Health

In connecting with the goals of the WASH program, and in the following areas of Sanitation, Beacon AHEAD has completed successful projects and is working on new product designs:

1. Sanitation – Worm-composting Toilets and Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs):

At Beacon AHEAD Institute, we are promoting an innovative new technology for on-site treatment of waste.  We produced two documentaries to show how  eco-friendly toilets and sewage treatment plants are being powered by Nature’s own super stars:  Earthworms!

Earthworms in a worm bed above a sand bed combine to create a very powerful and versatile filter for human waste and sewage.  Toilets can be flushed into a small worm filter (or ‘vermi-filter’).  Sewage can be treated in a sewage treatment plant with numerous vermi-filters as the main processing units.  The benefits are:

  • Environmentally-friendly treatment of human waste and sewage.
  • Little to no smell. The main odour is an earthy soil smell.
  • Valuable by-products:
  • Vermi-compost, for adding nutrients to soil, and
  • Water for irrigation, when the outflow of the vermi-filters is cleaned and disinfected.
  • Little to no external power is required.

These two documentaries show the different ways that worm-powered sewage treatment that was developed by PriMove, PATH and Bear Valley Ventures, can be used, and how it really benefited people in low-income villages and slums in many areas around Pune and Kolhapur, Maharashtra:

2. Sanitation – Hand-wash Station for Anganwadi (Pre-School) Centers:

We developed a simple hand-washing station for 3 and 4 year old children.  After discussions with UNICEF, we wanted to provide a design that was simple for children to use independently, and, after use, a stand that could fold up to be compact, since many Anganwadi Centers have very less room for storing their furniture and eqiupment at night.

The benefits of this hand-wash station are:

  1. Simple to assemble: The four legged stand is placed on a large bucket, and a small bucket, with 4 taps, is placed on top of that. 
  2. Soap dishes, permanently attached near the bottom of each leg of the stand, provide a convenient place to keep soap at a comfortable height for children to reach.
  3. Simple to set up: One adult can fill the small, upper bucket with water, and then put a bar of soap in each of the soap dishes.
  4. Convenient height: Children can reach and open the taps themselves.
  5. Easy to make: The buckets, taps and soap dishes are all locally available. The only new part is the stand between the buckets.  This stand can be made in many different ways, depending on local materials and skills.
  6. Easy to store: When the Hand-wash Station is not in use, the stand can be turned upside down and placed inside the large bucket. The smaller bucket fits inside the stand, and so the whole device becomes as small as the large bucket.

We tested one prototype of this Hand-wash Station in Gabilalapeta, AP, near Hyderabad with 3 and 4 year old children.  They had no difficulties turning on the water or reaching the soap.

This video shows several children washing their hands at this portable, stowable station: 

3. Safe drinking water – SE 200:

SE 200, is an electro chlorinator that uses simple ingredients such as salt and water to create Chlorine that is in turn used to kill bacteria and germs in any type of water, making it safer for drinking purposes. The benefits of SE 200 community water treatment device are as follows:

  1. Produces a chlorine solution in 5 minutes, for treating microbes in 200 liters of water and making it safe to drink.
  2. Uses minimum electricity and can be connected to any 12-volt car or motorcycle battery to use the machine, thus making it portable.
  3. Creates an avenue of livelihood for any youth or family that can make and distribute chlorine among several other families in their respective communities.

This device was given to 10 Tribal villages in Kurupam area of Andhra Pradesh by Beacon AHEAD in collaboration with SERP (Society for Eradication of Rural Poverty) and Grameena Punarnirmana Kendram, that resulted in the following impact:  

  • Within a span of three months, the ten villages that used this device reported better health and lower cases of mortality that were caused earlier due to contaminated water supply.
  • Youth of these villages took on an initiative to form into a Youth group that made and distributed the Chlorine made from SE 200 to other villages in the vicinity thereby increasing coverage and providing higher access to safe drinking water.
  • This project was well received by the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

For a detailed report related to this project, kindly see this Field Report.

4. Safe Drinking Water – Solar Distillation Tent:

Lack of safe, clean drinking water is a major problem for many people.  Shortages of clean, safe drinking water and irrigation water are increasing issues in India.  In coastal areas, for example, the ground water is becoming brackish (salty) due to sea water replacing water that is pumped out of wells.  In other areas, water from wells can contain arsenic, fluoride, etc., which cause serious health problems.   A Solar Distillation Tent is a simple, easy-to-build solution to this problem.

Beacon AHEAD teaches people to make their own Solar Distillation Tents, so that they can produce their own drinking water.  This is a simple, clear tent that converts contaminated water into pure water.  It works by evaporating water to separate it from contaminants such as salt, fluoride, mud, bacteria, etc.

The benefits of a Solar Distillation Tent are:

  1. The evaporation is powered by the sun.
  2. No electricity is required.
  3. There is nothing “High-Tech” about this system. A simple solar distillation tent can be made with local materials, and it can be repaired locally, too.
  4. The cost and effort to make the tent and produce water every day is low.
  5. The roof of the tent can be used to capture rainwater. Thus, water can be produced whether the sun is shining or rain is falling.

How it works:

  • We pump water into the floor of the tent, and let the sun shine on it all day.
  • The heat of the sun evaporates the water, and then that steam condenses  and forms drops of water on the inside walls of the tent.
  • These drops of pure water then run down the side walls and collect in a trough, which carries the water to a pipe and water collection tank.
  • The water can be kept safe to drink by adding a little chlorine (for example, from the SE 200 above), and small amounts of salt (such as sea salt) and minerals can be added, if desired, for nutrition and to suit people’s preference for taste.
  • Collected rainwater, from the roof of the tent, can be filtered with any desired type of filter, and then treated with chlorine, to ensure that it is safe to drink.

A small Distillation Tent can be made affordably with local materials (wood, metal, bamboo, plastic pipe, etc.) and clear plastic sheets.

A more permanent structure can be built like a greenhouse, with glass panes instead of plastic sheets.  An insulated, dark coloured floor helps the water to evaporate faster.

5. Sanitation – Menstrual Pads:

Beacon AHEAD is working to make menstrual pads more affordable and easier to make.  Many women and girls cannot afford to buy menstrual pads.  As a result, they stay home and miss out on work or school, and fall behind in education, employment, earning, etc.  With a few machines, people can make their own menstrual pads.  We are developing next-generation machines that are smaller and easier to manufacture, so that making menstrual pads at home or in the community can be affordable for all women.

This photo shows a menstrual pad that is filled with cleaned and sterilized banana fibers.  The fabric is sewn around the filling, with simple, local sewing and cutting skills.  This biodegradable pad is made from all natural materials, so it will decompose when buried in the ground.  It can also be burned after use.

Low-cost, locally-made Menstrual Pads can be made from the fibres of banana trees.  The machines that remove the fibres from the banana stem are large and costly.  We are developing a simpler machine that will cost much less.  The benefits are:

  1. More women and groups can afford to buy and maintain these simple machines.
  2. For example, Self-Help Groups (SHG’s) can make their own pads, and benefit from using them, or profit from selling them.
  3. These clean, bio-degradable pads are affordable, and much more healthy to use than cloth rags.

How to harvest and prepare banana fibres:

  • Each year, the stems of banana must be removed from fields, and this crop waste provides a valuable source of fibre.
  • Use machines to scrape off the wet pulp from the fibres of the stem of the banana tree.
  • Wash the banana fibres and then dry them in the sun.  The UV light from the sun helps to sterilize the fibres.
  • The banana fibres are actually bundles of finer strands.  Beating the fibres helps to break them apart into small fine strands, which are more absorbent.  This photo shows banana fibres that have been bashed into finer strands after 10 seconds in a mixer.

6. Cookstoves:

Beacon AHEAD has worked on many different efficient, clean-burning cookstoves.  There are serious health issues regarding inefficient stoves.  People often cook with older stoves that burn organic fuel, such as wood, dried dung, etc.  The fires in these simple stoves produce smoke, which causes irritation and then health problems to lungs and eyes.  Small smoke particles (2.5 micrometers or less in size, i.e. PM 2.5) get deep into people’s lungs, and can even enter the blood stream and affect the heart.  Women and children who spend a lot of time near these stoves have many health problems, including asthma, bronchitis, watering eyes, and sometimes premature death.

This stove is a Rocket Stove, which burns cleaner and hotter than traditional three stone stoves, and uses about half the wood or other fuel compared to traditional stoves.  This stove is simple to use and costs less than Rs. 100/- ($2) to make.  It can be made from one 10-Liter vegetable oil can, some clay and sawdust, short pieces of reinforcing bars, and three or more small rocks on the top to support the cook pot.

Top Lit, Up-Draft (TLUD) stoves:

At Beacon AHEAD Institute, we have developed an efficient household TLUD cookstove that can be made from two 10-Liter vegetable oil cans, and some simple tools.

TLUD stoves are amazing.  They are the cleanest burning simple solid fuel cookstoves, so they allow for better air quality in the cooking area, which really helps people’s health.  TLUD stoves produce almost no smoke, and are very efficient for cooking.

TLUD stoves can burn any kind of dry fuel that is in chunks or small pieces, such as pieces of wood, rice husks, moringa (drumstick) seeds, etc.  The air for the fire comes from inside the stove, where it is pre-heated.  TLUD stoves are the ‘turbo-charged’ version of simple stoves.

The flame near the top of the stove is a result of burning the gases that come out of heating the fuel, also known as pyrolysis.  When the pyrolysis phase ends, then all the fuel has been converted into bio-char (similar to charcoal).  If the bio-char is cooled off at this point, then the bio-char can be collected and added to compost, for improving the soil in the garden.

Cob Pizza Oven:

As part of our educational workshops, Beacon AHEAD teaches people to make Pizza Ovens out of cob.  Click here to learn more!