Chris Draper, Abundant Water’s first Australian Volunteer, is currently based in Timor-Leste, supporting the organisation’s growing presence in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector.
As a Social Business Development Advisor, Chris aims to strengthen Abundant Water’s support for local vendors to create lasting impact. These entrepreneurs provide water filters to communities across Timor-Leste, earning a steady income while improving access to clean drinking water. Our scalable distribution model and social business approach contribute to sustainable health outcomes through continued sales. By working directly with community-based vendors, who bring strong local connections, Abundant Water ensures its approach is both credible and effective in addressing long-term water security challenges.
For school children access to safe, clean water is vital. As part of their training AW vendors participate in local installations.
"We need to rethink the development sector,” Chris says. “The UN is falling behind on the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. There’s a clear shortage of impactful, scalable solutions to persistent challenges like clean water access. Abundant Water’s approach—combining simple technology with community-based distribution—can make a real difference, not just in Timor-Leste but globally.
Over the past few months, Chris has been gathering informative insights into sales successes at the local level from AW's vendors, customers' experiences using a filter for the first time, and the unique ways Timorese entrepreneurs learn to grow their businesses. Using these insights, Chris and the team recently delivered a successful vendor training in Suai to build on the knowledge of local entrepreneurs and equip them with the skills to become successful water filter salespeople.
Chris explains further: "We've been using adaptive management frameworks to conduct in-depth research into the way customers use and understand this new filtration technology across different municipalities and local cultures. After some time synthesising this research alongside learnings from our vendor's businesses, we've created a more locally-informed training and business development support package to take our safe drinking water impacts to the next level. I'm excited for what's to come as our new training has already experienced early success, with 40 families now using filters since vendors were trained 2 weeks ago".
Their training builds upon Chris' work in creating the foundations for a sustainable social impact program, and will diversify the income of more rural families in Cova Lima.
Thank you to the Australian Volunteers Program for supporting this work!
The capital of Timor-Leste, Dili is located on the north coast. Suai, a city of 10,000 is 140kms to the southwest.
Abundant Water, an Australian volunteer-led organisation, is taking action—now. Our work is already making a tangible difference in Timor-Leste, the Philippines, and Laos. But we need your help to go further, faster. Even the smallest contribution can mean clean water, better health, and renewed hope for families in need.
Act now - Because clean water can’t wait