Clean Water Campaign for Rural China

What's the Problem?

Currently 947 million people; three-quarters of China's population live in rural areas. According to the joint evaluation of the Chinese Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Health, there are about 300 million rural residents who do not have access to safe drinking water.

A major threat to rural water safety is high levels of microbial contamination caused by human and animal waste. 70% of the water supplies in rural China do not have access to equipment needed for water sanitation treatment. A cost effective solution to treat this rural water problem in China is the application of our innovative chlorine systems.

Improving water quality is an important step towards advancing public health in China. Waterborne diseases, such as typhoid, cholera, hepatitis and chronic diarrhea are the leading causes of child and infant mortality and morbidity in China as well as in other developing countries. Due to microbial contamination in drinking water, more than 800 million cases of diarrhea are reported in China each year and the death rate of children from diarrhea is fourteen times higher in rural areas than in the city. These diseases are known to lower the mental and physical growth of children.

Our goal at International Action is to provide safe drinking water to rural residents in China which could save hundreds of thousands of lives and improve the health of millions.

What Are We Working On?

In the summer of 2009, a Chinese NGO invited International Action to provide a training session on chlorine technology for 20 water and poverty officials from three counties in the Shaanxi Province of northwestern China. At the end of the training session, our water expert installed the first chlorinator in Wugucheng (40 km from WuQi County). Since then, more chlorinators have been installed on the local water system by Chinese technicians trained by International Action experts. So far, more than 5,000 rural residents are benefiting from chlorinators provided by International Action.

In May 2010, International Action experts revisited the chlorinator installation sites in the Shaanxi province. Inspections proved that all chlorinators had survived Northern China's extreme weather conditions and were in excellent working condition. Mr. Wang, Director of the Poverty Reduction Office of Wuqi County in the Shaanxi Province expressed his enthusiasm by stating, "I'm very pleased with the chlorinators installed in the local community and I would like to see more chlorinators installed on our water systems". Mr. Qi, head of the water supply team of Wuqi County believes this technology is a simple and economical solution to improve local water quality.

Rural China provides many possibilities for using the chlorinators and helping thousands more people. In the Wuqi County alone, there are about 100 water systems, each supplying between 500 and 3,000 residents. The Shaanxi province is only one of 22 provinces in mainland China and there are 13,000 water systems which require chlorine treatment. International Action Director Lindsay Mattison remarks, "The chlorine program – when expanded to more provinces in China – will save millions of lives and improve the health of countless children living in rural areas."

Partnerships

Our chlorine technology also drew the attention of China Charity – the second biggest non-profit organization in China. Mr. Wu, the project leader, showed strong interest in working with us to make our chorine technology available in rural communities located in hard to reach, mountainous areas in Guangxi Province.

International Action is also working on a collaborative partnership with the Gansu Research Institute for Water Conversancy (GRIWC). Mr. Stottlemyer, our water expert, was invited to teach this chlorine technology in their rainwater collection training program. This program teaches foreigners about Rainwater Catchment and Utilization. In the past 8 years, the Institute has trained over 2,000 graduate water specialists in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Additionally, International Action is working with other partner NGOs to help GRIWC to establish a ceramic filter factory pioneer project to treat collected rain water for drinking.

Model Projects

Partnering with the Poverty Reduction Office and local Water Bureau of Wuqi County, International Action plans to make Wuqi County a model for our clean water campaign in northern China. International Action will donate 100 chlorine systems, sufficient chlorine tablets to startup the systems, and hundreds of test kits for measuring the chlorine level to Wuqi County. This project will cover all the water systems in Wuqi County, which provide clean water to over 130,000 residents (2005).

A gift of $75 will help to provide 25kg chlorine tablets to rural villagers to disinfect their drinking water.

A gift of $195 will help to install a FL1000 chlorinator that covers up to 10,000 residents.

A gift of $11,940 will help to set up a model project like the one in Wuqi County elsewhere in China.

Please support our program though Razoo or though our website.

We look forward to hearing from you!

china.project@haitiwater.org