Lead a vivid life that does good

Tag: Clean Water

Don’t let big numbers stop you making a difference.

663 million people with no clean water.As this post goes live, my friend at work has her 1 billionth second on this planet. HAPPY 1,000,000,000 seconds.

As humans were generally not that good at understanding numbers. A Million or a Billion, not that much different right? Well…

  • A thousand seconds, is 16 minutes away. Make sense, feels about right.
  • A million seconds, which is 1000 x 1000, is 11.5 days away. Less than a fortnight.
  • A billion seconds, which is 1000 x 1000 x 1000, is just on 32 years away. I think I just gave away my friends age.

There is a massive difference between 1 million and a billion.

Count the population of NZ at 1 per second … 52 days. Count the population of the world at 1 per second … 228 years!

I love the way that counting seconds gives us a better perspective on large numbers.

Numbers like…

  • Only about half the world’s population have water on tap, which means at their compound. That means 3.7 BILLION people don’t. Imagine counting that high (114 years.)
  • Worse yet, 663 million people have no access, zero, to clean water.
  • And as for sanitation. 2.4 Billion people have no access to toilets.

It’s big numbers like these, that drove Jim & I to set up the Good Trust. Not because we alone can get water to 663,000,000 people, but because we know we can make a difference to a few.

It turns out its easier than you’d expect, for you, 1 person, to make a difference for many many people.

The key.

Don’t let the big numbers scare you.

Over the last few years Good Trust has provided clean water to over 6,000 people, and we are super excited to be visiting some of our projects in Cambodia in April. Thanks to our supporters! We have the ideas, you’ve made things happen. We look forward to sharing stories.

If you would like to support the Good Trust, we’d love it if you made a donation. It would be a great use of a few seconds.

Finally, back to my friend, who is now many seconds past 1,000,000,000. Congratulations! I know that your next Billion seconds will be your best yet!

So the water that comes from the Well is not 100% pure?

Mid sentence Jim exhaled an audible groan and instantly we burst into uncontrolled laughter. The groan just reflected the thoughts echoing in our heads as we bounced, banged and rocked our way along the red clay road in a remote rural area of Cambodia. Our hosts were taking us, no, bouncing us to a village where BioSand Filters where in production.

We had come to Cambodia to see the good.water wells that Good Trust had funded and our partners Samaritans Purse have installed. Once at the communities we saw the wells, turned the handles to pump water, took photos and asked questions. It was incredibly satisfying to see clean water pouring from a hand pump on a well that we had enabled. Yet after watching them pump water, they promptly poured it into these bizarre looking concrete containers that trickled forth clean drinking water.

To be honest, before seeing Bio-Sand Filters (BSFs) in action I had not appreciated the importance they played in providing clean water. I very naively thought that we put a Well in, and the water was fresh and ready to drink. It is close, and infinitely better than drinking brown dirty water directly from the rice fields, which is what they did before, however when the water is filtered through a BSF is is 99% free of the germs and ugly stuff that causes sickness.

They are awesome!

Once we arrived at the village where BSFs were being built, we saw how actively involved the community was in constructing them. SP provided the molds and materials, and the people set about building almost a 100 BSFs for each home in the area. BSFs are very low maintenance and last up to 15 years. (If you want to know more about how BSFs work click here).

And the cost of the materials to provide clean water to a household for 15 years?

$30 !

Personally what struck me most as I left the communities we visited was not that they had clean water, but rather how incredibly fortunate we are.

To get clean water they hand-pump water, carry it back to their home and pour it through a BSF. I on the other hand not only shower in drinking water at the turn of a tap, but water my lawns with drinking water in the summer.

And, for the price of feeding my family of 5 takeaways on the odd occasion, I could provide a family with clean water for 15 years!


Lesson 2 from Cambodia visit 2012: Bio Sand Filters are awesome value and worth the investment.