Subsidizing Biosand Filters

Last time I wrote about Biosand Filters (BSFs), I told how we distributed the first round of BSFs.  In summary, we linked the BSFs with a practical women’s health course.  First village women participated in learning about hygiene and health, and after they demonstrated their learning by making changes in their household hygiene or sanitation, we gave them Biosand Filters to further support their behavior changes with clean water. 

The health courses ended in early December, and since then the women’s team has been spending 3 days a week revisiting women that received the BSFs for monitoring and evaluation, which basically amounts to supporting the women in sustaining the changes they had made, including using the BSF.  This support has proven to be vital to the BSFs, because there has been some common issues that recipients have faced, like freezing, clogging with mud, and family members being confused and dipping water out of the top of the filter.

One of the biggest lessons learned in round one was that without monitoring and evaluation, most of the filters would not have been used.  This would have to be taken into consideration as we considered plans to spread the BSFs much further than just the 4 villages we had started in.  With the distribution of BSFs being dependent on our ability to monitor and evaluate, and with only 4 women on the team for this task, we have a limitation to overcome. 

The best suggestion for overcoming our monitoring limitation is from our local project leader Zeke.  His idea is for us to gather and train representatives from all the surrounding villages in which we want to spread BSFs.  The reps would be trained in proper installation and maintenance of the filters, as well as other monitoring and support tools that they could use to support BSF owners.  The incentive for these reps to serve the owners of BSFs is that they would also be the salesmen.   Zeke’s idea was that if we bought the filters from the factory for $20 (the actual production cost, including labor) then we could turn and sell them to the village reps for $10.  By subsidizing 50% of the cost, our project then provides income for the reps we have trained to install and monitor the BSFs, ensuring that the BSFs are not only distributed, but that people are supported and able to use them.

I believe the strength of the subsidy program will be that it enforces monitoring and support, allows us to stretch into a dozen or more villages, and it builds value in the BSFs.  If everything works right, the reps will be motivated to sell a lot of BSFs, which provides clean water to a lot of families.  Yet they won’t be able to continue sales if they are not monitoring those with issues with their BSF- they must offer “customer support” in order to continue their “business”.  Hopefully we will see that good support leads to good acceptance of the technology, and growth of interest.  Then we will see if $10 is an appropriate price for villagers to pay or not.  Charging a cost for the second round of BSFs is also a strategic step, because we have to move toward a program design that is sustainable without external (NGO) help.  Next time I write about BSFs, I will tell you what I’m cooking up for round 3.