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.

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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.

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

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.

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Local humanitarian organisation Abundant Water received much-needed financial assistance from ACTEW last week, as the two joined forces. The organisation has been using its unique water filter technology to help villages in Laos access clean water.

The project came about when Canberra engineer Sunny Forsyth was working in the country in 2007 and became aware of the need for fresh water in its remote villages. He began developing filters made from clay and dried coffee grounds after establishing relationships with the locals. He found a potter and a translator and began testing each batch of clay pots.

Three years on, the filters are now being introduced to households in villages by trained educators. The organisation works in and with the community to ensure an understanding of why water filtration is important in people’s health, and the methods used to make the filters are based on traditional potting techniques. Mr Forsyth is currently in Laos overseeing the compound, before he returns to Australia at the end of the year.

His father, Stuart, said his son had drained his own funds and the support from ACTEW was vital to keep the project running. “It’s a huge help,” he said. “It’s providing half of the required actual funding and it’s taken a lot of pressure off.” Mr Forsyth said at the end of last year the organisation had a target of 8 villages it wanted to introduce the filters to.

The pots are now being used in 7 villages and another 10 are waiting for the product.”It’s twice what we had actually planned,” Mr Forsyth said. The technology is now advanced enough to 36 litres litres of clean, fresh water every day. Mr Forsyth said the success of the project so far was due to the relationships formed with the locals.

“This was all about respecting the people already there,” Mr Forsyth said. “It’s about developing confidence and respect that will endure. Then the reliance on outside help becomes less. “I’d like to see the Lao organisations progressively take up the ownership of the project. “The Lao people are actually dealing with the issue and will become a model for other developing countries.”
Abundant Water has now been approached by a number of of similar organisations to replicate the program in Africa, South-East Africa and East Timor.

“As the progress becomes evident, it’s difficult not to get excited,” Mr Forsyth said.

I hope this finds you and your family healthy and well.

Mural Complete at the Compound
The mural occupies the entire side of one of the storage containers and depicts a typical, if colourful and somewhat stylised, day in a rural Lao village. The mural was completed entirely with volunteer labour and donated supplies. Special thanks go to Lisa Nowlain for the awesome design and Jennifer Brown for donating the paint and supplies. The volunteer team was amazing and far too numerous to name here.

Complete Small Kiln Firing
This kiln is constructed from house bricks which are both cheap and widely available. The cost of this kiln was approximately USD20. The following sequence shows a complete firing from loading, firing and then emptying, the kiln. Noukham loads the filters into the kiln, they are placed onto a flat bed of bricks. Noukham stokes the kiln. Firewood is placed into the two openings, one at either end of the oval shaped kiln, at regular intervals. The kiln is stoked so that the firing temperature rises slowly and steadily. Depending on the number of filters and type of clay used the firing can last between 7 and 12 hours. Noukham places rice straw onto the top of the kiln. The kiln is an open topped design, as the rice straw burns it is converted to char thus forming an insulating layer that takes the place of a kiln roof. It is simultaneously able to hold the heat within and allow the smoke to exit the kiln. The fire is out, the kiln has cooled and Noukham is removing the insulation from the top of the kiln. Her left hand has just uncovered the end of one of the filters. The insulation is completely removed to reveal the orange, fully fired, filters below. Chantana assists Noukham to lay the 32 filters out on the grass.

Chantana and Noukham make their first village visit together. Noukham and Chantana await the bus for their first joint field trip. Their equipment and luggage is scattered around them. As an indication of our operating costs their trip will last 6 days, they will visit four villages, and all at a cost of USD150.

Did You Know…

Noukham has recently been experiencing some arm pain from an injury sustained three
weeks ago. Since then she has been experiencing a weak forearm and limited thumb
movement that has reduced her ability to carry out basic work tasks. As a grandmother
and the sole breadwinner for her extended family she has been worried by her inability
to work. Noukham received physiotherapy treatment at the largest hospital in Vientiane
every day this week and is now on the road to recovery. She is feeling much better about the situation now that Chantana has agreed to help her with the heavy lifting so that she can return to work.

Thanks for everything!

June Newsletter

Clay-pot Filters Secure Safe Water

A Canberra-based not-for-profit humanitarian organisation has successfully completed the research and development of a unique water filter at their pottery training compound in Vientiane, Laos.

The filters, created by Abundant Water, are now being introduced to households in remote villages by trained village educators.

Abundant Water, a volunteer organisation started by local engineer Sunny Forsyth, has been working with Lao communities for three years to introduce low-cost programs enabling anyone anywhere to access clay-pot water filter technology if they need clean drinking water free from water-borne diseases.

On Thursday 14th July, Abundant Water and ACTEW celebrated a sponsorship between the two organisations, which will secure the wages for the Lao employees working in the compound and the villages.

Highlights

Canberra Southern Cross Club Fundraiser

On the evening of Friday the 25th of March, Canberra Southern Cross Club hosted the AW trivia night. It was a great night with over 200 attendees. Special thanks go to Rafe Morris, Alice Cottee, and Kulture Break for their outstanding performances. Thanks again to the army of AW volunteers who willingly gave up their evenings and weekends to pull this all together.

Filter Ready For Use

The filter has changed shape and size. The latest iteration now meets pathogen removal, water flow rate, ease of use, and durability requirements. The first order for 30 filters has been placed by our in-field development partner, Community Development and Environment Association, for use as a pilot in a Xieng Kuang village.

Field Work Begins

Our field officer, Mr Chantana, has begun regular visits to rural villages where water supplies can look like the above swamp for part of the year. So far he has visited 5 villages that have expressed interest in working with the filter. From these villages we have identified two with a suitable and local source of clay and one village that would like to run trials with the filter right away. Initial clay trials from the remaining two villages were inconclusive and we will be running further tests to determine if there is a suitable source of clay at either village.

Landscaping at the Filter Training Centre Underway

It doesn’t look like much yet but with the upcoming rains these fast growing shrubs and trees will transform the training centre. We have been building an access path and landscaping with tropical fruit trees (banana, mango, paw paw, and lychee) to create a desirable space for the tourist venture we are developing. Once the centre is ready we are planning to bring tour groups through to learn pottery with Noukham and give them an opportunity to make a donation to one of our village filter projects.

Update

The Lao work team is now working quite well together. They are beginning to work more independently which is a good indication that they will be able to function autonomously by the time Sunny returns to Australia later this year.

CDEA have just taken delivery of our first information video. It is just a short five minute video that shows rural villagers the what and how of the filter. It is intended to be the first piece of information that villagers receive on the filter and will be used as a conversation starter.

Did You Know

The wet season in Laos runs, roughly, from May until November. That is good news for us right now as it will greatly ease our task of digging the soil and planting fruit trees at the compound. Although, after a month of solid rain, it will make the task of visiting remote villages very challenging indeed. This is because the soil, from which the village roads are carved, once thoroughly wet has a slipperiness somewhere between that of ice and banana peel. I think you get the picture!

Thanks for your time and support,
AW team

March-April AW newsletter

Vientiane Rotary Club is now officially active
The Vientiane Rotary Club is now officially registered and active. This follows over two years of ground work. We are looking forward to working with Rotary in a greater capacity. Rotary’s endorsement of the project has increased the amount of interest that senior member of the Lao Government are showing in our project.

Training Centre is now accepting volunteers
We have now had a few groups of international volunteers through the training centre. They’ve certainly helped out and I think may have had a bit of fun while doing so. The Centre is now officially open for business, so if you know anyone coming through Lao who wants to help for a day or a month please get in touch.

Vientiane Trivia Night
We recently held our inaugural AW Vientiane fund-raising trivia night. The night was an unqualified success and with money still rolling in we have so far collected a touch over USD3000. The night was a testament to everyday generosity and a fantastic flash mob of event organisers.

Barbara, Stuart, and Casuarina visit the compound
Over their Christmas holiday Barbara, Stuart and Casuarina spent ten days at the compound helping in many ways. Here Barbara lays the undercoat for the logo that will be painted on the shipping container.

Update
● Work is also underway on the training video that shows the complete process to make
and fire the water filters. This includes the training curriculum and the script for the
video, which is also underway.
● Chantana is now employed as a community development worker and, after 6 weeks of
training, is heading to the field this week to communicate with the first potential villages.
● Alice and Dickon (two English gap year volunteers) have just arrived and are currently
working on landscaping and preparing the facilities at the training center so that it is
suitable for hosting tour groups.
Did You Know?
It seems that most people who become aware of our work hear about it from Bab’s prodigious social media and online communication efforts. If you have not heard from her in the last little while and are wondering why, it is because Babs has been unwell. She is now on the road to recovery, we all send her our best wishes.
All the best from the AW Team

Dec_Jan_AW_Newsletter