Coca-Cola Foundation awards US$ 1 million for innovative water and sanitation solutions

The Coca-Cola Foundation will award a total of US$1 million to support four innovative projects to improve water resources and sanitation in developing nations. The projects were selected by the Global Water Challenge (GWC) business coalition and Ashoka’s Changemakers through “Tapping Local Innovation: Unclogging the Water and Sanitation Crisis,” an online competition calling for groundbreaking solutions to some of the world’s most pressing water and sanitation challenges. A total of 265 projects from social entrepreneurs in 54 countries around the world were submitted to the competition.

The projects receiving funding are:

• Naandi Foundation: Clean drinking water for underserved populations in India
• Manna Energy Foundation: Water treatment plants to create fuel for families in rural Rwanda
• Ecotact: Treatment systems that safely transform waste into fuel and fertilizer for Kenyan communities
• Clean Shop: Public education to support clean latrines for South African schools

Further details of the projects are given below:

Naandi Foundation, India: Community-based Safe Drinking Water Systems:
Through a collaborative partnership between villages, technology partners and the states, the Naandi Foundation is facilitating the availability of safe drinking water to citizens in the Andhra Pradesh and Punjab states of India. The village panchayats support the development of water purification plants in the villages, and the partnership supplies water to villagers at a nominal user fee, which pays for the operations and maintenance that make the plant sustainable. A public education program in the villages also creates an environment for greater understanding of health, hygiene and sanitation issues among local citizens.

Naandi Foundation, has partnered with WaterHealth International (USA) and developed the Community Safe Water Systems (CSWS) model. It has also partnered with Tata Projects Limited – India, in developing a similar community based model to address fluoride contamination.

More information is available at www.naandi.org.

Manna Energy Foundation, Rwanda: Developing Another World in Rural Rwanda:
With funding through carbon credits, the Manna Energy Foundation is installing close to 500 water treatment systems and biogas generators for secondary schools in Rwanda. The project will reach a population of 236,000 students, which amounts to three percent of the Rwandan population. The water treatment plants will use gravity and photovoltaic filtration systems, and the biogas generators will take human and kitchen waste and capture the waste methane, which can be used in high efficiency cook stoves. More information is available at www.mannaenergy.org

Ecotact – Innovating Sanitation, Kenya: Iko-Toilet Thinking Beyond a Toilet:
Ecotact is implementing an innovative model for installing and operating pay-for-use toilets in urban areas of Kenya by leveraging recent innovations in environmental sanitation. Waterless urinals reduce water consumption; urine is segregated and sold as fertilizer, and some facilities will use human waste to generate methane gas which reduces sewage disposal. Each toilet offers additional services, tailored to meet the needs of the local community: a small business, showers, and an ATM. The diverse array of funding sources includes user fees, advertising revenues, and the leasing of a small space to microentrepreneurs. More information is available at www.ecotact.org.

Clean Shop, South Africa: Schools Sanitation Improvement and Enhancement Project:
Clean Shop employs 350 people and conducts daily cleaning and hygiene services for schools, universities, mines, supermarkets, and gas stations. In partnership with the University of Venda, Clean Shop educates parents with children in public schools to clean and operate local school latrines. It is poised to operate in many more schools in partnership with the South African government. More information is available at www.thecleanshop.co.za. Further details about these solutions and more can be found at www.changemakers.net.

Source : Coca-Cola, 19 Dec 2008