Partners in Hope, Yunnan China

04/06/2017

A couple of weeks ago we were building latrines in a remote village just 50 miles from the Laos border. A couple students from California Baptist University, a local villager and I climbed up to their water source to test the water. Like almost all the villages I have been to, the place is gorgeous. Unfortunately, the "spring" where they get their water from is highly contaminated with bacteria leading to high diarrhea rates. A couple of families already have our ceramic water filters. It's our dream to help every family in rural Yunnan have safe drinking water in their home, without having to cut down more trees to boil water.

09/04/2017

There are more than 50 ceramic filter factories in 30 countries around the world. Great to see how ceramic filters are helping folks in Cuba.

It was August, 2014, and the women in this rural community made coffee very early that morning and kept their eyes fixed on the dirt track as if they were waiting for the Messiah. “The truck’s coming,” one of them alerted and some men quickly joined them. They were all waiting what had been promised...

28/12/2016

People need safe drinking water. Sometimes those people live on the top of mountains in very cold conditions. Recently, local partners carried our ceramic filters to a mountain top village to help families and a school there have safe drinking water.

09/12/2016

This week Dr. Derek Chitwood is in south Vietnam, in An Giang province. We are helping them finish a ceramic water filter factory and testing the quality of the filters. Bacteria results of the first batch of filters are in and without nano-silver added, the filters have removal efficiency greater than 99.5% of bacteria. The goal is 99%, so mission accomplished! We are feeling good!

14/11/2016

Our team recently finished building a water tank and installing a water system that will provide an entire village easy access to water. No more carrying water up and down these beautiful but steep mountains!

29/09/2016

We are partnering with Kids Across Cultures (KAC) (http://www.kidsacrosscultures.org/our-projects/) to try to get more than 10,000 filters in homes and schools in rural southwest China. Through this project, 1000 filters have already been distributed to homes and schools. If you would like to donate, please visit KAC's website or contact us for more information. (Safe drinking water is a great Christmas present!)

17/06/2016

This week PIH representatives were in Vietnam with UNICEF, Vietnam's National Centre for Rural Water Supply, and RDI - Cambodia. We just signed a MOU to assist them in setting up a ceramic water filter factory that will produce 2000 filters each month in An Giang Province.

01/06/2016

We recently visited another country where, because of civil war, there are internally displaced peoples (IDPs) living in camps. Water at the camps is very polluted and they greatly need filters. Through funding from a foundation, several years ago we distributed filters to some of the camps. Today there are more than 46,000 people living in these camps and only a fraction have water filters. We went there to test water, understand the need for filters, and test our filters that were put there to see how they are doing.

25/05/2016

We just sent our university student volunteers back to the US! Our little minions spent the last couple of weeks working hard on two new latrines. You can't ever say we don't have fun!

04/05/2016

Children under 5 years old are most susceptible to diarrheal diseases due to their immature immune systems. PIH partners with other local organizations to distribute free water filters to families with kids under 5 in order to help prevent contraction of water-borne diseases. This weekend we distributed 18 filters in one village and followed up in another village where the team had previously distributed 40!

30/04/2016

We do a lot of water testing in Yunnan's villages using the Coliscan Easygel system. It's amazing how simple and accurate it is! A simple test plus one ceramic water filter installation can completely change a family's life!