Let’s take the existing model of providing water to the poor which involves lots of challenges:
- Outdated hand pumps that break within a short amount of time
- No maintenance available due to focus on just installing and rarely maintaining
- Little to no water filtering (bacteria, toxins, heavy metals)
- Focus on short-term fixes and providing water but not necessarily clean water
- No overall strategy to fix the issue, just patching from one place to another
- No change in the situation – endless dependence
BONDH-E-SHAMS (The Solar Water Project) – www.bondheshams.org
BES utilizes rapid deployable water filtration boxes that can service a community of up to 5,000 to 10,000 people. It can be set up in under 10 minutes on-site and over any existing water source. It has full filtration capability that is tailored to that source of water. Expected lifespan is 25+ years.
BES is now creating scalable water plants around the country that will sell bottled water to the population and from that profit, pay for water boxes for those villages that cannot afford it. The investors are the charities that work in that area, who will then get a target return of 10% in a year for their investment. BES will use that investment to build water plants that will then become a source of recurring income.
The charities win by not having to use funds for water and also getting a 10% return to do their other work. BES gets capital to build the water plants. The people of that region help those who cannot by purchasing water bottles from BES. The profit from the water plants supports operation and also pays for the villages that cannot afford the water. So, in essence, the charities and people in that area are now able to fix that problem for good. This becomes a scalable solution because if we can do this at a city level, we can do that at a regional level as well. And again using existing resources that are already there.
