I love this.
From the BBC:
In biblical times they said “turn your swords into ploughshares”, now in northern Ethiopia a tradesman is bringing the saying into the 21st Century.
In his workshop in Mekele, just 120 km from Ethiopia’s border with Eritrea, Azmeraw Zeleke is turning burnt-out shells into cylinders used in coffee machines.
Most of the shells are left over from the 1998-2000 war between the two countries.
Here’s some of the latest happenings at encounter:
Here’s more from the Red Cross:
The most recent UNICEF data show that only 26 per cent of Cambodia’s rural population has access to adequate drinking water compared to 55 per cent of the rural population living in the world’s least developed countries. The situation is particularly bad in four remote and impoverished north-eastern provinces – Kratie, Mondulkiri, Rotanakiri and Stung Teng – where the main sources of drinking water are springs, rivers, streams and rainwater.
Slightly more than one-fifth of children under the age of five living in these provinces have diarrhoea in a given two-week period, according to the 2000 Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey. The same survey says more than 50 per cent of under-fives in the north-east have moderately or severely stunted growth, an indication of chronic, incapacitating malnutrition.
“The health status of the Cambodian children is grim. Almost one in 10 Cambodian children dies before his or her first birthday,†says Charles Lerman, regional health coordinator of the American Red Cross, which is supporting the CRC’s Community Hygiene and Water Purification (CHWP) project, along with the International Development Enterprises and the Freeman Foundation.
The locally produced ceramic water filter is part of the CHWP project, a one-year scheme that concludes in December that aims to reduce childhood illness and death from diarrhoeal disease by providing safe water containers and disseminating health and hygiene messages to communities.
The CRC is distributing one ceramic water filter to some 6,000 households in 53 villages.
The ceramic filter is a clay pot that holds approximately 10 litres, allowing a family to produce up to 30 litres a day. “It is cheap, portable, effective and can be used and maintained even by the poorest families,†Lerman says.
The CWF is impregnated with colloidal silver, which neutralises any pathogens not already captured by a clay matrix through which the water passes.
A short term missionary to Cambodia told me about a process this afternoon to filter water using a clay pot and a special lining.
They’re using it all over Cambodia apparently to remove pathogins in the water.
I found some info on the web about the process, or a similar one.
A handful of clay, yesterday’s coffee grounds and some cow manure are the simple ingredients that could bring clean drinking water to developing countries around the globe.
An innovative new technology, developed by ANU materials scientist Mr Tony Flynn, allows water filters to be made from commonly available materials and fired on the ground using manure, without the need for a kiln. The filters have been shown to remove common pathogens including E-coli. Unlike other water filtering devices, they are simple and inexpensive to make.
“They are very simple to explain and demonstrate and can be made by anyone, anywhere. They don’t require any western technology. All you need is terracotta clay, a compliant cow and a match,†said Mr Flynn.
“Everyone has a right to clean water, these filters have the potential to enable anyone in the world to drink water safely.â€
Click here to read the DIY instructions.
“Where you live should not determine whether you live or die.”
A short term missionary to Cambodia told me about a process this afternoon to filter water using a clay pot and a special lining.
They’re using it all over Cambodia apparently to remove pathogins in the water.
I found some info on the web about the process, or a similar one.
A handful of clay, yesterday’s coffee grounds and some cow manure are the simple ingredients that could bring clean drinking water to developing countries around the globe.
An innovative new technology, developed by ANU materials scientist Mr Tony Flynn, allows water filters to be made from commonly available materials and fired on the ground using manure, without the need for a kiln. The filters have been shown to remove common pathogens including E-coli. Unlike other water filtering devices, they are simple and inexpensive to make.
“They are very simple to explain and demonstrate and can be made by anyone, anywhere. They don’t require any western technology. All you need is terracotta clay, a compliant cow and a match,†said Mr Flynn.
“Everyone has a right to clean water, these filters have the potential to enable anyone in the world to drink water safely.â€
Click here to read the DIY instructions.
“Where you live should not determine whether you live or die.”
From Sojourners:
He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant to all.” Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
– Mark 9:35-37
“Jesus brought us a new life in ultimate vulnerability. As a child he was dependent on the care and protection of others; he lived as a poor preacher without any political, economic, or military power; and he died nailed on a cross as a useless criminal. It is in this extreme vulnerability that our salvation was won.”
– Henri Nouwen