Ken Owino, Nafsi Acrobats, Water Purification and More

Ken Owino is a friend in Kenya, and a great sharer of information.

This blog entry is to briefly introduce him and share his recent email which is copied in full below and begins

"I have realised a new trend of purifying water in Kibera slums.
I have also joined the long list of people purifying water using solar.
It is quite easy and nominally cheap-absolutely costless i would say."

Later in the day a reply from Ricardo gave additional information on how to do this, so I have added his email after Ken's.

By way of introduction - Ken is leader of the Nafsi Africa Acrobats, whose work was the catalyst for the Minciu Sodas Pyramid of Peace initiative during the post-election turmoil in Kenya in 2008. We originally met through Minciu Sodas, and have been able to spend time together in Nairobi and also in Europe. I have great respect for Ken and his multi-faceted (very practical but visionary) work. I hope to add more about him in a later edit to this page. (Ricardo is a great innovator, distance teacher and information provider, more about him elsewhere in LearnByDoing.)

I also hope to help Ken visit John Dada sometime, as they are both great community development practitioners with much to share. We plan to work together more closely when Dadamac reaches out beyond Nigeria. When John and I have further developed the Research, Development and Training Centre we hope to bring more people like Ken there, to enable idea sharing and replication.

Ken's email follows:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kennedy Owino
Date: 2009/1/26
Subject: [nafsiafrikasaana] Water Purification
To: nafsi Afrika acrobats , mendenyo@yahoogroups.com, holistic helping , learning from each other


Hi Sam, Tom and all,

I have realised a new trend of purifying water in Kibera slums.
I have also joined the long list of people purifying water using solar.
It is quite easy and nominally cheap-absolutely costless i would say.

It involves keeping water in a 5lt (whatever size you choose) water bottle that has been painted black.
The water bottle is left in the iron sheet roofs for some hours.
The water undergoes purification using the sun’s rays through a technique known as solar water disinfection process (Sodis).

It is an open secret that tap water and water bought from water vendors in the slum is contaminated with sewage.

After hours under the sun, the water is safe for drinking.

This water purification process involves simply exposing the liquid to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. In just hours, the UV radiation from the sun’s rays will have killed the micro-organisms in the water.

I think this is a phenomenon worth being adopted by the rural communities where diarrohea, cholera or water borne diseases is commn place.

Peace,

Ken Owino
Nafsi Africa Acrobats
www.nafsiafrica.org
+254723568251

Later in the day Ricardo replied:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ricardoolpc
Date: 2009/1/26
Subject: [mendenyo] Re: Water Purification
To: mendenyo@yahoogroups.com


Hi Ken
that's really interesting. I found this Sodis step by step
guide with pictures, and info on the number of hours of sunlight,
bottle type, etc.

http://www.sodis.ch/Text2002/T-Howdoesitwork.htm

Ricardo