I had just sent an email to CROAP, our Cambodian NGO, to suggest the few areas that we can work on. We are very fortunate to have a very receptive local NGO. In addition to the water facilities, I intend to plan for a few more meaningful activities for our team. Probably will have to check out with CROAP. Otherwise, we can probably link up with other NGOs for mini-projects.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Liaison with CROAP
The following is one of the email which i sent to CROAP.
Dear Father,
From the discussion with my university, we would like to suggest a few areas in which we can work on to improve the quality of the water.
Firstly, the water in the existing pond is rather murky. It is likely to be due to the type of sand/soil in the area which caused the water to be unclear.
Instead of relying on the existing dug pond, in which water seeps through the soil from the river to the pond, we suggest building a separate concrete pond(attached as Pond design.ppt) with a drain to channel water from the river to the pond. We can add in different layers of filters in the drain, so that when water is filtered as it travels through the drain.
With the concrete pond, we can directly use the water from the pond for washing purposes.
Secondly, we suggest building a simple water filtration concrete unit whereby water is filtered from the top and clean water is collected at the bottom.
Water will seep through layers of filters. I have attached a sketch(Blueprints.zip) of the proposed filtration unit. It may seems rather confusing.
I will try to obtain pictures of a built one, so that it can help you to better visualize.
With the filtration unit, water produced is likely to be portable, but it will take a longer time. Therefore, water for washing should be taken from the pond whereas water for drinking should be taken from the concrete filtration unit.
Our team hopes to build the above two facilities with the support of CROAP.
What do you think of our proposed solution?
Please feel free to clarify with us.
Hope to hear from you soon!