Kids soak up new technology

KARACHI: Supplying clean water to flood survivors is a priority for all relief organisations, but the challenges of doing so go beyond provision alone.

The Karachi Relief Trust is using LifeStraw, a portable filtration device that has been successfully used to purify water in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, in spite of its simple design, volunteers described their difficulty in convincing and teaching survivors how to use it.

According to one volunteer, the men resisted the idea of learning how to purify their own water, saying that it was a woman’s job to collect (and therefore purify) the water.

Adults were also sceptical about the importance of drinking clean water and lacked awareness about the spread of water-borne diseases.

Meanwhile, the youngest residents of the camps were especially excited about learning to use the curious new device and picked it up quickly.

However, leaving one of the most important tasks to children had obvious drawbacks. While they were eager to try the pumps, it soon became a game for the younger ones, who would race to fill up their utensils and sometimes mix clean and dirty water to win.

One volunteer described it as “disturbing” to see toddlers bear the burden of bringing clean water to their families, especially when the slow filtration process required them to exercise a great deal of patience.

Salman Madani, a KRT volunteer, said that water purification was “gaining acceptability” among adults but only when news of disease spread.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2010.