Water Filter Project

Water filters for safe drinking water

For many villages along the rivers in Bajhang, the only source of drinking water is the river. However, heavy contamination by garbage, effluents and animal carcasses very often lead to diarrhea, dysentery, typhoid fever, gastroenteritis and cholera.

Students drinking water from the river in Bajhang

HEAR Nepal has conducted a survey (read more) to determine which and how many villages and institutions in Bajhang only have access to contaminated river water. Five villages, two Health Care Centers, one school, one Primary Health Post and a District Hospital were identified as urgently needing safe drinking water.

HEAR Nepal will thus deliver and install ten so-called “PAUL” filter installations (http://waterbackpack.org/), which each produce enough clean drinking water to cover the needs of a typical mountain village. The filters do not require any electricity, they are easy to maintain and they have a lifetime of at least ten years.

Diagram of a PAUL filter system

Experts from HEAR Nepal will install the water filter systems, teach the villagers and others about how to properly handle drinking water and train those responsible in the maintenance of the filter system. Once it has been installed, it will be regularly monitored and evaluated by HEAR Nepal.

A complete filter installation costs approximately € 3,400 (or USD 3,750), which includes shipping, customs duties, installation and maintenance for ten years. For the project to become sustainable, the filter systems will only be installed once the local authorities and the villagers ave agreed on small monthly contributions to ensure funding for the purchase of any spare parts that might be required or a new PAUL filter after ten years.

PAUL filter system installed in Kathmandu

Would you like to make a donation to help a village, a school or a hospital in Bajhang gain access to safe drinking water?