Clean Drinking Water For When Disaster Strikes

"You have no competition.  You have the most inexpensive, but certified, filter on the market.  If you make this universal adapter, no one can touch you guys."  Quote from the President of a partner NGO

This month Caminos de Agua's new technology, Aguadapt, is competing at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Innovation Showcase in Washington D.C.

Aguadapt takes a proven technology – the ceramic water filter – and makes it:

• easy to ship worldwide;
• simple to install in any container;
• adaptable to treat dangerous water contaminants like arsenic, fluoride, agrochemicals, and antibiotics; and
• ideal for disaster response and long-term use.

Last year Aguadapt was one of the Mexican national finalists at the James Dyson Awards - an international design competition that promotes new problem-solving ideas. We have high hopes of doing better this time and very confident that Dylan and Aaron, our Executive Director and R&D Coordinator respectively, will do well in showcasing Aguadapts' potential at the upcoming ASME competition.

We are also happy to report that Aguadapt is currently being tested in real-life situations with users in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico working with a partner organization. Our technology team is analyzing the first results, the durability and manufacturing quality of the adapter, as well as user reactions. We are striving to make Aguadapt accessible to the people who need it most, without compromising their rights, integrity or dignity.

In the past year, we invested valuable time and resources in developing Aguadapt – far more than we generated in Ceramic Water Filter sales. We anticipate this trend to continue in the near future as we develop and test prototypes, purchase manufacturing tools, build production and storage capacity, hire and train factory staff, and bring on new key team members who will improve the production and distribution aspects of our work. Once Aguadapt launches, however, we expect this pattern to reverse, with Aguadapt becoming self-sufficient quickly thereafter.  Any profits that are generated will go towards funding Caminos de Agua's work.

At Caminos de Agua we believe we are accountable to our social mission instead of shareholders and have so far been able to develop Aguadapt by tapping into philanthropic donations and grants that do not need to be repaid. We can, therefore, make Aguadapt and our other solutions available at an affordable price, unsubsidized to those that need them the most. We rely on the generous support of donors, especially GlobalGiving donors - who believe Aguadapt is the first low-cost filter that is flexible enough to handle the 21st century’s emerging contaminants and increasing natural disasters, ensuring the human right to water for all.

The entire team at Caminos de Agua has been hard at work to make Aguadapt an accessible water filter that addresses the world’s most pressing emerging contaminants.

However, we can not do it alone.

We need your support in making Aguadapt a reality.

"Aguadapt. All Waters. All People."

Links:

• Caminos de Agua 2018 Annual Report: FOCUSING ON WHAT'S IMPORTANT
• "What's in our water?" presentation given May 22, 2019
• Aguadapt: All waters. All People

Caminos de Agua will be piloting its ceramic filter and adapter (Aguadapt) to test its effectiveness in emergency situations and transition from emergency use to permanent water solution. The Aguadapt filter can produce more than 27,000-liters of drinking water over its lifetime.

To prepare for this pilot, we recently went out to the field to assess some of the first ceramic filters we placed with 47 families in the community near San Miguel de Allende over five years ago and talked to several of the participants. Pascuala, a critical organizer of the project in her community, shared the following:

"As a child, I drank river water because we did not know anything about contamination. It affected my siblings and me a lot, we all have stained teeth (from excessive fluoride in the water) . . . and during those years suffered greatly from stomach pain, nausea, and very bad headaches".

We know that our certified ceramic filter can remove 99% of pathogens and bacteria from contaminated water. Making it adaptable to any container in emergency response situations will allow it to treat water quickly, on-site, and with locally available materials and transition from emergency relief to a permanent water solution for families. Seeing that our ceramic filters are still effective after five years ensures many persons will continue to have access to safe and healthy water long after an emergency situation is over. Pascuala had this to say about her families' use of the ceramic filter.

"We have been drinking rainwater and using a ceramic filter for over five years. My oldest son, who drank (contaminated) river water before we had the (rainwater) harvesting cistern, has very stained teeth, but my three youngest ones were raised drinking rainwater and their teeth are white and healthy. The ceramic filter gives us the confidence that our cistern water is clean and that nothing bad is in it."

The Aguadapt universal adapter is now in its first production run and will be piloted with a partner organization, Concern America, in 600 homes in Southern Mexico in the coming months. We will be reporting on the results of this pilot to our Global Giving supporters and through our website. Our annual report has additional information on technical advances and human interest stories of the impact of our solutions are having in the communities we work with.

From everyone at Caminos de Agua, thank you for continuing support of our research and projects.

Links:

• Caminos de Agua 2018 Annual Report
• Caminos de Agua Website
• March 22 World Water Day Events