Smart water goes to school in Nepal

The water resilience of isolated communities in Nepal is being transformed through the introduction of eco-friendly water filtration units in schools, which also act as safe water stations following climate-related disasters.

Climate change has made the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) facilities in already hard-to-reach rural mountainous regions in Nepal even more challenging. With the temperate rise in the Himalayas outstripping the global average, the area is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Extreme weather events, such as a combination of droughts and unseasonal rainfall impact local people in a variety of ways, with flooding in particular not only exacerbating the effect of waterborne diseases, but also destroying WASH infrastructure. Even where reliable water supplies exist, they are not always safe for drinking.

Sustainable water management company SmartPaani is helping to address these problems by working with a network of rural, peri-urban and urban schools. To date, the company has installed its biosand filters in 310 schools. These are cheaper, have a longer life than conventional alternatives, do not require significant technical expertise to operate and maintain, and do not use chemicals for filtration. What is more, the filters also operate at a fraction of the carbon footprint of other such technologies.

“Every school has a tap, but up to 71% of them provide water that is contaminated,” explains Subhechhaya Manandhar, WASH Marketing Manager at Smart Paani. “Without drinking safe water, students will get ill and the dropout rates will be high. So we tied up with the schools and installed our filtration systems.”

Schools contribute up to 30 percent of the cost of installation, primarily for building elevated platforms, tanks for water storage, and pipes. SmartPaani, in collaboration with government, non-government organizations, and private sector actors, contributes the rest. In future, local governments and schools may contribute as much as 50 percent of the total expense. 

Smart Paani covers the maintenance cost for the first five years by directly payinglocal entrepreneurs. Thereafter the costs are sufficiently low that they can be paid for by the schools.

The low-cost technology is relatively simple, consisting of recyclable pipes and steel tanks. The filtration units utilize finely graded sand and gravel, which is able to remove 99.95 percent of contaminants. Micro-organisms in the filters remove suspended solids and let pathogens die naturally over time, which leads to safe and clean drinking water.

By 2020, over 35,000 students had already benefited from the filters and ‘WASH training’. This training involves groups of 20 to 30 schoolchildren (consisting of an equal number of girls and boys) receiving training about how to improve water hygiene and how to enhance resilience. The aim is to create a ripple effect, whereby awareness is spread across their schools, households and local communities   

“Before Filter Plus was installed in our school by SmartPaani, we used to drink water coming directly from the communal tap, which was dirty. Now we drink filtered water and our life has become healthier,” says Isha, a student of Bachaladevi Secondary School. 

Communities play a key role in the project. School teachers, students, and local community members, particularly women, provide information that helps determine the best locations for the filters. Local government representatives also contribute financially and actively participate in the decision-making process, particularly in terms of helping to replicate the project in other locations.

Rolling out the project has not been without its challenges, says Subhechhaya Manandhar: “Due to Covid-19 and the subsequent economic crisis, multiple partners had to cancel their interventions. Pre-covid partnerships were leading to over 30 schools a year, sometimes more. However, in the last year we have only been able to attend 10 schools. But there is momentum, and we hope to get back on track by 2023, as we have several partnership discussions and other alternatives ongoing, and hope to bring them together to the local governments to multiply the scale in each community.”

SmartPaani will continue prioritize underfunded rural schools and scale up approaches to other regions across Nepal, and even internationally. To achieve this they are seeking new partnerships in in the fields of disaster resilience and climate change adaptation.

Local women in particular benefit from the introduction of safe and reliable water, as they are not only responsible for collecting water but also looking after children suffering from water-borne diseases. In addition, SmartPaani seeks out female entrepreneurs or trains local women to create a lasting connection with the schools. These entrepreneurs are responsible for cleaning and monitoring the filter, and providing WASH to the students, for which they are paid.