Sunday, January 29, 2012

T-minus Seven Weeks...

Hello once again, friends! A lot has been happening in the past week with Pure Water Access Project, and we are excited to see so much support coming from the community. Our facebook page and twitter account continue to grow, as does our list of donors. With only seven weeks left until we depart for El Bejuco, Boaco, Nicaragua, we are working hard to ensure that your money and our time and effort is being put towards conducting the most thorough and efficient study as possible.

Many of you have been generous in offering contacts who may be able to help us grow as an organization, and we are also busy pursuing those. In addition to these various people, we are reaching out to local businesses and church groups for potential endorsements. Again, the response has been incredible, and we are so glad to see how many people believe in the cause!

Overall, things are progressing smoothly. We are finalizing approval of the study through the International Review Board, and that will be one of our final matters of business to attend to before departure. Stay tuned on twitter (@ThePWAP) and facebook (www.facebook.com/ThePWAP) throughout the week.

Til next time,
PWAP

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Progress, progress, progress...


Happy Saturday, people! As we move into the latter half of January, I want to provide you all with some much needed updates on what we have been doing to prepare for our trip to Nicaragua. We will be traveling to the rural town of El Bejuco, in the state of Boaco, to carry out our first case study. This trip will focus on the sustainability and success of the Tulip Water Filter. Our target population will be the small rural demographic that resides in El Bejuco, and we will educate these people on basic hygiene and sanitation knowledge. Once they demonstrate a set level of understanding on this, we will distribute one Tulip Water Filter per household, and educate the recipients on its use and care.
But our mission doesn’t stop there, and this is where our organization differs from so many others. We will perform follow up surveys after three months, and then again one year post-distribution of the filters.  The design of our surveys and the information we will be gathering will allow us to really examine what cultural hurdles we must overcome in establishing a sustainable model of water filtration for people on a large, international scale. The Tulip Water Filter Study is just one of many studies that we will be carrying out, and is focusing on one of just many filtering options available.
From a long-term standpoint, this is the first step in a ongoing process to objectively analyze cultural factors that hinder the sustainability of water sanitation projects. However, there is immediate impact here from your donations, as we are providing approximately one hundred water filters to families who otherwise would never have such sanitation conditions.
With your help, we can make this happen. Please, be a part of something bigger and donate here. Your support means everything to us.
Thank you, we will be updating you on our progress in a week on this blog.

Best,
PWAP