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Abundant Water December Newsletter

Posted on January 15, 2012 by admin

Thank you! We have reached the end of the year in much better shape than we started it.

It has been quite an adventure, thanks for joining us for the ride. As you will see the past two months have been full of achievement. Here is our news.

First Village Training Session is Complete
Our project aim has always been to transfer the clay-pot water filter technology to potters in the villages. After almost 3 years of research and development, and the establishment of the compound in Vientiane, village potters are now making the filters for the first time. Join the students at the training session by following the photographs below.

Students were taught to make their own moulds from PVC pipe.

Students learnt how to find local sources of clay.

Students learnt how to make the unique Abundant Water kiln.

Students developed their pottery skills by making traditional clay
soup pots and BBQ sets.

They learnt how to shape and finish the filters.

They learnt how to fire the kiln for the right amount of time at the right heat to
produce a quality product.

Some of the completed soup pots and BBQ sets ready for use by the villagers.

The first batch of filters after firing.

The students learnt how to attach the final fittings to the filters.

There was a celebratory dinner after all the students had passed the exam.
Five students have graduated on to the next phase -
learning about micro-financed business and enterprise.

Planning is Now Underway For our Next Training Session
We aim to build on the lessons learned in the first session and scale that up
by training a cluster of 2 or 3 villages simultaneously.

Thanks For Everything!
The successful outcome of this first training session has been made possible
by the selfless contributions of many people. This session has demonstrated
what is possible and we look forward to your continued support to enable us
to share the knowledge and technology of clay-pot water filters with more villages.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

To view this newsletter on the web, go to:
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=3e5ead21eb1ad6eb65d530225&id=e3f8f9720b&e=39bd157f90

Posted in General, Project Diary, Technical | Tagged "world water crisis", Abundant Water, ACTEW, Canberra, ceramic, children, clean drinking water, community, health, Lao PDR, Laos, pottery, volunteering, volunteering opportunities, water, water filter | Leave a comment

Abundant Water September and October Newsletter

Posted on November 14, 2011 by admin

Welcome to another newsletter. Over the past two months we have made some exciting progress. Please read on to hear more.

Trialling the Filter Systems in the villages

The Lao team of Nou Kham and Chantana, and now Khek, are continuing to develop the village education program. Here you see a demonstration of the filter system to villagers.

The filters are now being trialled in about 35 households across 12 villages. As you will see from the photo of a system in use the system is very different from what was originally proposed. This is a result of extensive consultation and feedback from the villagers themselves. The upper container (black plastic) is kept full of untreated water which siphons through a clear hose, with the cylindrical filter attached to the end, to the lower clean water container with tap. With such a siphon these systems are capable of filtering up to 36 litres of water per day, which is considered sufficient for a household of 6 people.

Compound Landscaping is Now Ready For the First Tour Group

The eating area now has four hammocks. As you can see these are popular with the worker’s children too.

Tony, head tour leader with Stray Asia, tries his hand at rolling a pinch pot filter. The result was not bad and thanks to Tony, we’ll be hosting the first Stray tour groups very soon.

We have rebuilt the small kiln and given it an all weather covering.

This is how it looks when firing filters.

Our First Village Training will begin on Nov 12

Here are the training resources for the first training course. The booklet was prepared by Noukham and the training DVD was filmed by Tyrie Brown and edited on donated equipment by volunteers.

Abundant Water welcomes new Corporate Sponsor GHD

AW team member Claudia Vannithone met with GHD Business Group Manager Christine Allard in Canberra on Tuesday 27th September to thank her for GHD’s corporate sponsorship of the Abundant Water project in Lao PDR. As has become the custom, Claudia presented Christine with a prototype clay pot water filter and a certificate signed by Nou Kham. Christine said that “GHD has been involved in major water projects around the world and is both proud and pleased to be associated with Abundant Water and the work they are doing to provide clean drinking water to the people in Laos. The creation of a sustainable capability and the capacity building taking place in neighbouring villages is as important as the supply of clean water itself”. Abundant Water wishes to thank Christine for championing the Abundant Water project within GHD.

Donation From Hall Rotary

On Tuesday 1st November Barbara and Stuart were the guests of the Hall Rotary Club, ACT, where they were presented with a generous donation for the Lao Village Training Program. Hall Rotary are exploring links with Thai Rotary Clubs so they can propagate the Abundant Water technology and model in Northern Thailand. Sunny will be visiting Chiang Mai to establish contacts to facilitate this process. This is an exciting prospect for Abundant Water because it enables us to further spread our technology and methodology through partnership and collaboration without over-committing our limited human and material resources.

We Have a New Staff Member

As of the 30th of October we now have three full time staff. We have hired Khek as an understudy to Noukham. She will spend the next two months learning from Noukham and then once she is ready, she will venture into the field to run village based training courses independently.

Posted in Fund raising, General, Project Diary | Tagged Abundant Water, clean drinking water, family, GHD, Laos, pottery, Rotary, volnteering opportunities, volunteering, water | Leave a comment

Empower Guest Blog Post

Posted on September 21, 2011 by admin

Empower Inc is a Sydney-based not for profit organisation with a mission to enable rural entrepreneurs to build self-reliant communities. We are passionate about working in collaboration with social organisations, government institutions and businesses to holistically enable community-driven visions for change. We are currently working on a project in rural Malawi and scoping project possibilities in Northern Sri Lanka.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdCP22OhAos

Our ethos involves an asset-based approach to development that centres on the inherent capacity of individuals, the power of collaboration and working with natural systems. Integral to this is the adoption of more sustainable entrepreneurial solutions as opposed to charitable hand outs. Our aspiration as an organisation is to be in essence, redundant to each community we work with within 5 years of involvement and for them to serve as change agents to their wider communities.

The four core pillars of our projects focus on:
a) A 5 year community vision and an inclusive village development committee.
b) Access to affordable sustainable/appropriate technologies.
c) Access to rural finance for small and medium scale enterprises.
d) Capacity building in the areas of permaculture, leadership, social entrepreneurship, business development, healthcare and sanitation.

Our collaboration with Zatuba Village to date has involved enabling access to lighting through solar lanterns, business development training, permaculture workshops and a community bank pilot.

We are also excited to announce that we are in partnership with Abundant Water to explore the possibility of local potters in and around Zatuba Village adopting their clay-pot filter technology. This would provide a cost effective method of water purification to prevent water borne diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera and dysentery while supporting local artisans.

Village children

Making compost

Posted in General | 2 Comments

Abundant Water July and August Newsletter

Posted on September 14, 2011 by admin

We hope this newsletter finds you and yours healthy and well, I can’t believe that it has already been two months since I last wrote.

On the morning of Thursday 14th July we held the launch of our ACTEW AGL sponsorship at the new ACTEW AGL Building in Civic, Canberra. CEO Mark Sullivan hosted the event and expressed his excitement about a simple home-grown solution to providing clean drinking water for remote communities. Mark expressed ACTEW’s support and handed over a significant cheque for the AW program in Laos. The event was covered in The Chronicle, The Canberra Weekly and on ABC local radio.

(http://www.abundantwater.org/2011/07/29/abundant-water-article-in-canberra-chronicle/).

The event was also attended by other sponsors and organisations interested in the AW project. AW wishes to acknowledge and thank Mark for his support and generosity and also for generously giving his time for the occasion. GDG have also become a corporate sponsor and we look forward to featuring a similar news item in the next newsletter.

Village Outreach

As of the end of August we now have trial filters in 11 villages. The list of the villages and the provinces in which we have been active over the past few months is:

Vientiane Province:
Ban Tam;
Ban Nam Suang;
Ban Pa Lai; and
Ban Som Samai.

Oudomxay Province:
Ban Houay Ta.

Bolikamxay Province:
Ban Pa Dai;
Ban Pa Meuang; and
Ban Na Long.

Xiengkuang Province:
Ban Yong;
Ban Mieng; and
Ponsavahn Neua.

Chantana has been very active and has spent more than half his time on the road heading back and forth to the villages. After spending the last few years developing the technology and approach it has been great to see all this progress in the field. We hope to have their locations posted on google maps in time for the next newsletter.

First Training Course is Almost Ready to Begin

Chantana has begun to identify suitable candidates to undergo filter training. He has identified potential students in five villages. Noukham has produced the training manual and the centre is now ready for the first training session. Once the few remaining steps in the selection process have been completed we will be able to start the first training session.

Tourism Centre Progresses

We have just begun constructing a bungalow at the workshop. It will be used to accommodate tour groups for a few hours as they come through the centre to learn more about our project, drinking water issues in Laos and to participate in a Lao pottery exercise. The bungalow will be a similar style to the one above.

The bungalows will sit alongside the workshop.

We will use traditional materials. methods, and labour to build the bungalows. These are saplings used for scaffolding throughout Lao. We will use them as floor joists and roof trusses.

Did You Know?

We are using recycled timber to build the structure for the bungalows. The timber is 60 year old rainforest hardwood and actually comes from Noukham’s old house (she gave us a good price). Unfortunately the timber is riddled with white ants and left untreated would not last longer than a year or so. We are using a natural insecticide to get rid of the white ants; any guesses what it is? Tobacco. That’s right. If you mix a handful of tobacco with about 20 litres of water you have a natural insecticide. It is a good thing for us that tobacco is $2 per kilo in the local market – not so good for anyone trying to quit smoking though.

Annual General Meeting

Finally, our second AGM will be held in Canberra at 12 Macleay St Turner on Saturday 12th November from 11am. We anticipate the meeting taking about an hour to be followed by a BBQ. It will be a great opportunity to catch up on and celebrate the year’s progress and to also meet the Abundant Water team and supporters. I hope you can make it. Call 02 6247 1079 for more information.

To view this newsletter on the web, go to:
http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=3e5ead21eb1ad6eb65d530225&id=c432598033&e=442d389b72