In Cambodia 60,000 children die each year many due to waterborne illnesses exacerbated by the countries habit of drinking water out of pit wells. For the next 3 weeks the Cambodia Team (Sergey, Emily, Sarah, Jess, Sarah, Becky, Zara and Josephine) are working with the dynamic Trailblazer Foundation, a local NGO, whose main aims are to provide clean water to impoverished areas. This is done through bio-sand water filters that remove 98% of the bacteria.

Emily and Josephine sift sand for the water filters

The girls washing gravel

Sergey and Jess painting the water filters

As you can see from the photos above, the team’s work with the Foundations so far has meant spending each morning with the NGO team getting hot and sweaty constructing the filters with local builders.  This involves sifting sand, making filter moulds and painting them. On Monday the team were lucky enough to head off on the Trailblazers truck to a rural community to deliver the finished product and, with a Trailblazer member, then educate the villagers on how to use them and more importantly WHY to use them.

The rural community getting ready for their water filter

Wheeling in the fininshed product!

Working with the 'community steward'

These trips to the villages are so important. Not only did the team deliver a potentially life saving piece of equipment to the village, but they also appointed a “community steward” to assist in it’s maintenance to make sure it is used in the right way. All in all it took about 30 minutes to install then about 3 hours to help educate the locals on how and why to use them – the volunteers patience was needed here as they were no doubt be bamboozled with lots of questions!

The Trailblazer filters cost about $45 funded by charitable donations but are sold to the villagers for about 50 cents to $2. The aim is to get one per household – now in the Angkor Thom area about 1 per 4 families own one. Leapers make a big difference in helping to build and deliver these filters and hopefully over the next few weeks our trusty April Cambodia team will do just that!