Last September the Bank-On-Rain team installed a Rainwater Harvesting system at the Barina Agricultural school.  Eric Silverman, a Peace Corp volunteer (left, below) who is still in Sierra Leone sent Mike Williamson (Bank-On-Rain founder) a very important follow up email this week. 

Eric teaches at the School and has given us invaluable assistance and support (considerable) right from the prior planning stage of our project. Without follow up we would never know if all our planning and hard work continues to be effective; in this case a project to supply clean drinking water to a school of 300. 

Eric is like the Pied Piper, everywhere he goes the kids follow just to "hang" with him. His entourage accompanies him to the market, village, and everywhere, and there's usually a group at his house. The image below is typical.

Hi Mike,

Good to hear from you, I hope all is well. Things are pretty good here, just getting into the heart of the dry season and there is still water in the tanks. We've saved one tank for March so we'll see what  happens. Everyone is happy with the project, except for the chief,  who thinks I snubbed him in some way.

So there are no problems with the large system, except we'd like to put little boxes on the valves so we can lock them after school and at night because some kids have played around and left them open a few times. Other than that, there are no problems with the main system, so a job well done. It should hopefully last a long time.

With the demonstration systems, we've moved the one fish (tote) tank at the teachers' latrines back inside to the boys' latrines after the teachers realized they never use those latrines and people were playing around with the spigots or faucets. We could use a few extra of those spigots as a couple have been broken.

As for the small business project, that hasn't really developed yet, I think because of the costs of the materials and the idea of using bamboo is not that appealing to people. However, I think there is still hope for it because a number of the teachers still want to have it done at their houses and one of the buildings we are putting up for the new teachers. That leads to this current project, the teachers' quarters, which we are working on now making blocks, cutting trees for boards, and clearing the area. The project still needs about $800 on the website so if you know anyone who would want to support the  project, even for $10 or $25, donations can be made online HERE  

Thanks in advance, hope all is well. Send my greetings to the rest of the Bank-On-Rain team. Best Eric. 

The news about the faucets was not at all surprising and not unanticipated. Mike Williamson & Ken Blair (Bank-On-Rain Directors) have been designing, fabricating, and testing a new faucet design, specifically for use in developing countries with our rainwater systems. We hope to have some exciting news about our FullStop™ water faucet very soon.

Below Mike and Eric plan a small system using the 50 gallon food containers easily obtainable in Freetown, only a days drive away.

We are very fortunate to have Eric at the school, sending us updates.

Note the "garden" tools above, a donation from Seattle University Maintenance who gave Bank-On-Rain their discarded tools to ship with the tank plumbing supplies last August. Yes, God is Watching. And of course so is Eric!

Eric was hands on during the installation of the rainwater collection and storage systems installed at the school. And not only hands on but excellent at motivating the kids to do their part. Below, one of the volunteers carrying sand for the concrete pad under the tanks.

Eric has a two year teaching contract at the Barina School. Communication is difficult and often he is unable to get a cell signal for text messaging or there is no electricity to charge phones and computers. He catches up on emails when he can get to the nearest town some 3 hours away, usually once a month or so.

Eric is doing a great job for the community. Although only 24, he is considered one of the respected voices in the village and is consulted by the elders on many issues. Eric’s success in standing up to the Paramount Chief on the issue of the water system speaks volumes.

Oh yes; the Chief felt he should have received preference over the school's rainwater collection installations! We’ll build his the next time around along with the individual systems for the teachers in the village. We are very pleased how the idea of collecting this abundant resource (remember, 120 inches a year in SL) is catching on with the kids and especially the teachers.

On top of all of that,  April Boles, founder of pedalsforafrica, will be doing a detour to the school this week and will report back to us on her return to Seattle. Thank you April for all the support you have given Bank-On-Rain, and more to come on April's visit in another post.

Can you suggest any other ways to follow-up, or track the progress of your project in a developing part of the world?  

Comments or suggestions below please ~ email us at  info@bank-on-rain.com  ~ and check us out on Google+  please like us on Facebook  and follow us on twitter @BANKONRAIN

Foreign aid alliances have left a lot of “stuff” in Haiti and around the world, but can some of it actually be re-purposed and save lives? What about those big yellow waxed canvas water bladders that are nothing more than trash once the Oxfam relief water trucks no longer deliver water?

What If one bladder was used for catching the rain, as a rain basin or substitute roof and what if a second bladder were to be used to store the water collected? Would we have created a “grassroots” rain collection system, which would provide clean water and sustain a number of individuals currently without any access to water? If the recipients of the water had the incentive, would they trade their clean water for agricultural or other goods and expand their reach?

My next focus was to check with Patrick Cummings for “on the ground” intelligence, as Patrick is a Director of WWP and just returned from an extensive fact finding mission in Haiti. I also consulted with Ken Blair, our nuts and bolts guy and Director at Bank-On-Rain.

Patrick said it looked like a feasible idea but all the people in Haiti would need is the motivation—a leader on the ground, to put this plan into action as well as someone who is willing to maintain it. This is the tricky part, he said…. the people in Haiti have seen people come and go trying to offer ‘help’ and most often failing to do so. Has copious foreign aid destroyed any internal impetus to construct such a system? Would it take someone dedicated like Patrick; with an understanding of the people and culture in Haiti in various locations who were already trying to make a go of it, coupled with his engineering background to actually make the rain collection systems into a reality?

To get started use the sand bags (if you find them with a bladder) as the perimeter/wall or dig a depression in the ground to hold one of the two water bladders in place when full. This will become the storage for the water collected by a tarp or roof made from the second bladder. The bladder that collects rain (suspended above the storage bladder) should be supported with steaks as one would support a tent. It appears that just about all the connections that will be required to make a working system can be found on two water bladders; except for a screen to act as a filter for the incoming water to the storage bladder and possibly some rubber glue and material to plug any holes.

Note that if the logistics of moving a second bladder is too inefficient, an ordinary tarp could be used in a similar way to catch the water. 

Bank-On-Rain will be testing this and writing up a simple instruction sheet for use in the field.

In my opinion this shift in thinking of repurposing materials ‘dumped’ all over Haiti—turning ”trash” to “treasure” could save lives and bring about an empowering social movement. How can we encourage and nurture the thought process that moves toward sustainable solutions like this?  Would Oxfam help us find all the bladders in Haiti, and the rest of the world that they alone have used in relief situations like this? Do Oxfam have records with the GPS coordinates of all these “bladder” treasures so one by one we can track them down and work with the local people to solve a little bit of the global water crisis, one water bladder at a time!

If you have any questions for Patrick feel free to email him at Patrick@worldwaterpartners.org or any questions for Ken at ken@rainbank.info.

Have you ever seen people make “trash” useful? Please leave a comment below or email us at info@bank-on-rain.com. We would love to hear your stories or ideas! And don’t forget to check out my post Is there a recipe for SUCCESS in Haiti?

Special thanks to Caroline Di Diego (@CASUDI), Ken Blair, and Patrick Cummings for their help in this post!

Emily Berg for Bank-On-Rain
Follow us on twitter @EmilyBerg @BANKONRAIN