor the construction of wells and spring tappings, we provide women with donkeys as water bearers, and we give assistance in building sanitary facilities.
The CloudFisher, an improved method of fog-harvesting developed with our support, has made it possible to supply countless people with clean drinking water.
Wells and spring tappings
Especially in Africa, many villages, schools and rural clinics, and innumerable individuals, have no clean drinking water. The population and the relevant institutions often lack the resources, in terms of personnel, finance and technology, to meet the responsibility for ensuring an adequate water supply. The WaterFoundation therefore initiates and supports the construction of wells, both large and small, by building retention walls and platforms around natural springs, by drilling or digging wells to access water at deeper levels, and in some cases by installing pipes to transport drinking water.
Donkeys as water carriers
In many parts of Africa, climate change has dramatically lowered the water table. Wells dry up, and people have to travel greater distances to the remaining water sources. Traditionally, the burden falls on women and girls, who have to walk for miles to fetch water for their families, carrying it on their backs in heavy canisters, buckets and gourds. This problem can be solved easily and cheaply by providing suitably equipped donkeys. The task becomes less physically demanding, leaving the girls free to attend school and giving the women more time to work in the fields and look after their families.
The CloudFisher fog net
The harvesting of clouds and fog has become an increasingly important technology in the worldwide search for new sources of drinking water. For over ten years, the WaterFoundation has been exploring the use of fog-collectors, supporting the work of the Munich industrial designer Peter Trautwein* in developing an entirely new type of collector.
The CloudFisher is the first production fog net capable of withstanding wind speeds of up to 120 kph. It is quickly and easily assembled, consumes no energy and requires very little maintenance. All the materials used are food-safe. The highly efficient CloudFisher system can supply people in many countries with cheap and clean drinking water. The water obtained in this way can also be used in farming and stockbreeding, in reforestation projects or in industry.
The CloudFisher mini and the CloudFischer pro are suitable for use in dry mountain and coastal regions with high concentrations of fog and mist, such as Australia, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, North America, Oman, Peru, Spain, South Africa, Tanzania and Yemen.
For further information, see:
• aqualonis GmbH
• FogNet Alliance
• How does the CloudFisher fog net work?
• Details on the CloudFisher PRO and MINI
• The fog net installation on Mount Boutmezguida in October 2018
Sanitation
In Ethiopia, a number of hand washing facilities and toilets have been built e.g. for schools at Mulataa and Birbirsa (130 km west of Addis Ababa) and were handed over to the local people. The Foundation supplied detailed construction plans and descriptions of the design concept to the EDA-E, our partner organization in Ethiopia, which organized and supervised the building work. The first of the toilet blocks was redesigned twice after inspections.