Installing water filters to improve communities along multiple dimensions

In 2021, the American NGO Project 41 partnered with Act for Congo to donate water filters, designed, and produced by Project 41, and have them installed in eastern Congo. Act for Congo worked with its local partner, AGIR-RDC, to carry out the process on the ground. AGIR worked during the summer and fall to identify and evaluate the prospective sites and then funded the installation with local contractors. To date, 13 filters have been installed in ten schools, two orphanages, and one medical center. All sites are characterized by extra levels of vulnerability.

To access the different sites, AGIR staff and partners had to travel to many locations in semi-remote areas. The AGIR team had to use motorbike and foot travel to access some locations where the roads were prohibitive to cars. A few of the filters even made the journey from Goma to conflicted-affected Beni where our local staff navigated the security situation to provide clean drinking water to very vulnerable populations.

AGIR took a thoughtful approach and worked to understand the needs and micro-context of each prospective site. AGIR in these discussions was able to assess the suitability of each site and work with recipients and contractors to tailor the intervention to maximize the impact on the site and in the local community.

AGIR selected 10 primary schools, two orphanages, and one medical center to receive the filters. These sites are distributed across the metropolitan area of Goma and Beni.

Goma is the largest city (two million people) in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, a region that has been in high-intensity and low-intensity conflict for the past 27 years. Goma is the hub for all humanitarian and peacekeeping efforts as well as for the plethora of minerals that are exploited.

Beni is a major city in eastern Congo with a population of several hundred thousand. Armed groups afflict all the transportation routes into the city. The complex conflict in Congo is generally secular and devoid of ideology, however, the one extremist Islamist group in the conflict—Allied Democratic Forces (the ADF)—occupies the forest to the east of Beni. The ADF is infamous for its excessive brutality. The villages along the transportation routes and Beni itself experience routine attacks. For this reason, Beni experiences an extra level of insecurity than the other major cities in eastern Congo.

Primary schools were selected where children were more vulnerable than usual and less likely to receive the benefits of the urban environment nearby. Schools were chosen on the western outskirts of Goma and the villages just north of Goma that received many people displaced by the May volcanic eruption. These places are both vulnerable to armed group recruitment and the displacement camps lie in area that is actively conflict threatened. Two orphanages and a medical center, also on the western outskirts of Goma, were chosen for the same reasons.

AGIR contracted local Congolese plumbers to install the filters and setup the water tank containers. AGIR donated the money to purchase the water tanks, additional equipment, and the labor to install the system.

The filters donated by Project 41 are providing clean water to primary school children, orphans, the patients of a medical center, and the staff of all these locations. These constituencies are characterized by vulnerability that comes from conflict-induced insecurity and poverty that is usually abject. They serve multi-ethnic demographics that are composed of a rough parity between girls and boys.

The impacts of accessible clean drinking water are multi-dimensional. Unnecessary death, especially amongst children, is experienced by every community from water-borne illnesses. The plethora of non-lethal cases drastically reduce educational outcomes, poverty, and disposable income. The health impacts of inaccessible clean drinking water are a huge drain on the quality of life of society.

The impacts extend an extra degree to woman in eastern Congo. The daily pilgrimage to the few water sources available is almost exclusively composed of women and children. The lengthy distances expose them to bad actors and exploitation. Women face constant threat of sexual violence with increased risk in militarized areas (from both rebels, the Congolese military, and international forces).

AGIR’s installation of Project 41 filters is reducing the burden of lost time, lost money, lost productivity, and lost lives in the communities. It is also a tool for empowerment of women and girls. Increased school attendance and reduction in time spent travelling to water sources reduces the opportunities for exploitation and victimization of young girls in the communities. Additionally, the water filters have a synergetic effect with the peace clubs that AGIR has setup in these communities. These peace clubs engage with youth and ex-combatants on peace promotion, hygiene, sexual and reproductive health, the environment, education, and gender equality. The location that water wells are drilled in are often chosen by male elders despite the location most impacting the lives of women and children. The work of the peace clubs and the new access to clean drinking water from the filters are giving women and girls more autonomy and security.