Clean Water Project

We started a project to help the young children in Indonesia grow up healthy, by enabling them to get clean drinking water. 

Tap-water in Indonesia is not suitable for drinking. This makes people reliant on water from big corporations who work through local water suppliers. The cost of water is increasing yearly, making it very expensive for schools to provide clean water. The water from the corporations is also not the best leaving almost no minerals in the water after the filtration process. 

 

Currently children bring water from home, often happening in plastic bottles that end up in the environment, or they drink contaminated water, also from plastic bottles that are thrown away after a few uses.

 

Children are the most vulnerable to contaminated water sources. Compared to adults, children drink more water per kg of body weight. They are also more vulnerable to harmful chemicals because their body is still developing. 

 

For example, up to 20 % of the total lead exposure in children is attributed to consuming contaminated water. Health effects associated with long term lead exposure are decreased IQ and damage to the brain and nervous system (EWG, 2017). Another example are manganese leaks from rocks and soil into the drinking water. Studies have shown that high levels of manganese exposure can result in behaviour changes and can be detrimental to speech development. Some chemicals in water are specifically more harmful when exposure occurs during critical windows in a child's development (Sri Y. Irda Sari, et al, 2018). 

 

Imagine drinking water from contaminated sources for over 10 years and the damage this can do to a child’s body. With a decent water filter we can provide these children with water that is 100% safe, making sure that they can develop as healthy as possible and reduce waste at the same time.

 

Thanks to a grant from the MARMA foundation we have been able to install 2 filters in a school in Kerobokan providing over 400 children with clean drinking water. It is our goal to install the water filter in as many schools as possible. 

 

We are currently looking for potential funders to realize this project.