Household water strategies for sustainability
PATH’s Safe Water Project is conducting a model project in Andhra Pradesh, India, to enable commercial enterprises to produce, distribute, sell, and maintain household water treatment and storage products for low-income populations. The first steps aim to develop commercial strategies and demonstrate their effectiveness. Ultimately, the project will provide strategies and tools for scale-up, replication, and sustainability for a range of settings and countries.
Contributed by PATH
Pairing zinc and water intiatives to save lives
In India, 25 percent of annual deaths caused by diarrheal disease occur in Uttar Pradesh, one of the country’s most populous and impoverished states. One of the main causes of diarrhea is the lack of clean drinking water.
The US Agency for International Development and Academy for Educational Development (AED) stepped in with a household water treatment program known as Point-of-Use Water Disinfection and Zinc Treatment (POUZN) to reach more than 1 million poor residents in the region. By combining these two important treatments, POUZN expects to halve the number of instances of diarrhea among children under age five. Self-help groups and grassroots organizations are working together with POUZN to provide households with water products and systems to create clean drinking water. Not only are the tools made available, but the families are also given information on why water disinfection is so critical.
Community members are shown the contaminants in their water before water disinfection practices begin. Water samples from wells, lakes, and rivers, as well as from water stored at home, are publicly tested to demonstrate contaminated water and how important it is to disinfect water before drinking it. POUZN also trained and engaged grassroots organizations to promote improved diarrhea treatment to the Rural Medical Practitioners, who are the community’s first recourse for advice and treatment when a child is sick.
Contributed by Point of Use Water Disinfection and Zinc Treatment