Community based clean water system that can serve 5000 people

The lack of clean drinking water for one billion people around the world, from an engineering perspective, is one of the most baffling problems on the planet.  Consider the vast number of water sanitation organizations and the fact that we’ve known how to effectively sanitize our drinking water for centuries.  Yet somehow diarrheal disease (caused from drinking unsafe water) remains a top killer of children around the world.  In some cases, a simple low-cost filter is all that is necessary to save a life.

Of course, the problem of clean water is not that cut and dry.  Most organizations that ask us about water technologies are not sure what they are looking for, they just know that it’s a problem they should be addressing.  If this is you, we’ve put together a Water Assessment workshop with overall guidelines on the steps you would take to gather the information you need to select a sanitation technology.  In addition to that, here’s the top five things to consider if you’re contemplating a clean water program:

1.  Know what you’re fighting.

There are three main types of water contaminants and no single technology is effective against all of them.  Start by figuring out what is contaminating the water.  To do this, you may need a local university lab on your side to help with the analysis.  Or, you might check to see if a local organization has already conducted water tests in your region.

2.  One more time:  no single technology is effective against all water contaminants.

Checking Manna's gravel-sand water filtration system.

The danger happens when you assume an expensive carbon filter will solve all of your problems in every community you enter.  You may need to combine a natural, low-tech filter (sand) with a higher-tech ultraviolet radiation.  (Check out Manna Energy’s system in Kigali, Rwanda).

3.  Understand how water is used.

And understand that simply surveying the community won’t get you the answer you need.  Spend time observing how people use water.  Observe if they treat drinking water differently than clothes-washing water.  Is water ever reused?  Are there differences in water collection points?  Understanding usage patterns and user values will help you understand where and how clean water needs to enter the picture.

4. Be conscientious about the choice between community-based water systems versus water systems for individual families.

Both have their positives and negatives.  The main drivers: cost, maintenance (who will fix a broken system if no one technically owns it?), and access.

5.  Clean water is pointless without sanitation.

If we pour clean water into a dirty cup, our efforts are for naught.  Clean water programs need to be coupled with sanitation training.  They both need the other to be truly effective.  This is oftentimes a point of failure for water programs – both sanitation and clean water treatment require some semblance of education and behavioral change.  Always a challenge.

It goes without saying that if there were to be a #6, it would be this:  do not reinvent the wheel!  As mentioned in the opening paragraph, countless water organizations and technologies exist.  Leverage and adapt them.

This was probably the trickiest workshop in terms of activities. For the participatory research section, it’s rather straightforward. But when it came to participatory design, the process was somewhat less simple. Should we run a field exercise with our Navajo hosts? But given the complexity of the setup, would we be able to explain what they should do as co-designers in an imaginary design scenario within the limited time frame? Should we use ourselves as the participants and run a mock exercise to gain clarity around the methods? But then can we separate ourselves from our previous knowledge as full-fledged design professionals enough to really grasp the concept?

Tyler taking part in the workshop

In the end, we ran a mock exercise around redesigning our CataCamp experience, as all of us had direct end-user experience in that case. One of us served as moderator, and the others were participant-designers, which was useful for gaining direct experience with the ideas of participatory design, but a bit unclear in terms of roles and outcomes. Had time been more abundant, we would have loved to try out the process with community members around a more immediate need (i.e. water supply or shepherding). In the end, we cut out that activity from the final workshop, as we haven’t yet perfected either version.

So in the spirit of the workshop, we’d love to hear from you what activities you think might fit in the participatory design section. What’s worked before? What ideas can you come up with for rapidly (say in 30 minutes) involving local communities and creating a positive learning experience? What should the goals and outcomes be? What will teach organizational staff what it’s like to be an end-user thrust into the role of a designer? Looking forward to your ideas!

[Download the Participatory Design Workshop]

One way to begin developing the requisite understanding is to conduct a Rapid Community Health Assessment (often called Rapid Rural Appraisals or some variation of these names). This is a general and very adaptable method of collecting and organizing qualitative community health data that can later be distilled into insights that will form the basis of a design solution.

—

While sitting among the crisp, open pine forest in the high country of the Navajo Nation outside Sawmill, we discussed the concepts behind Rapid Appraisal methods and worked through this workshop, generating questions that we would attempt to answer after spending time on the reservation and visiting a local hospital and speaking with physicians.

Visiting the Chinle Hospital (left to right: Heather, Dr. Cabrera, Dr. Rand, Tyler, Kenneth, Emily, Morgan)

The next day we spent an afternoon visiting the hospital in Chinle, AZ, speaking with Drs. Rand and Cabrerra. Their specific knowledge and experience proved incredibly useful in allowing our team to develop a much more robust understanding of the health issues facing the people living in the Navajo Nation.

For example, we learned that, in recent years, dustbowl-like conditions prevail in Chinle during the spring, scraping many a cornea and destroying young crops, decreasing the availability of locally grown vegetables and contributing to the prevalence of diabetes on the reservation.

Another contributor to diabetes, a major scourge of the Navajo on the reservation, is the lack of refrigeration in rural areas. When families don’t have the ability to keep food for extended periods of time they are forced to buy non-perishable items, like processed meats or potato chips.

Understanding that these health-related issues are present, the factors that contribute to their existence, and current attempts to address them allows a designer more effectively create potential solutions.

—

To learn more about Rapid Community Health Appraisals, download our Rapid Community Health Assessment Workshop.

It was a short timeline (getting ready for CataCAMP) but we were fairly prepared upon arrival, as we had carried out a Cultural Immersion dinner where we learned the trip logistics, practiced some Navajo phrases, cooked and ate traditional food and watched a video about customs. From there, we took home materials (books) about the Navajo way of life – language, spiritual well-being, history. It might have made sense to read all of that beforehand, but we also wanted to try out going in as semi blank-slates, so as to be able to take everything in, absorb it, and to fully utilize our five senses. All in all, we learned a great deal about the lives, motivations and values of our Navajo hosts.

On the first full day, we conducted the Cultural Research Methods workshop, which explored ways in which to carry out research in unfamiliar and diverse cultural settings. Much of what we learned in this workshop was employed throughout our time there, on purpose or simply by default. Here is just a peek into what we did and what we noticed or learned:

We all paid close attention to cultural norms — Navajos are handshakers, and appreciate a confident shake. Many of them wear traditional turqouise and silver jewelry, both the men and the women. Fry bread is made and eaten at many of the meals. [On a side note, we did encounter a story about a group that was trying to give a presentation on energy usage but that used incorrect/atypical words in Navajo. Audience members were offended and confused by such words, and thus the message was rendered ineffective. (This was because cultural norms and language practices were not taken into consideration...interesting!)]

Lots of trucks in parking lot

We surveyed cultural artifacts, both modern and ancient — A huge portion of locals drove trucks or big cars. We gathered that they were used mostly for fitting bigger families and for transporting goods, water (huge tanks!), and pulling livestock. And we felt very Anthropologist-esque when I found some ancient Pueblo artifacts (pottery) at White House Ruins, in Canyon de Chelly in the dried riverbed. (I left them there, of course!)

We immersed ourselves, but didn’t try to “fit in” completely  — We all tried to learn a bit of the Navajo language. Heather had been taught some as a child by her mother and assisted us in our endeavors. Morgan was by far the quickest to catch on, and is considered our language expert/enthusiast. At the very least, moving our tongues in very unfamiliar ways and huffing air to make the appropriate sounds led to laughter all around. It became a way to connect to older Navajo generations, especially at the Begay family cookout. They appreciated our curiosity, willingness to try new things, and our respect for their sacred language. And, at the end of our trip we were all given gracious gifts – traditional Navajo jewelry – by Leonard so we could take a piece of the experience home with us.

Snake crossing

We listened to stories and myths — We learned from Deenise about the warning related to a snake crossing…right after I had a snake encounter at Canyon de Chelly, oops! Luckily I had done the right thing, which was to let it go on its way undisturbed, and for me to not let is cross directly in front of me.

At the Grand Canyon

We carried out different roles — At times we were the ethnographers/researchers (in workshops, in excursions), at other times we were colleagues (visiting off-the-grid communities with the NTUA), but mostly we were visitors and friends (with the Begay family and others). And then at the Grand Canyon we were, of course, tourists!

Poster with traditional jewelry

We observed the “trivial” — We noticed that there were multiple beds in the one-roomed hogan at Bessie’s. We gathered that this was for multiple family members to spend the night. Since it was their summer land many of them spent time up there, off and on. We noticed in an NTUA poster about energy and water usage that the woman model was wearing traditional Navajo jewelry. We noticed an over-sized grill near the campfire, which was used for huge Begay family cookouts.

We closely investigated familiar environments by making them unfamiliar — We visited Basha’s, the local grocery store, to see what types of items families were buying, and what the shelves were stocked with. We were only there for a short time, but we noticed many canned and dried foods, limited fresh produce, lots of bottled water, no alcohol (not sold on Reservation) and an incredible amount of snowcone ingredients! On the highways, we noticed a plethora of McDonald’s billboards…which should be no news to us as they are all over San Francisco, too, but what we did see on the signs was “Open 24 Hours.” That was news to us. We visited an old trading post, and assessed the types of objects they were selling. Clearly it was targeting tourists.

Kenneth and group at IHS

We heard multiple perspectives — When we went to see Dr. Rand at the Indian Health Services, Kenneth (friend of the Begay family) came along with us. It was obvious that he became upset when Dr. Rand was discussing high suicide and alcoholism rates on the Reservation, as this was not the case for the Begay family (thankfully). This was an extraordinarily insightful interaction to witness (Kenneth making this fact known to Dr. Rand). It gave us a more holistic view, and allowed us to see the diverse experiences and realities within one culture and community.

Again, these are just a few of the snapshots of our cultural research expedition. If you are interested in learning tips for cross-cultural immersions and research, download the Cultural Research Methods Workshop.

Random shots to remember specific stories and insights...

Documenting the trip was a pleasure, but (not having been dedicated to the task before) there were a few things I learned.  Here’s the top three:

Listen. Anytime someone remarks that something is different than what they expected… take a picture. You’ll want to be able to describe it again, and a photo will help a lot when trying to describe what’s foreign.

Pre-Plan Shots. I took lots of photos of our workshops. When photographed, workshops look boring. Planning ahead for an interesting shot was worth it.

Be Persistent. Although I tried to blend in, many of my candid shots have people looking at the camera. Take a ton of photos. And make sure you’ve got good shots from many angles before moving on.

Diversify your shots. Examples of a close up, middle, and long shot.

[Download the Documentation Workshop]

Hardware store in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala

Understanding this environment, the array of technologies present and the interactions people have with them, can not only provide great insight as to potential product opportunities, but also increase the likelihood that whatever product you design is readily incorporated into it.

This is the basic premise of our Technological Environment workshop (file download: 128 KB).

Virtually anything created by people can be considered a technology: language, tools, homes, transportation, etc. Learning to identify technologies and their uses, to notice when something stands out, and to realize when something is missing is a valuable skill that all field researchers and designers should cultivate. As one begins to notice technology they start to understand the technological world in which people exist: What are they accustomed to doing with tools? With what technological sophistication are they accustomed to interacting? What might easily integrate into their daily lives without requiring dramatic behavioral change or difficult education?

Hardware store in Ruli, Rwanda

The next step, beyond identifying technologies, is being able to identify what devices are made of and how they were fabricated. This is particularly applicable to artifacts produced regionally, as the observation can provide insight as to local manufacturing capacities and maintenance and repair capabilities. Additionally, recognizing what materials are present in a community’s technological environment allows designers to develop products that can either blend in or stand out, as the situation warrants.

Taken together, these observations can give designers a grasp of how foreign a technology, material, or assembly might be. They can provide a point of reference regarding how much consumers are able, or willing, to spend on a product. And they can steer the design team towards a solution that is more likely to be adopted and effective – the end goal of any product design effort.

The outhouse, with our tents and hogan in the distance.

We pitched our tents outside our host family’s hogan outside Sawmill, AZ on day one of CataCAMP.  Our hosts, the Begay Family, had a generator to power a refrigerator, a kerosene lamp, and a small propane tank with a hose snaking through a kitchen window to a stove range.  We could see and hear the buzzing of a distant high-voltage power line from our tents, but the Begay’s home was just out of range for access to electricity or running water.

According to the the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) – the entity responsible for providing the Navajo reservation with electricity, water and natural gas – 18,000 people on the reservation still do not have electricity in their homes.   On day four of CataCAMP, we drove an hour down a bumpy dirt road with the NTUA to reach a home just west of Monument Valley with a hybrid wind-solar energy system, one of the off-grid renewable systems the NTUA turns to for its most remote customers.  The distance alone makes servicing the system a large time-commitment, but it also requires a heavy-duty truck to take on the nearly impassable “roads.”   The system size (880W for a hybrid system) these families receive are standardized to reduce costs. However, this means that when a family plugs in their refrigerator the electricity “stops working.”

Solar system for a remote family.

It was interesting to listen to the NTUA’s reasoning behind the use of standardized systems when we have tried so hard with our clients to produce custom-sized systems that anticipate future energy needs.  The systems on the reservation were lacking, but they adequately performed the main job they were there to do: provide immediate power for moderate energy needs at a cost cheaper than running a electrical line to a house.

System sizing can be a tricky business.  Before visiting with the NTUA, our team went through a basic energy assessment workshop called “Present and Future Power Needs” (PDF, 225KB), based on our experience with our Rwanda Solar PV project.  The workshop outlines the process of cataloging appliances to understand how much power you need, and uses that number to derive how many solar panels and batteries you need in your energy system.  However, what we have witnessed (and what the Solar Electric Light Fund [SELF] has witnessed) is that once we have electricity we tend to over use it if a feedback loop is not in place.  Our sizing template accounts for that anticipated over use with a formula supplied to us by SELF.

While the second half of the workshop is specific to solar, the first half is relevant to any entity that wants to understand what size energy system they need.  Knowing that number will affect your cost and your choice in technology (wind, solar, biogas, etc).   Regardless of what technology you choose, it should be accompanied by training, maintenance and feedback loop that educates the user on consumption.

System sizing references:  Green Empowerment

Observation is a tricky subject for writing and teaching. It’s one of those core human functions that everyone does, and has done, for all of their lives. Observation helps us model our behavior, adapt to our environments, and notice key facets of the world.  It can be like telling someone we’re going to have a walking or sleeping workshop.

Observation at the Grand Canyon

That being said, all of us walk differently, and I bet most of us could find a way to do it better. Observational skills are so key to our work, design work, and most work in general, that putting some time into improving them is always worthwhile. This workshop focused on the basics of observation and inquiry – how to take in new environments and situations, how to separate your observations from your interpretations, how to conduct solo interviews, and how to listen to what people are telling you. It owes a great deal to IDEO’s Human-Centered Design Toolkit, the methodologies of Jump Associates, and more generally, the fields of anthropology and cultural/social psychology.

One of my favorite things about observation is that everyone, by virtue of training and interests and mental scaffolding, notices different things. Lauren, our marketing expert, caught every novel use of typeface on the road. The engineers in the car noticed infrastructure patterns, while the business-minded [often the same people!] ran numbers on the cost of living and the social scientists [ditto] remembered how people gestured and greeted.  Regardless of our backgrounds, and this is true for everyone, we all found we had the capability to notice a lot. And this ability is foundational for understanding – the key to creating positive experiences and outcomes for the people we serve.

[Download the workshop here]

Fire Rock, the first Navajo casino, outside Gallup, NM.

A week of CataCAMP changed our group’s perception of casinos on Native land. We’ll be the first to admit that we interacted with only a sliver of the Navajo population (there are 180,000+ individuals on the Res). Yet each testimonial of the casino was alarmingly positive. People really enjoyed themselves there! It was a local attraction – a place to go with friends, to spend some set aside cash, to let loose. We won’t go as far to say it was a core value of the Navajo Nation, but it was part of life and was recognized as valuable.

Values shape our perception of and interaction with the world. They help determine what is important to us, and structure our motivations and priorities. At CataCAMP, we were constantly uncovering values.

In workshop, doing the values card activity

Throughout CataCAMP we were privileged to be in the presence of extraordinarily generous and curious individuals, all of whom wanted to share their experiences and tell us about their culture. Much of the values insight we received came from “innocent” conversation, chit-chat in the car, while other information came from more structured questioning. We would notice a particular behavior characteristic and ask about it, would listen to stories of Navajo myths and relate them to today, or would observe the interactions of family members and friends. And we asked “why?” a lot.

Our cookout with homestay family

In the short time we were there, the values of the individuals with whom we stayed (and much of the Navajo Nation at large) became clear. It was evident that, to our homestay family, fostering strong familial relationships was most important. Outings and celebrations became a family activity, and all are encouraged to participate. In Navajo culture, your family includes everyone from your immediate family to your extended relatives (your female cousin would be considered your sister, called “sister cousin”).

Leonard, in traditional Navajo silver and turqouise jewelry

Mud hogan, for traditional ceremonies

Navajo culture – the language, myths, food, dress and ceremonies – is at the center of life. The older generations we met would speak to each other almost solely in Navajo, while the younger generations would slip in and out of Navajo and English, or just stick to English. In talking with a grandmother at the homestay, we learned that she wished her grandchildren would learn Navajo; she valued the linguistic preservation of her culture. Many stories and myths were told to us by Leonard, our host, who is practicing to be a medicine man. He told us of the importance of native plants and herbs, of the four corners of the Earth and of the sacred mountains, of the Navajo creation story, of cleansing ceremonies like the Enemy Way, and of the changing ways of Navajo people. Deenise, our friend and guide at the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, told us of the significance of animal crossings (snakes or owls passing in front of you), of where and how to collect Navajo Tea in the wild, of the strength of words and how they hold meaning, and of ways to make peace with the world and stay out of harm’s way by containing that which belongs to you (when you brush your hair, and strands fall out, you are supposed to dispose of, or burn, the hair so as to remove it from area, lest some ill-willed individual collects it to use it against you. Similar to our concept of voodoo, she said).

Bessie's herd of sheep

Other entities that held significance included traditional food (fry bread, which is served with almost every meal, and mutton), land (land ownership is important for building upon or farming and herding, and homesteads are passed down through the family, although with large extended families, land ownership is quite tricky and often contested), livestock (our family owned 70 sheep, a herd of cattle and several horses), access to water (our homestay father spent half of his time hauling water from the water source to his home and back, and lamented that he wished it were less), electricity (18,000 homes throughout the Navajo Nation are without utility services), and good health (a high percentage of the population is affected by obesity, diabetes, alcoholism and hypertension, and there are increasing measures to combat these epidemics).

Our group came away from the week-long experience with a deeper understanding of the values, priorities and desires of the Navajo people. We met many resilient, generous, warm people, and started many new friendships. Our eyes were opened to alternative ways of viewing and experiencing the world, and for that we are thankful.

Land near Sawmill

As researchers and designers, it is our job to explore values, and to uncover the “why” behind the “what” when it comes to what is important, be it objects, relationships or social systems. Designers who understand specific cultural values have a huge, and very valuable, advantage in their ability to create products and services that will meaningfully and effectively meet people’s needs. Although this was not our primary goal, Catapult now has a better sense of ways in which we might be able to assist organizations on the Res in the design/tech realm in the near future. Stay tuned for more information!

Catapult’s work is as heavily rooted in cultural observation and research as it is design and technology.  From the moment Tyler and I started this organization, we knew we would have to build a team of “engineering anthropologists” – talented folks who can bridge the technology world with the needs of people in a culture completely outside their own. We focused this year’s training primarily on cultural research methods.  In order to practice these skills in real-time, we wanted to immerse the team in a foreign, unfamiliar culture.  Why the Navajo Reservation?  Catapult serves impoverished communities, and the Native American population is the most poverty-stricken community within the United States.  More than half of the Navajo Nation residents live below the poverty level. Yet they have culturally rich lives with many still practicing and preserving traditional ways.

CataCAMPers with Bessie from our host family.

Our Catapult team – comprised of backgrounds in product design, mechanical engineering, anthropology, international relations, user experience design, and marketing and advertising – spent eight days living on the reservation absorbing the culture, visiting tribal entities, engaging with a host family, and conducting a series of workshops.

The first few days were spent outside Sawmill, AZ at a summer sheep camp with the Begay family, our generous hosts.  We pitched our tents outside their hogan (the traditional, octagonal Navajo home) and spent three days observing their lives and hearing their stories.  We also spent time with the Indian Health Service in Chinle, AZ, interviewing doctors on the health and environmental challenges that the Navajo community faces.  We devoted an entire day to the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, the tribal entity responsible for electrification efforts on the reservation, visiting remote families with off-grid power solutions.  We finished our trip with a series of cultural events and attended the “Sheep is Life” festival in Tsaile, observed the beginning of an Enemy Way ceremony, visited the infamous flea market and local artisans in Gallup, NM, and hiked to Canyon de Chelly’s White House Ruins.

In the field with the NTUA.

Over the next few weeks, we will release our stories and publish our workshops in a blog series devoted to CataCAMP’s results.  Each attendee designed two workshops prior to CataCAMP and had 60 minutes to deliver it to the group and 30 minutes to collect feedback.  The revised workshops are being published as part of Catapult’s desire to contribute to the social impact design knowledge space.  Every day we receive emails from people interested in our work, and who want to know how to do what we do.  Without the ability to hire people, this is the next best thing we can offer – workshops for anyone and everyone to download, experiment with, and use to build their own internal research methods and understanding of the design process.

We welcome feedback and ideas from the public!  And finally, we want to thank our generous hosts for inviting our team into their homes and for leaving us with a memorable and enriching experience.