People-Planet-Friendly Appropriate Technologies

Solar CookerSolar cooking is the simplest, safest, most convenient way to cook food without consuming fuels or heating up the kitchen. Many people choose to solar cook for these reasons. But for hundreds of millions of people around the world who cook over fires fueled by wood or dung, and who walk for miles to collect wood or spend much of their meager incomes on fuel, solar cooking is more than achoice, it is a blessing. For millions of people who lack access to safe drinking water and become sick or die each year from preventable waterborne illnesses, solar water pasteurization is a life-saving skill. There are numerous reasons to cook the natural way, with the sun.

More at SolarCooker.org

Filtron, the low cost, effective water filtration device by potters for peace

Every year there are 1.7 million deaths, mainly children under the age of five, due to diarrhea caused by unsafe water. The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goal is to halve the number of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water by the year 2015. Achieving this would require that at least 125,000 people be connected to safe water supplies each day before the 2015 target. Diseases related to inadequate water and sanitation cause an estimated 80% of all sickness in the developing world.

Safe drinking water is a precondition for health and the fight against child mortality, gender inequality and poverty. Women and children, especially girls, bear the burden of time spent collecting and transporting water, meaning less time available for activities such as school, essential to escaping the trap of extreme poverty.

A simple, clay filter incorporating the microbiological inhibiting properties of colloidal silver is providing clean drinking water to families throughout the developing world. Called a Filtron, the device can be made by enterprising local potters and sold inexpensively to people in rural areas to eliminate the microorganisms often present in water used for drinking. The Filtron is a ceramic filter shaped like a flowerpot that is saturated with an industrial concentration of colloidal silver. The filters can be press-molded, formed by hand, or turned on a potter’s wheel before being fired in a brick kiln. Made from a mix of clay and sawdust, the filters block the larger water-borne particles while the colloidal silver inactivates bacteria small enough to get through the filter’s tiny holes. The device has been proven 98 to 100% effective in the laboratory in eliminating bacteria and bacterial indicators, though education and proper use are vital to replicating these results in household use.

A benchmark filtration rate of between one and three liters per hour is attained by fine tuning the clay/combustible mix and firing temperature. Filter units are sold for about $10-15 with the basic plastic receptacle. Replacement filter elements cost about $4.00. Production and transportation costs vary from country to country and a basic shop with three or four workers can produce about fifty filters a day.

More info from the creators of Filtron : Potters for Peace

More scientific test results of Filtron at http://www.edc-cu.org/filtron.htm

Mohammed Bah Abba's Pot-in-Pot Refrigerator - 40 cent US$ Refrigerator for the Poor“In rural northern Nigeria, there are no refrigerators. Most people don’t even have electricity. So perishable food must be eaten immediately, or it will go to waste. Mohammed Bah Abba, a local teacher, has developed an ingenious solution: the Pot-in-Pot Preservation Cooling System. A small earthenware pot is placed inside a larger one, and the space between the two is filled with moist sand. The inner pot is filled with fruit, vegetables or soft drinks; a wet cloth covers the whole thing. As water in the sand evaporates through the surface of the outer pot, it carries heat, drawing it away from the inner core. Eggplants stay fresh for 27 days, instead of the usual three. Tomatoes and peppers last for up to three weeks. A recipient of the Rolex Award for Enterprise, Abba, 37, who hails from a family of potmakers, is using his $75,000 award to make the invention available throughout Nigeria. He has already sold 12,000.”

“The impact of the Pot-in-Pot on individuals’ lives is overwhelming. “Farmers are now able to sell on demand rather than ‘rush sell’ because of spoilage,” says Abba, “and income levels have noticeably risen. Married women also have an important stake in the process, as they can sell food from their homes and overcome their age-old dependency on their husbands as the sole providers.” In turn, and perhaps most significantly for the advancement of the female population, Abba’s invention liberates girls from having to hawk food each day. Instead, they are now free to attend school, and the number of girls enrolling in village primary schools is rising.”

“Abba has recently begun to sell his pots at 40 US cents a pair, 10 cents higher than the original production cost. While the proceeds will help finance manufacturing and distribution costs . . . . In 1999, Abba built additional pot-making factories and supplied another dozen local villages with 7,000 pots, again at his expense. He estimates that three-quarters of the rural families in Jigawa are now using his cooling device . . . . He estimates that it will take five years to cover the whole of northern Nigeria and hopes one day to export the Pot-in-Pot to other hot, dry countries facing similar problems.”

“Encouraged by these positive results, Abba will soon begin distributing the cooling devices to the four Nigerian states bordering Jigawa, starting with Yobe. However, looking at his experience over the past five years, he understands that one of the biggest obstacles is educating the villagers about this simple technology.”

“As training workshops and the use of “criers”, village PR men, were only moderately successful, Abba has devised an educational campaign tailored to village life and the illiterate population. The innovative campaign features a video-recorded play by local actors who dramatise the benefits of the desert refrigerator. Abba has begun showing the video in villages using a makeshift cloth screen and a portable projector and generator. “Nightfall is best,” he comments, “because this is when farmers head home and are keen to watch an entertaining presentation.”

Full Article

The Inveneo Communication System - ICT for Remote RegionsThe Inveneo Communications System is designed to provide computing, Internet Access and VoIP telephony for places with little or no access to electricity or affordable communications. It is specifically designed to meet the needs of NGOs, local governments and private development organizations, and the communities they serve. It can be used for a wide range of applications which include economic and community development, telehealth, education, humanitarian aid and emergency relief.

NGOs and other organizations operating in rural environments need ICT solutions that fit their unique situation. Inveneo’s innovative solution has been engineered to meet these need by integrating proven hardware and open-source software to create a rugged, resilient and simple to operate system.

The Inveneo Communications System consists of two components; the Communications Station and the Hub Station that combine to provide a complete, ICT solution that is ready to use upon installation:
The Communications Station is designed for use by end-users in a village home, school, or clinic setting. It provides computing, telephony and Internet access.
The Hub Station is designed for use by a network administrator and is located in a regional location. It is used to manage the network and to provide connectivity to data and voice services.

It is designed to be flexible with different configurations available to meet the needs of different applications.

More at Inveneo.org

Keywords : appropriate technologies, solar cookers, water purification, information and communication technology, internet, tele-health, refrigerator
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