The following blog is a picture diary of the process of delivering filters to a mountain village.

It was a two-hour drive from our location in Bogota to the village of Belen in the township of Ubaque with ten Rotarians from the Bogota Chapinero Rotary club. We were delivering 40 BioSand filters in the last phase of a project that provided 120 filters in all.

The filters, sand and gravel arrived carefully packed from Ibague the capital city of Tolima. The filters were assembled by the Nuevo Ibague Rotary Club and purchased by the Bogota Chapinero Club. This cooperation is an example of word of mouth amongst Rotarians about providing safe water to rural families.  

Local men and Rotarians got busy unloading the truck and organizing the filters and all the components.

They fitted each filter with a lid and made sure each one had a bucket with lid and tap.

Later the buckets were grouped and filled with various components required for installation.

Club President, Jaime, stands with Julio, a resident proponent of the project.

Bob tells the story of the development of the filter and the function of each component.

The official Rotary photo documenting the event.

As the Rotarians file up the hill to their transportation, the villagers begin the process of loading up the filters for distribution to their homes.

These projects come together through cooperation. CAPD provided the molds that built the filter boxes and financed the transportation of the first shipment. The Nueva Ibague Rotary Club built the boxes and put components together. The Bogota Capinero Rotary Club raised the funds and implemented the project with the help of local community leaders. Now that they have this experience behind them, they are aiming to scale up to serve more families by writing a Rotary Foundation Global Grant.