Matt’s Water Filter Volunteer Work

So far, I haven’t written too much about the details of my volunteer work in Peru so I thought I’d take this opportunity to do so.  I am working for a group called DESEA.  Their leaders are a Canadian couple named Sandy Hart and Sandra McGirr; they have been in Peru for about three years and have two kids (Tarn, age 13 and Niall, age 15).  They work with a nurse and other co-workers from Peru, as well as volunteers from both Peru and the US.  As described in our blog sidebar, DESEA’s mission is to improve the health of people in rural areas by providing bio-sand water filters and improved community health care and education, including through the training of local women to become health care workers and nurses in these areas.  This is also helping to build local capacity to meet these vital community needs in the long term.  DESEA provides these services at no cost to community residents and relies entirely on grants and donations to fund their activities, with additional technical assistance provided by several International non-profit groups. 

So what is my role in all this?  For the last couple of months, I have been helping Sandy on the water filter end of things.  During the last three years, DESEA has built 100-150 filters per year, using concrete filter containers based on models developed by the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST) in Alberta, Canada.  This model has several advantages.  The materials for the filter containers and filtration media – sand, gravel and cement – are almost universally available locally.  The design has been rigorously tested and refined by CAWST during the last 20 years.  And the construction practices are relatively straightforward and can be undertaken by local community members with a certain amount of supervision by DESEA personnel.  However, the concrete filters have a couple of major drawbacks.  Most significantly, they are very heavy, weighing about 150-200 pounds before adding the filter media.  This makes transporting them to dispersed home sites and small villages in the Andes mountains very difficult, given a lack of good vehicles and paved roads.  Having lugged one up a steep rocky trail with Sandy yesterday, I can personally attest to this.  In addition, the sand and gravel used for their construction must be thoroughly cleaned, a time-consuming process.  Finally, if not constructed carefully and correctly, cracks and leaks can develop in the concrete shells.  For these reasons, DESEA is investigating lighter-weight alternatives for the filter containers, specifically use of a PVC filter shell.

Concrete filter photos and diagram

I’ve been doing several things to help with these efforts:

      -  Building more concrete filters.  DESEA is continuing to build concrete filters, in part to replace several faulty or damaged filters delivered to three of its target communities during the last two years.  Helping build these filters involves washing sand and gravel, cleaning, preparing and assembling steel filter molds and mixing and pouring concrete to create the filter boxes.  It also has included coming up with a new material for the filter outlet pipe.  I’ve helped procure copper tubing (to replace the flexible vinyl tubing used up to this point) and then figure out a way to form the tubing into a sort of elongated S-shaped outlet tube which is partially encased in the concrete filter shell.  I’ve also helped repair some of the faulty filters and reinstall them in people’s homes.

      -  Designing a new PVC filter container.  We and other groups have been working on designs for lighter-weight PVC filter containers.  We’ve been lucky to build on the work of a man named Dennis St. John in Arizona and have benefitted from significant technical assistance from the people at CAWST.  We also got some great ideas from a French engineer who I happened to meet on a trip to Lake Titicaca and who later visited our workshop here (a longer story for another blog).  My job has been to help identify sources for materials in the city of Cusco, investigate, sketch and test different filter pipe configurations, and do calculations related to flow and filter rates, etc.  Early on I also spent some time doing Internet research about possible opportunities to buy filter containers already manufactured by other non-profit groups or companies.  Ultimately, this didn’t prove to be cost-effective for us, given high shipping costs.

      -  Helping write grant proposals.  Lately DESEA has been working on two large grant proposals, one of which is a federal grant program administered by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) along with a consortium including the Gates Foundation, the Swedish and Canadian governments and a couple of other partners.  I helped navigate this federal grant process, prepared the cost proposal section of the application and ensured that the proposal was turned in on time via an electronic submittal process.

      -  Checking out our target communities.  We’ve made one trip up to the communities to be served by filters in the coming year to more accurately estimate the number of households there.  In the next several weeks, we will be making more trips to ascertain interest in obtaining filters and collect more information about household characteristics, etc.  I’m really looking forward to this aspect of my assistance.  As noted above, I’ve also visited previous target communities to repair and reinstall a number of filters.

      -  Helping prepare a workshop.  Before my arrival, Sandy had built a small workshop to construct future water filters.  He had previously been working on-site in the target communities but has moved operations closer to home to ensure better quality control and for ease of assembling the new PVC filters.  During my first week here, I helped build new shelving for the workshop and help generally get it in order.

(Sideways picture of) New PVC Filter Prototype (design since modified)

I have been blessed to do all of this under what I would describe as very favorable working conditions.  Sandy and Sandra are great people to work with – competent, caring, generous and funny.  We get along extremely well.  Most of the time, I’m working at Sandy and Sandra’s house in Lamay, about eight miles from where I live in Pisac.  It sits on an acre or two of land next to a stream just outside of town, with beautiful views of the surrounding valleys and mountains.  The hours are totally flexible and I work about five to six hours a day on average, four days a week, not counting traveling their by bus and foot which takes about 45 minutes each way.  We’ll eventually be working some much longer days when we deliver filters to target communities in the mountains.  However, my current schedule gives me lots of time to spend with my girls, helping them adjust to life here (although they’re pretty well adjusted at this point), assisting with and correcting their school work, shopping for food at local outdoor markets (or the local “mini-market”), cooking Peruvian food, writing blog entries and going on the occasional hike and sightseeing adventure.  While I love my job, colleagues, friends and family back in Portland, this has been a welcome break from life there and a very fulfilling volunteer experience so far.

Sandy and Sandra's Place Where I Work in Lamay

Matt