The challenge
Years of conflict have displaced more than half a million people across North Kivu. As families return to their villages, they find the water infrastructure destroyed — so they drink from whatever lake, river, or puddle they can reach. Cholera is the number-one killer here, typhoid the second.
The danger isn’t only in the water. Women and children walk hours to collect it, and those long walks through rural areas carry a real risk of violence and assault. Safe water close to home is also a safety issue.
On average, providing clean water to roughly 1,500 people who lack it saves one life every year. In a crisis this acute, the cost to do that is astonishingly low.
Our solution
Phase 1 (now): we fund simple gravity-fed membrane filters — about $50 each, no electricity, no chemicals, removing cholera and typhoid bacteria at 0.1 micron. Half go to a central PALPER-run distribution point, half to families directly. Each filter delivers years of safe water with nothing but a periodic backwash.
Phase 2 (next): our engineers design a simple, locally-operable water treatment point that PALPER staff run for whole communities — sited where women and children can reach it safely. We keep it deliberately simple: ultrafiltration with a washable pre-filter, no fragile chemical supply chains to fail.
A small community contribution (around $0.01 per 5 gallons) funds the local operators and builds the ownership that makes a system last.
Who does what
We are force multipliers, not occupiers — the local partner leads and we supply the science, the design, and the funding.
- Diagnose source-water quality and match the filtration technology
- Fund filters, spares, and shipping — 100% of donations
- Engineer the Phase 2 community treatment point & write the grants
- Document every distribution with photos and records
- Operate the central filtration and distribution point
- Identify and reach the most vulnerable families first
- Train every household in the local language
- Secure government blessing, permits, and logistics
The team behind it
Volunteer scientists and engineers donating their expertise to this project — click anyone to see their work.
From the field
