Drip Filters Project with The Rotary Club of Patong Beach for Thailand
On the 3rd of March 2012, staff and friends of AD participated in installing the “Drip filters project” in the beautiful Laem Naew village, which is situated in Suksamran Disctrict. This project set up by Rotary Club of Patong Beach (RCoPB) has been a real success thanks to the cooperation with Andaman Discoveries. Rotary Club of Patong Beach is an English Speaking Club, located in Phuket, with members from 13 different countries, which was set up to support communities after tsunami.
Our first installation for the project was in Ban Chimee for 60 drip filters, and Bang Lampu for 65 drip filters on 19thFebruary 2012. Many villages in Thailand don’t have access to water and it usually comes from polluted sources. As there’s no access to electricity, usual water filtration systems are not practical. The villagers also use rainwater stored in tanks for drinking water then boil or filter but it often runs out during the dry season.
The Drip Filter is a ceramic system, and a low cost alternative to provide these families with bacteria and pollution free drinking water, they can have a local drinking water instead of buying bottles of water from the mainland.
We are very active in the communities and have a long relationship with the RCoPB through other projects and have the capability to follow up and make sure the Drip Filters are properly used and maintained thanks to our social network.
For this second installation we carried 31 drip filters for more than a 100 people, and it was very interesting to be part of this project to make sure everything was going well and also see the cooperation between the villagers (Andaman Discoveries) and the Rotary Club of Patong Beach.
On the 17th of March, we also assembled a total of 64 drip filters and gave instructions to the Moken and Thai families on the island of Koh Phratong and in the remote villages of Tung Dap and Ban Lions, on how to best use the filter.
