WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENE YOUTH NETWORK

Most children in rural areas in the Central Region of Ghana do not have access to clean water. In many occasions, when they are going to school, they use pet bottles, cup or gallon, to fetch water from rivers and streams nearest to their schools. These rivers or streams usually are raw water and unhealthy, untreated and unsafe for drinking. Nevertheless, they typically depend on their schools to provide them with clean water throughout the day. However, some schools also rely on rivers or lakes for survival. This is a well-known situation that occurs in rural areas and necessitates immense attention. To help these communities have access to clean water, The WASH Youth Network, Ghana, is designing an efficient and easy to use water filter for children in the rural communities.

In this project, we are developing a bamboo nanocarbon filter for underprivileged children in the Brimsu town located in the Central Region of Ghana as a case study and it will be upscaled to different communities upon successful deployment of this device. The project is conceptualized and led by Daniel Dodoo, an Erasmus Mundus Scholar studying MSc in Chemical Nanoengineering. He came up with this concern and enthusiastic action to provide a solution to this usual practice. Bamboo is selected as the raw material because it has a high filtration efficiency and capable of retaining the minerals in the water after filtration. It is also is readily available in the community. The filtation procedure is simple, and we can quickly train the locals on how to develop their own bamboo nanocarbon water filter for their children. This project is a voluntary work without compensation from the community.