Friendly Water for the World

Background: “People with Albinism in Tanzania”

People with albinism are found throughout Africa, especially in the eastern and central regions. A lack of skin pigmentation (melanin) - a genetic condition - results in people appearing white (actually pinkish), with skin burning easily in the equatorial sun, and often with severely impaired eyesight.

The physical condition would itself be difficult enough to manage – long clothes, hats, body lotions, strong eyeglasses – but worse is the social situation in which people with albinism find themselves. For people with albinism, especially in Tanzania, live in constant fear.

Tanzania is an extremely poor nation, with 50 million people, the majority of whom live on less than $1 a day. It is believed that Tanzania has the largest concentration of people living with albinism anywhere in the world. While in certain countries such as Rwanda, where people with albinism are simply ostracized, in Tanzania they are hunted, killed, and dismembered, especially by those in fishing and mining communities. Witchdoctors teach these communities to believe that possession of bones and body parts from people with albinism can lead to wealth, in the form of increased fish harvests and gold mining success. More than 100 people with albinism are killed and gruesomely mutilated in Tanzania each year. It should be noted that many are killed while walking to gather water for their households. People live in constant fear of albinism hunters.

Since they have no way of protecting them in their own communities, the Tanzania government has chosen to collect people with albinism in camps, where they also receive minimal aid from other community-based organizations. While there are other refugee camps, people with albinism are not allowed to join them, as they are often in as fearful a situation there as they would be in the open.

People with Albinism to Be Served

Shinyanga is one of five regions in in the Lake Zone of northern Tanzania. There are some 2,500 people living with albinism in the area; the family count is larger, because many families with children with albinism may not be people with albinism themselves. There are currently 13 camps and one heavily patrolled town area where people with albinism can, in theory, go.

Conditions in the camp are brutal. Kenedy Mahili and Obed Gidion, Friendly Water for the World’s representatives in Mwanza, visited the largest camp, at their request. They found that unemployment is virtually 100%. People are constantly sick, there is a massive water scarcity, and it was not unheard of that people would walk 15 kilometers roundtrip to find water. There have been attacks on people of albinism when going for water, or simply using the bushes to relieve themselves. There are no toilets. Typhoid and bacterial dysentery are common, and almost universal. Life expectancy is short.

Kennedy and Obed came away moved and changed, and determined to find a way to transform the conditions of their brothers and sisters.

The Project

The training project will happen in three stages. In the first, they will provide training in the manufacture, distribution, installation, and maintenance of BioSand Filters. This will make it possible for 25-30 people to set up a small enterprise to sell the Filters, while providing clean water for their own families and community. This will also be the first effort to help reintegrate people with albinism into the larger community, as they will become the only available source of clean water technologies. If successful, as we have found elsewhere in the region, profits may be used to spin off other small enterprises, such as chicken and goat raising or sewing projects.

The second step will be to build, and to train people with albinism to build, rainwater catchment systems/ferro-cement tanks. With another grant, through Friendly Water for the World’s Building New Lives program, people living with HIV in Mwanza will be trained to build these systems. They, in turn, will travel to Shinyanga to build several systems while at the same time training a team of people with albinism in the process. The newly available water will substantially reduce the ‘long walk to water’ for many people with albinism and hence their being hunted in the process, while at the same providing employment and a path to self-sufficiency. The final part of this stage will be purchasing an interlocking brickmaking machine, with bricks to be used in the foundations of the rainwater catchment systems, as well as in MicroFlush toilets. The bricks can also be sold into the community to assist with housing needs.

The third stage (should all of our fundraising be successful) will be building, and teaching people with albinism to build, MicroFlush toilets. MicroFlush toilets are simple, very inexpensive, composting toilets, making use of worms, and requiring only one-quarter cup of water per use. They do not have to mucked out for two-and-a-half years, and are very simple to fabricate. Both Obed and Kenedy have been trained in in the technology and would train yet another team of people with albinism to fabricate them, both for themselves, and for the larger community.

The overall result will be an integrated program for people with albinism, the very first of its kind, with significant enhancements in both water availability and water quality, and improvements in community sanitation and hygiene. It will remove some of the risks faced by people with albinism from people who are hunting them. It will also provide for job creation and self-sufficiency, and the opportunity for people with albinism to work with members of other communities, a significant step towards the removal of stereotypes. Health of children will be improved, enabling them to attend school more regularly, as well many of them no longer being taken out of school to walk for water.

Kenedy reports that as word of his visit (and Friendly Water’s program) has spread, he is being contacted by local government officials and leaders of people with albinism communities all over the country. Of course, we’ve told them all “one step at a time”. First, we want to prove that it works. (And, just as importantly, learn from things that don’t!)

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At the end of November 2017, for “Giving Tuesday”, Friendly Water for the World appealed to you to raise $22,000 (out of a total budget of around $48,000). The funds were to be used to jumpstart a new program working with a community of people with albinism in Shinyanga, in northern Tanzania.

As part of the appeal, we explained that people with albinism live in great fear in Tanzania, as they are often hunted for their body parts, thought to bring good luck, especially in gold mining and fishing. More than a hundred people with albinism, often youth, are murdered each year, and this often happens among young people walking for water. Unable to protect them generally, the government has moved people with albinism into reserved areas, often without access to adequate food, water, schools, or employment.

And you came through! Instead of $22,000, you contributed more than $31,000. Friendly Water’s Tanzania affiliate Community Life Amelioration Organization (CLAO), under the leadership of Kenedy Mahili (Mwanza, Tanzania) worked with the local leadership of the People with Albinism community to carry out the first of two large five-day trainings in BioSand Filter fabrication, distribution, installation, and maintenance. Some 102 people attended, in five groups, representing families with 27 children.

As part of the plan, the local government had agreed to contribute $7,340 for food and transport for all the participants. However, as the training approached, they became more and more excited. By the time of the training, they rented an entire hotel for the participants to stay in, and provided police protection. At the end of the training, with regional and national media reporting on its progress and government officials dropping in to see what was going, the district commissioner presented the groups with orders for Filters so that schools would have access to clean water. The police took up a collection among themselves and presented the participants with $1,250 (mostly in small bills) to purchase more steel molds. And they are all planning to assist with the second training.

Friendly Water for the World took the opportunity to upgrade our effectiveness beginning in 2018, in two ways. Firstly, we were alerted to the fact that many of our trainees, who manufacture Filters, often don’t have them for their own families. We believe that everyone can afford BioSand Filters once they recognize how much money they will save in medical care, pharmaceutical, and related expenses even in the first six months to a year - well more than the cost of the Filter. But the poor and marginalized people that we work with often do not have the upfront costs to purchase a Filter. So we are providing funds for each new to double the amount of starter material (sand, gravel, cement, tubing) they receive to start a program, so that they can provide Filters for the cost of materials (the participants are already providing the labor), to be paid off over time, with each participant having their own written agreement.

The plan does not only ensure Filters for an increased number of families, and provide further motivation for the trainees. Having each participant family using a BioSand Filter in their own community will be a terrific marketing tool, as neighbors will have a living testimony to its effectiveness in reducing the burden of waterborne illnesses.

To further the point, Friendly Water now has each participant in our program take a simple epidemiological questionnaire. Questions include:

• What is the source of the water you use for drinking?
• How far do you or a member of your family have to walk to obtain water?
• In the past six months, how often have you or a member of your family been sick?
• What do you think caused these illnesses?
• In the past six months, how much money has your family spent on doctors, hospitals, medicine, and transportation to receive care for illnesses?
• In the past six months, how many days of work have you or a member of your family missed due to illness?
• In the past six months, how many days of school have your children missed due to illness?

The questionnaire will be repeated 3-6 months after the Filter is installed. Of course, the data we gather will be useful in demonstrating what ‘effective altruism’ can really do – very small amounts of money, intelligently applied. But of greater important, the participants themselves will have living examples of what their own labor can do both for their own families and for the community.

The project is now a huge success. Hundreds of BioSand Filters have been built and sold. Waterborne illnesses have disappeared. Small businesses - including chicken and goat-raising and handicrafts - have been started. Kitchen gardens are being created. Children are returning to school.

The project has received national publicity in Tanzania. People with albinism groups all over Tanzania are writing to us to ask to start programs in their communities as well.

In November 2012, after beating defeated by militias, troops of the Congolese National Army retreated from Goma in northeast Congo to the town of Minova, where they raped at least 141 women, and raped and pillaged the town. Many of the women either became pregnant or contracted HIV. Their husbands left them, and with them, all income including that required for their children to attend school. Two years later, a show trial was held. All 39 low-ranking soldiers tried were acquitted – it was generally agreed they were rapists, but which soldier raped which woman could not be identified.

In October 2016, Friendly Water for the World provided training and equipment to the women of Minova in fabricating and distributing BioSand Filters. In less than three months, they built and installed 172 BioSand Filters, and netted almost $9,000, enough to feed themselves, for medical care, and to send their children to school.

Their business continued to expand, as the community now realized that they had a reliable source of clean water. They purchased more steel molds, making it possible for them to produce some nine Filters a day. When a cholera epidemic struck two neighboring refugee camps, with hundreds sickened and several dozen deaths, the women provided them with BioSand Filters. Cholera was eliminated in three weeks. As a result, the local health administration decreed that every restaurant, café, and club in Minova should be equipped with a BioSand Filter. To date, the women of Minova have built and installed more than 700 BioSand Filters, providing clean water to more than 18,000 people, and the program has now spread to two more communities of survivors of war-time rape to produce BioSand Water Filters.

Friendly Water congratulates the women of Minova. And we note that we are in need of more funds to expand the program to even more communities. www.friendlywater.net/donate/ Your gifts will be deeply appreciated.

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“My name is CHRISTINE DABUYE. I am the mother of four children, a daughter and three boys. I do not know the father of my daughter because I was raped by members of the military in 2012. The BioSand project has helped me become psychologically stable, especially as I get to work with other women in a similar condition. In difficult living situations, I believed that the high frequency of recurrent cholera in my family was a curse. But since I have a BioSand Filter in my home, cholera, typhoid fever, and diarrhea no longer affects my family.”

“My name is DADE SHAIMBU. I am a teacher. I very much appreciate the work done by the women. After the installation of BioSand Filters, there has been a real improvement in eliminating waterborne diseases and especially cholera in my village Buganga. Last year, cholera killed 14 kids in our village, including my daughter. As a result, I am now a great advocate of the BioSand Fitlers, and I am advising all my co-workers at the Minova school to get Filters for the better health of their families.”

“My name is COMBI BIROLI. I am a refugee living in the Buganga refugee camp. Since as of yet there are no BioSand Filters in the camp, I walk around six kilometers to get filtered water from a friend who lives in Minova and owns a Filter. I make the walk twice a week, and get 20 liters of water at each visit. My family now only drinks filtered water to avoid getting sick. We use non-filtered water for other household needs. Life is very difficult, but I do not regret the distance I have to go to get filtered water, as it has already stopped all waterborne diseases in my family.”

“My name is NYIRONDESE. I live in Minova, and I help my friend Combi Biroli from the refugee camp get clean water from my Filter for free. When visiting, he likes to shower with the filtered water, and he loves that his skin feels a lot healthier. His only wish is that the camp refugees would have access to the Filters as well so he wouldn’t lose so many friends to waterborne diseases.”

“My name is HERI. I was raped, and then abandoned, and became very depressed. I was hospitalized many times for waterborne illnesses, which only added to my distress. Now I own a BioSand Filter and it has changed my life for the better. No more amoebic dysentery, diarrhea, or typhoid fever that had always threatened. Now I am healthy and happy. People have started calling met to get information on how they can get a Filter. I am now a salesperson for the Minova group, and I make enough money to support myself.”

“My name is MAMA MAAJABU LUSENGE. I’m 22 years old. I was raped three years ago. After that, all my friends left me and I found myself isolated and completely alone. The trauma caused me a severe psychotic break and depression. Working with other mothers in the BioSand filter workshop has helped me integrate myself into the community again. It also helped me reconstruct my ambition to pursue school again. Now I can afford to pay the school fee and I’m feeling more confident and independent. I will be starting school next year. To be able to go back to school, I created a saving system from BioSand Filter sales. I put small amounts of money in a box from each sale, which within a year will be enough to pay for the next school year.”

“My name is MAMA VERONIQUE. I am a mother of eight children, all at school age. I was raped by the Congolese National Army, and abandoned by my husband after the rape. I have no income, and my children are not able to attend school. Three of my eight children suffer from severe malnutrition, and all my children have at some point suffered from waterborne diseases, in particular cholera and typhoid. After I was trained in the making of BioSand Filters and have a little income, my family’s health has improved dramatically. My kids are healthy and we have a little food on the table. I’m also planning on sending them back to school next year.”

“I am MAMA BAGAYA FURAHA. I am a farmer taking care of my nine children plus my sister’s three orphans. My sister and her husband were killed during the war. It is a great burden, which at most times I’m unable to bear. I wasn’t able to secure enough food for the family. The kids were sick all the time from drinking bad water. After I brought a BioSand Filter home, all the kids are healthy, and there are no cases of cholera or typhoid at our house. The two kids I am able to send to school are now attending more regularly because they are healthy and happy. Because the weather in Minova is very hot. I came up with a strategy to sell cool clean water. I pack water in small plastic bags that I sell for 100 Congolese francs (10 cents) at the bus stop to the passengers. Now I make about $4 a day to buy food for my kids. I’m planning on getting a cooler powered with solar panels to make my own ice instead of buying it for 2$. This means that I will be making 6$ a day instead of $4. I will then be able to send all my kids to school instead of just two.”

“My name is NYIRANDEZE. I am a father of a family of four children. After I started using the BioSand filter I feel strong and healthy again. Before, I wasn’t able to work. I wasn’t able to provide for my family, which was very hard on my wife and kids. I remained in bed for a very long time. I suffered from typhoid and was taking meds for months with no positive results. I even started to think I was bewitched. After the installation of a BioSand Filter at my house and I started taking my meds with clean water, I started to feel better. It is a miracle.”

“My name is AMINATHA. I am a mother of six children. I wasn’t able to get a BioSand Filter for my family. However, I was able to use the neighboring family’s filter. We only use the Filter for drinking water, and I’m seeing big improvement in my family's health. I solicited the group of moms who build the Filters to make a Filter for me, for which I’m paying $2 a week. I already paid $30 and am almost done paying for the filter. The Filter has been a great investment because now my family is healthy, and we use clean water for all our household activities. not just drinking water. I was hospitalized several times for typhoid fever (at least eight times in a five-month interval). After I started drinking filtered water, I’m feeling great.”

“I am JEAN-MARIE. We are a couple with HIV couple who, before the BioSand filter, were always expecting death at any moment. Today we live a normal life and are in good health. We are not afraid of opportunistic diseases any more. With the medication we have and clean drinking water, we live a better life. One month after the use of the Filter coupled with vigorous hygiene, we feel better and our strength is restored. We have named the Filter “Miracle Filter”.

“My name is MWENGESHIALI. I am 58 years old and a widow. Since I started drinking clean water, I feel healthier, stronger, and younger. Even my skin has become smoother because I wash my skin with clean water without microbes attacking my skin. Before, I had no energy or strength to do my daily shores my strength has returned and I now work normally. I think if you drink clean water you will not age quickly.”