Maybe the little white girl (my dignified town name) has the hook up! She clearly has connections with water filters and probably has a palace filled with water treatment equipment and jewels. Someone could be holding out on us!
I have done a very small water filter project which has both heightened town interest in treating water and made me the target for the question ‘When can you get me one?’. While pretty paper crowns are likely the closest I will ever come to royalty, they are kind of right. I do have the hook up! I am from America the great where $20 funds two trips to our favorite cafe. I have my valuable Peace Corps pile of contacts and information. I can afford to travel to the closest city to check out carbon household filters. I can probably sweet talk or rather, beg the church, for free transportation of filters.
The Diocese of San Juan is selling filters for $1,000 pesos ($28 US).
This was my plan:
1) Ask you all for money and even try to sell you art for donation.
2) Work with the Catholic church to buy as many filters as we can to lower the price to $300 pesos (a value that we have deemed reasonable but not cheap). The calculation would be $X US/ $20 US = Number of filters. I was hoping for $1,000 US providing for 50 filters.
3) Invite the families who we see as appropriate beneficiaries to a class on basic health and the method and care of carbon filters. They would be able to purchase their filters upon completion of this class.
Busted! The only way I can ask for contributions is through a slow and unpredictable grant process for which I no longer qualify. I am too late in service to write a proposal and there is no other Peace Corps approved way for asking for donations. However, I do not want to leave without finding funds to lower the price of these filters.
There are many families that do not have enough money to buy purified water. They receive the river water, contaminated with cholera among many other parasites, and use this to cook with and boil it for drinking water. Diarrhea is an accepted public conversation topic for a reason. I feel confident to say that household water filters improve the quality of life and health of families more than anything else for the small cost. There are many people who would rather have a filter than a cement floor. There may still be sources that I have not explored. I am going to see if there is a way to ask you for donations through the church which is adopted by one in Virginia. I think the only stipulation would be that I could not receive or touch the money. Asking for funds from friends and family is not my favorite but it is a small price to pay. Everyone hates to ask for money but everyone loves clean water!
A picture note: I drew this picture looking at a photo taken by a returned Peace Corps volunteer, Amy Martin.
Jasmine, you might want to write to the schools here in Snoqualmie Valley or to the Valley Record. Let them know you are a valley resident and a former student. Our schools and community are always so generous in supporting projects such as yours. I ALWAYS love reading your blog! Kathy Paulus
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