Like Amritha Singh and her children, almost 40,000 families in Nepal are drinking toxic water without realising it. The poison comes from rocks in the mountains. These rocks contain arsenic which, through a natural process, infiltrates the water table and, consequently, gets into the drinking water. Arsenic accumulates in the human body over a period of years. The warning signs of arsenic poisoning are skin lesions resembling freckles. Over time, the poisoning causes serious illnesses such as diseases of the blood vessels and cancer. Ultimately, such poisoning can be fatal.
By convening meetings in villages and affixing notices, Helvetas is making the community aware of the dangers posed by the local drinking water.
Combating the danger of arsenic or how simple nails can save lives in Nepal
The solution is surprisingly simple: passing the contaminated water through a filter of sand, pebbles and nails is all that is required to purify it and make it safe for drinking. In effect, through a chemical process, the arsenic attaches to the nails and is therefore no longer present in the water.
Helvetas educates the inhabitants about the manufacture of sand filters and provides moulds. For 33 Euros, a biological sand filter can be manufactured.
A person trained by Helvetas visits each household to regularly check the quality of the water. As the effectiveness of the sand filter gradually declines, the filter must be changed approximately every two years. The water tester is equipped with a simple laboratory kit, which Helvetas teaches him/her how to operate. A donation of 53 Euros would enable us to train a water tester.
Drinking water enables the progress of disease to be halted in persons already affected and enables others to avoid falling ill. In addition to the Singh family, more than two hundred households were able to have a sand filter fitted last year. In the villages of Lalbojhi and Kotatulsipur, Helvetas has detected the presence of arsenic in other wells. There, 552 families are waiting for help.
Helvetas systematically monitors the levels of arsenic in drinking water wells. A donation of 66 Euros would fund thirty tests to detect the presence of arsenic in spring water.