Friendly Water For the World

In the past decade, more people around the world have died from waterborne illnesses than from all wars combined. The toll is greatest among children and families. Lack of access to clean water reduces community productivity, renders education efforts ineffective, and strains already inadequate health care resources. Facing constant sickness and threat, families cannot plan to improve their lives. They are disempowered.

Friendly Water for the World works with communities around the world who have little in the way of access to resources, except for their own intelligence, resilience, pent-up initiative, labor, generosity, and caring. By sharing their knowledge and providing training in ensuring clean water, they help to end a culture of dependency, enabling people and communities to take charge of their lives. And in doing so, we take charge of our own.

We look for technologies and approaches that are proven, affordable, utilize local materials and resources, are easily teachable, and can be replicated, so that what we do in one community together can be readily spread to others.

We teach people to fabricate, distribute, install, and maintain BioSand Water Filters. BioSand Filters are a low-cost, locally implemented technology that are proven to remove bacteria, viruses, protozoa, amoebae, worms, and heavy metals from the water supply.

By teaching people to build and install BioSand Water Filters, combined with community sanitation and hygiene education, we can reduce and ultimately remove the threat of cholera, typhoid, bacterial dysentery, Rotavirus, hepatitis A, cryptosporidiosis, and other waterborne illnesses.

Friendly Water is an Olympia, Washington-based nonprofit founded in 2010. They currently work in 12 countries, in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, as well as in North America. Outside of North America, most of their work is in poor, rural communities, often ignored by large charities, missions, aid organizations, or by their own governments.

They work with everyone – of all races and religions – Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, animist, or none at all.

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