We believe our work is unique in the following ways:

1. We focus on local capacity building: we assist local organizations in their efforts to address their specific water-related issues. At Water1st, we are committed to practices that foster effective international aid, such as investing in the development of our in-country partner organizations. We are not wasteful; we are effective.
2. Our money goes to community-level projects that integrate water, sanitation, and hygiene education. Community-level projects provide equal benefits to all community members and are the best approach because:
   -They allow for the most efficient and cost-effective solution; the cost of developing a water source can be shared by many individuals.
   -They offer greater health benefits. A major pathway of waterborne illnesses is person to person. If my neighbors are still getting sick because they haven’t adopted better hygiene practices, then I don’t reduce my risk by making changes in my own household, particularly in communities where people live in high-density environments.
   -They are sustained by the support of many trained, motivated people in the community. When the project is ultimately owned and operated by every beneficiary, everyone is invested in keeping it running.
3. We have established ambitious and measurable goals for all projects. We expect that every project will effectively eliminate water collection time for women and girls. Projects must result in at least 50 gallons of water use a day per household. Every household must pay for the water it uses and the amount of money collected must exceed monthly expenses. Every family must have a convenient, odorless toilet that completely separates human waste from the environment. In addition to homes, projects must serve all public spaces: schools, clinics, and places of worship.
4. We back-up our claims of sustainability with rigorous project monitoring. We follow up more thoroughly and frequently than other groups. We learn valuable lessons about our programs when we visit a project after five years versus a site visit at two years. Lessons learned at every stage of our monitoring process, over a span of decades, guide improvements and foster sustainability.
5. We develop relationships with our beneficiaries and local partner organizations.
6. We respect our beneficiaries and local partners. We listen to our beneficiaries and seek to address their greatest need.

Household filters can purify water. But they’re not a solution to the world water crisis, a far more complicated problem than unclean water. Here’s what household filters don’t do:

Household filters don’t end the walk for water, which is about time and gender equity; they don’t carry water for women and children. Women and girls in poor countries walk up to 5 hours a day carrying home heavy containers of water for their families. This prevents them from taking part in economic and development opportunities that move their communities forward, such as starting a small business. It also prevents millions of girls from going to school, thus perpetuating a cycle of illiteracy among women. Access to education impacts the population and economy of a country as a whole: countries with the least educated people are the poorest.

Household filters don’t make water convenient, accessible, or available at sufficient quantities. Why is water quantity so important? Unlike your average person in the U.S., who is using too much water, our beneficiaries need to use more water. Water is the foundation of good hygiene. If the goal is to prevent the spread of disease, then frequent hand washing, bathing, and the washing of dishes and clothes is as important, if not more important, than clean drinking water. Household filters only purify the water you have. When people don’t have enough water to practice good hygiene, household treatment devices such as filters are woefully inadequate.

Water1st projects address all pathways to disease: food preparation, working with animals, sanitation, and drinking. Having an accessible water supply and toilet nearby addresses every potential pathway.

Household filters typically cost a lot, especially when you take replacement costs into consideration, and not all people in a community can afford them. Households have a difficult time knowing when to replace a filter, and even if they do know when to replace, the high cost often results in families postponing the expense until it’s too late. It’s actually more economical and sustainable to support a Water1st community-level project that addresses water, sanitation, and hygiene, than it is to manage a household filter over time.

Filters don’t develop a community’s organizational capacity and help communities solve their own problems, beyond water. They are a quick fix, which really isn’t addressing the primary public health problem.

Return on Investment (ROI) is a complicated formula, particularly for a water project, which provides multi-faceted benefits to an entire community. Experts estimate benefits of projects that integrate water supply, toilets, and hygiene education to be in the range of 3 to 34 times the cost. This is a wide range of possible returns on one’s investment. And these are the theoretical benefits, which will not be realized by the community if the project doesn’t adequately address all issues or suffers from management issues and stops producing the full range of benefits after a short period of time.

Water1st implements projects that achieve outcomes at the high end of the scale, particularly when it comes to our comprehensive solution and project longevity. We implement piped-water systems that deliver water to every household and community gathering place. We provide flush toilets. Our hygiene education programs are thorough; allowing beneficiaries to practice key behaviors learned because they have the necessary resources (10+ gallons of water per person per day and a pour flush toilet). Water1st projects address every pathway of disease transmission, enabling every community to experience maximum health benefits.

Water1st projects completely eliminate the walk for water, a labor input that women and children must invest in daily when water is not piped to every household. Every foot of pipe purchased equals one foot of walking avoided, 365 days a year, for the life of the pipe (10-25 years). A 3-meter segment of pipe costs about $5.25. Each 3-meter segment of pipe saves at least 60 hours of labor over its lifetime.

At this point, ROI calculations become very controversial. Economists would assign a market rate value a woman’s time. In Honduras, it could be as low as $1/hr, resulting in an ROI of 11:1. But the money invested is actually a product of the labor of a person in the United States, where the donation of 3 meters of pipe represents 6-20 minutes of labor. In this case, the ROI is between 180 and 600 to 1. We assert that the latter method of calculating ROI is more accurate in this context.

In the regions where we work, we have never heard a woman say that she misses carrying water for 5 hours a day. They only give thanks that they have safe, clean water nearby. A common response we hear is, “I thought I’d never see the day of having water at my house.” We once made the mistake of asking a woman in Honduras if she would walk with us to the water source she used before the water project. She politely but firmly refused. She said she never wants to walk to that water source again. The truth is that the social interactions at a water source are often very unpleasant. Women vie for the best locations to fill containers. Women who come from greater distances are considered intruders and often endure verbal and even physical abuse. When those women get access to a water source, they are elated. When they are actually part owners of the system, the part of their day that used to bring them shame becomes a source of pride.

It is true that there are cultural differences around the world. We can’t assume someone living in a far-off place wants the same things that we do. But having clean, easily accessible water is a fundamental human need. It transforms lives and lifts communities out of poverty. It ends terrible suffering.

We do work with local partners to insure cultural differences are respected and understood. This helps our projects succeed and last for the long haul.

1. As population grows, people begin to inhabit the land on the outer edge of the current community or city. This typically means they have to travel a little farther to get their water. Because of the weight of water, it doesn’t take long for the distance to the water source to become a barrier to good health. Each person needs about 10 gallons of water per day for drinking and personal hygiene. Very few communities on the planet have settlement patterns that allow every household to successfully collect 50 gallons of water a day without the assistance of a community water system.
2. Some water sources have disappeared as a result of overuse, contamination, or a change in climate.

Lack of access to water is usually a consequence of lack of resources. The communities we work in are very poor and can’t buy the materials and services necessary for a reliable water, sanitation, and hygiene-education project. In addition, community organizing and problem solving is a great challenge when individuals are consumed with subsistence-level existence.

Water collection is a woman’s job, and resources (even in highly technological, wealthy, equal rights professing America) are often under-allocated to issues that affect women disproportionally. One could argue that governments should assume this role; after all, most of us in the U.S. and other rich countries rely on government-built and operated water and sewer systems.

Our experience is that governments (including our highly-responsive democracy) under-invest in the problems of the poor. Governments of impoverished countries typically fall short when it comes to maintaining infrastructure. Rather than relying on governments to voluntarily address the needs of the poor, we believe in empowering such communities to advocate for themselves in the competitive political arena.