Filters for Life Program – Worldwide

The Filters For Life Program is Water Charity’s flagship, worldwide endeavor to provide much-needed water filters for people around the world. With developments in filter technology over the last five years or so, we can now provide needy communities with long-lasting, effective water filters that can provide as much as 650 gallons of water a day each.  These carbon nanotube filters are guaranteed to last for 1,000,000 gallons (and often last far longer with a modicum of maintenance)… and this technology allows for this at a very reasonable price.

The hollow membrane style (dialysis) filters offer a substantial improvement over the older bio sand, ceramic, and activated charcoal filters we had been using.

They are small, light, and easily transported. Whereas, bio-sand filters are large and heavy.  The making of the various grades of sand and the transportation of this heavy material accounted for a huge portion of the cost of a bio-sand installation.

The Sawyer filters we use are very durable and difficult to break… whereas the ceramic filters we had favored previously are notoriously prone to cracking and thus eliminating their ability to protect people from pathogens.  They also had far slower flow rates, and could, therefore, serve fewer people per installation.

We are very excited about this program, which will include individual projects all over the world. The need for these filters is great, and there is almost no limit to the number of filters we can distribute as the funds become available.

Keep in mind:

• 80% of all disease is water-borne
• 50% of all hospital beds worldwide are occupied by someone suffering from a water-related illness
• Lack of clean drinking water kills more people globally than all forms of violence combined… including war.

There is no need for these statistics to be true anymore. We have all the tools we need to completely eliminate this suffering and waste of life. The predominant victims of this terrible situation are young children. Simple diarrhea is a leading killer of children under 5.  When it is so simple to prevent waterborne illness, there is no excuse for this. These kids deserve a chance.

As an addition to our current roster of successful programs in water and sanitation, which have included well drilling, rainwater catchment, toilet, and hand-washing station construction, emergency relief, reforestation efforts, and more–including a good number of filter projects–as well as our acclaimed Appropriate Projects initiative, this new program will be an umbrella for our worldwide push to get filters into the hands of those people who desperately need them. It includes most of the relevant projects, large and small… thus enabling people to donate to the overall effort.

For various reasons, some filter projects are tied into other initiatives or programs… generally where the filter installations are just a part of a larger effort.  Many rainwater catchment projects, for instance, have a filter component, but is that only a few filters are involved, and the larger part of the project are the gutters, the tanks, and the distribution system… such projects don’t technically fall under this program.

The projects in this program, are larger distributions and are upwardly scalable. As such, the more money we can raise, the more filters we can give out. Instead of creating and packaging the individual filter delivery projects one by one and funding them separately, it makes sense to raise as much money as possible and keep the filters flowing. In this way, we can also get larger grants from foundations and concerned organizations. We have hope that, in time, this program can grow into one of the largest things we have done.

For those interested in the filter technology we are presently using, please feel free to go to the Sawyer International website and peruse the relevant materials. We use primarily their Point One filter, but for hospitals, clinics, and other sites we will also be making the Point Zero Two purifier available.  Both filters are engineered to have no holes large enough for even the smallest microbes to pass through. Point One = .1 micron engineering and Point Zero Two = .02 microns [note: The Point One is more than capable of handling the amoebas, cysts, bacteria, and protozoa that normally render water un-potable.]

This is an exciting program, and we hope you will see the need for it and join in. Water Charity is currently active in over 65 countries around the world. As the money comes in we will take the Filters For Life program into all of them and beyond.

If there are certain regions where you are especially interested in helping, it will be possible to donate specifically to those countries or areas. Just send us a message with your donation. However, we are hoping people will recognize that a general donation to the program itself will be the most effective way to get the maximum number of filters out in the shortest amount of time.

We are water… literally. The human body is about 70% water by mass, and a typical human cell is composed of 98.73% water molecules. Think about it.

CLICK HERE to see all the projects or the links for the various individual projects in this program at the bottom of the page.