Mehiel Foundation Provides Clean Drinking Water To Families In Rural Pakistan

"Our aim is to make the world a better place, one family at a time" - Lawrence Patrick, Mehiel Foundation's Executive Director

Mehiel Foundation is a small charitable organisation based in Oxfordshire, UK, founded in 2010 which has undertaken 32 projects in 13 countries around the world. Its primary aim is to tackle the underlying causes of poverty and social injustice, in order to deliver lasting change in the lives of poor and vulnerable people.

In 2010, the UN General Assembly recognized access to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right and called for international efforts to help countries to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation.

Some 827 000 people in low- and middle-income countries die as a result of inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene each year, representing 60% of total diarrhoeal deaths. Poor sanitation is believed to be the main cause of some 432 000 of these deaths.

Mehiel Foundation is committed to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals particularly, SDG6, Clean Water And Sanitation.

We work with local partners to improve sanitation and provide clean drinking water as well as health education.

Our most recent clean water project is aimed at large families in rural Pakistan.

"Prior to our endeavour, families used to wash clothes and dishes in the same canal where water for cooking was collected from, resulting in countless deaths and illnesses" said Adeel Aasi, Mehiel Foundation's local project director in Pakistan's Punjab region.

The Biosand filter is an innovative version of the slow sand filter specifically designed for household use. These filters are built locally using available materials and labor.

The Biosand filter is comprised of a plastic container and is about the size of an office water cooler. It has an inset plastic pipe and is filled with layers of sand and gravel. Dirty water is poured into the top of the biosand filter, where a diffuser plate evenly distributes the water over the sand bed layer. The water travels down through the sand bed, passes through multiple layers of gravel, and collects in the plastic pipe at the bottom of the filter. The clean water then exits through the plastic piping for a family to collect in clean containers.

The removal of contaminants and disease causing agents is possible due to a combination of biological degradation and mechanical filtration processes. The organic material present in the dirty water is trapped at the surface of the sand bed, forming a biological layer which actively removes pathogens and contaminants. The drinking water produced with the Biosand process is tasteless, clear in color, odorless and safe for drinking.

Studies have shown the Biosand filter can remove more than 90% of bacteria and 100% of parasites, dramatically increasing the safety of the water.