Our Work

BioSand Water Filters Across Kenya

Seeing the effectiveness of a BioSand Water Filter in Kenya has been a “life-changing experience,” says Albert Kenway of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

“I never realized how a relatively small thing like a water filter could totally change someone’s life, and also change a whole community,” Kenway observed. “It’s a life-changing experience for me too – very inspiring. It has really shown me how our financial support for things like these filters can have a significant impact.”

Kenway had just visited the clay-and-wood home of Bernard Mzololo, a farmer in a remote, dry, wind-blown region of southeastern Kenya known as the Kwale district.

Mzololo has owned a BioSand Water Filter from Samaritan’s Purse – Canada since December 2005. He demonstrated it to Kenway and several other St. John’s residents who were on a two-week Samaritan’s Purse Missions Teams trip to Kenya.

He showed his Canadian visitors a bucket of water – seemingly drinkable, but tainted by invisible organisms capable of causing fatal diarrhoea and other intestinal ailments. Worldwide, nearly two million people are killed each year by diarrhoeal diseases.

“ The ones who had filters were not sick. ” - Cosmas Mwainza

Mzololo poured the water into the top of his concrete BioSand Water Filter and, within seconds, filtered water was trickling out of the spout – water he immediately drank.

To further demonstrate the filter’s effectiveness, Mzololo took another bucket of water, added two handfuls of dirt from outside his home, and mixed up a soupy, coffee-coloured brew. He poured it in; within seconds, clear, clean water emerged from the filter.

Mzololo offered the water to Kenway and each of his Canadian guests, and all of them drank the filtered liquid.

“This is amazing,” said Kenway, his eyes wide with excitement. “It tastes as good as any water I’ve ever had.”

Improving Water, Reducing Disease

The true test of a BioSand Water Filter’s effectiveness is how it affects the person who drinks it. Simple, low-cost interventions, like the BioSand Water Filter, are capable of dramatically improving water quality and reducing the risk of diarrhoeal disease.

“ It all begins with a BioSand Water Filter.  ” - Robinson Masongo

The Kwale district is a region of Kenya – like many other parts of the world – where people must walk 10 to 20 kilometers one direction each day to access improved water in wells or pipelines. To avoid this laborious and time-consuming trek, people resort to drinking surface water –rain water collected in creeks, ponds and ditches. This water is often tainted by sewage and other contaminants. All who drink it risk their health.

A BioSand Water Filter – which costs $100 to build, install, and teach the homeowner operation and maintenance – will improve the water.

“My family isn’t sick anymore with stomach problems,” Mzololo says. “Before we had the water filter, they would get diarrhoea and would suffer for a long time.”

Improved health is only one of many benefits that Mzololo and his family have received from his BioSand filter and from Samaritan’s Purse. Through a Samaritan’s Purse training facility nearby, he has learned effective farming techniques that have enabled him to:

• significantly increase the yield from his maize crops
• diversify into other crops (including sweet potatoes) that grow well in dry climates
• plant trees and take other actions to combat soil erosion
• more accurately predict and take advantage of seasonal rainy periods, and
• dig a reservoir to store rain water.

The increased production from his relatively small seven-acre farm has enabled Mzololo to buy some chickens and goats – the first animals he has ever owned. Mzololo has also opened a small but profitable store from which his family is selling corn flour, soup ingredients, soap, matches, and other household items.

Dramatic Turnaround

This is a dramatic turnaround for a man who used to live most of the year in the bush, far from his family, cutting down Kenya’s severely depleted forests for firewood. In his new role, Mzololo says, he is an environmental steward rather than environmental threat.

“I am so grateful to Samaritan’s Purse for helping me to achieve all of this, and I am even more grateful to Samaritan’s Purse for bringing me to God,” he says with a smile. “It is through Samaritan’s Purse that I learned how much God loves me and loves all of us.”

Mzololo describes himself as a “catalyst for change” in his community – an example of someone who, by turning to Jesus and by working with Samaritan’s Purse, has become an example to his community of how their lives can improve. A growing number of other people in the Kwale district are following Mzololo’s inspiring path.

“It all begins with a BioSand Water Filter,” says Robinson Masongo, Samaritan’s Purse’s coordinator of the filter program in Kwale (where over 100 filters have been installed so far). “We start by explaining the value of the filter. When they see that it works, it gives us credibility in the home and the community, and opens doors for us to teach them about other things – including the door to talk about Jesus Christ.”

Mzololo, in saying good-bye to his Canadian visitors, said: “I never dreamed I would achieve something that would attract visitors to my little home from thousands of miles away. It is only through Jesus Christ and Samaritan’s Purse that this has happened.”

Samaritan’s Purse is installing BioSand Water Filters in Kenya in not only Chengoni, but also Ngangani, about a 2.5-hour drive from Nairobi.

BioSand Water Filters Across Kenya

Cosmas Mwanzia, a Christian pastor, who helps coordinate the BioSand Water Filter program in Ngangani, says many local people used to suffer from typhoid fever, cholera and other intestinal problems. They wanted a medical clinic. Samaritan’s Purse identified contaminated drinking water as the problem, and offered BioSand Water Filters.

Most locals weren’t interested, Mwanzia recalls. But they changed their minds when the households in which filters were installed began reporting a dramatic drop in typhoid fever, cholera and other ailments: “The ones who had filters were not sick, and the ones who didn’t have had filters were still very sick. That was very convincing for the community.”

Samaritan’s Purse has installed over 104,000 BioSand Water Filters worldwide, in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Brazil, El Salvador, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Turn on the Tap to clean water. Help us install another 2,000 filters per month.

Ways You Can Help
Pray Please pray that God will continue to provide direction to Samaritan’s Purse, as we respond to people’s needs, share the love of Christ, and serve the church worldwide.		Give The need is urgent. A child is dying every 20 seconds in the developing world from diarrhoeal diseases caused by polluted water. Donate Here.