BioSand Water Filters

On a remote cashew farm

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I work on a cashew farm very far from downtown. During the rainy season, the road is slippery.  It is difficult to live on the farm. However, we have no choice but to live in remote areas. 

My husband got cholera and diarrhea because we drank water directly from the pond.  Sometimes we boil the water, but that is difficult for my family. The hospital is so far from my village.  It’s about 80km to get to downtown. 

Nearby we only have a small clinic. When we got sick, the medical treatment was so expensive that we made the long trip to the hospital downtown anyway.  This is because the health center in our village did not have enough of the medicine we needed. 

After my family received a bio-sand water filter from CWEF, the water is now safe to drink. And the filter is easy to use. We don’t have to spend any time boiling water.  We are healthy again. We do not experience stomach pain, diarrhea, or other waterborne illnesses.

So now my family has time to work in the field, and we can afford food and transportation to school for our children. We would like to thank you for your support in lessening our poverty by reducing our cost of living.

– Sokhim, villager from Kampong Thom province in Cambodia

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What a difference clean water makes!  Dirty water leads to illnesses.  Illnesses keep capable hardworking people from working. Without work, there is less money for food, school, and everything else.  Clean water starts a cycle of healing and hope!  

And in addition to Sokhim’s own perseverance and hard work, you are one big reason that Sokhim has clean water to drink today and that her family is now healthy and thriving!  Your generosity is providing years of clean water for many hardworking families like Sokhim’s!

THANK YOU for partnering with CWEF and generously giving the gift of clean water! 

Would you like to learn more about why biosand water filters are so life-changing? Click here to read our blog post that explains just that!

On a remote cashew farm Read More »

a cambodian man driving a motorcycle down a red dirt road with a large container strapped to the back of his motorcycle

stepping into village life in cambodia

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What is it like to live in a rural Cambodian village?

It looks like…

  • Plumes of red dust in the air. Trees and homes coated in rusty clay.
  • Farmers and laborers driving motos, trucks, bicycles, trailer-attached big motos, traveling over and around divots in the unpaved roads. Big vehicles create dust clouds that make it impossible to see oncoming traffic.
  • Houses raised on stilts to create shade and allow airflow for the people and animals below. There is no air conditioning in the 35-40 degree celsius (95-100 fahrenheit) heat.
  • Naked children who are dripping wet from their third bath of the day. A way to keep cool.
  • Jackfruit, mango, and lychee trees scattered around people’s properties; fruit that is ready to be shared between family members and neighbors.
  • A woman sitting in her husband’s car repair shop, sewing and altering clothing for a living.
  • Long-sleeved shirts, long pants, long socks, and hats to protect their skin from the blazing sun.
  • Head lamps as laborers work through the night to harvest rubber from the rubber tree fields.
  • Older aunties and grandmas who sit at home and take care of the children while their parents work.
  • A young child drinking a cup of water fetched from the nearby well.
  • Wells, rain water catchment systems, expensive pre-filtered water containers from the local market, or the nearby stream – all possible water sources for the people who live here.

Your life may look vastly different than the people living in rural Cambodia, but you do have at least one thing in common: Water.

Water makes life sustainable for all people – from rural Cambodians to those working on Wall Street. Without safe drinking water, sickness can take people from their jobs, familial roles, and cause pressures on a community as a whole. As such a basic necessity to thriving communities, it’s one way we can support the health of communities in rural Cambodia.

*All pictures were taken during CWEF’s visit to Kampung Thum province, Cambodia for a health training on safe water and the disbursement of water filters. We delivered 44 filters to families in need. These water filters will last each family 15+ years. Life-giving water to real people, a real community, a real impact.

Would you like to help give clean water to families living in remote Cambodian villages like this? Click here to donate!

stepping into village life in cambodia Read More »

Kanyo, biosand water filter recipient, posing with his biosand water filter from CWEF

One Year Later, They Still Have Tuk Suat

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In Khmer (the majority language in Cambodia), drinking water is called “tuk suat,” which directly translates to “water pretty.”

Many families in rural Cambodia have drinking water that is far from pretty, and instead of giving them the energy they need to work, can put them in the hospital with a hefty medical bill in tow.  

Kanyo is from Kalai commune in Ratanakiri province, Cambodia. His village is an agricultural community that relies on bountiful rain during rainy season for their crops and for drinking water.

Their families live on small plots of land and survive on the rice, vegetables, and meat they can grow.  In this area, if households have a family well, it is often unprotected and shallow.   

“Before we got the water filter, our family drank rainwater that was collected in jars, well water, or stream water,” Kanyo shared.  

The unhygienic water sources can cause waterborne illnesses that have a lasting effect on people’s ability to continue working and caring for their families.  

“We understand that such water is not hygienic…and can cause various diseases such as diarrhea or stomach cramps and we often have to go to the doctor for treatment,” Kanyo said.  

Can you imagine knowing your water will make you sick but not having any other choice? 

In 2023, in partnership with local leaders, CWEF gave 60 bio-sand filters to households, including Kanyo’s household, in three villages.We checked in with Kanyo a year and a half after he received his filter, and it is still operational and working great. The filters should last 15+ years if maintained.  

Kanyo is grateful for his water filter: 

“Thank God for CWEF! After we received the water filter, our family’s life has improved. Because our entire family is free of diseases, we don’t have to spend as much on medical treatment as before. We have time to work happily.“

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Thank you for your generous donations through CWEF! Because of you, families in rural Cambodia like Kanyo’s are not only drinking healthy, clean, PRETTY water, they also have more money, greater health, and greater happiness. THANK YOU!!!

New to CWEF? Hear about the individuals whose life you’ve changed and receive updates about new opportunities to help by signing up here!

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One Filter = 15 Years of Clean Water!

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Romaskean and her 4 year-old son, Rothana

“The water looked clear and clean,” Romaskean said, “but it started to give us diarrhea and hurt our stomachs.”  

In partnership with CLEAN Cambodia, Concordia Welfare & Education Foundation (CWEF) gave Romaskean and her family a bio-sand filter in June 2023. Biosand filters, also called slow sand filters, use a combination of sand and a biofilm to remove pathogens, iron, and turbidity from the water. Users dump water into the top of the filter, and it slowly passes through the biofilm layer and then through the sand layers, purifying the water in the process.  

The benefit of a biosand filter is they can last up to 15 years and don’t require electricity or fuel to work. Each day Romaskean must pour water into the biosand filter three times to keep the biofilm alive and active. Because Romaskean received training on how to maintain the water filter, she knows how to regularly add water and swirl the top later of sand. During a visit to her village in November 2024, CWEF staff checked-in on Romaskean and her biosand filter.  

Romaskean with her brand-new water filter – thanks to donors like you!

She uses it every day and her family continues to no longer have the symptoms caused by waterborne illnesses. She is grateful for her long-lasting, easy to use purification system that provides clean drinking water to her whole family.  

Romaskean lives in this house with 7 others. Her family farms cassava and rice. Their water source is a well dug behind their house. 

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To those of you that support CWEF,THANK YOU for your generous giving! Because of donors like you, Romaskean can live her life free of waterborne illnesses! Now that’s LIFE-CHANGING!!

 New to CWEF? Receive update e-mails from us by clicking here.

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Great Barriers to Clean Water in Cambodia

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Please enjoy part of an interview with Kanhchana Thoy, CWEF Director in Cambodia: 

  1. How many people in Cambodia do not have clean water? According to the latest available data from 2020, More than 12 million people in Cambodia (72% of the population) lack access to safe water.  Most of them live in rural areas. 
  2. What keeps people in Cambodia from getting clean water? There are multiple factors. The first is that the income people earn is too low to afford better access. The second is a lack of knowledge about the nature and impact of the water they are using as well as lack of knowledge about how to make the water safer.  The third major influence is cultural practices. For example, one group of rural people receiving clean water support from CWEF is the Jerai people. Their habit is to use mountain runoff water directly without boiling it, and they previously did not realize how nearby human waste and animals contaminate their water. But through your support, CWEF has been able to teach and equip the Jerai people with the knowledge, skills, and tools to have clean water on a daily basis.  
  3. How does CWEF choose who to give water filters to? Since the need is greatest in rural areas, we seek to work with low-income communities in rural areas of Cambodia. Also, we look for communities whose leaders are motivated and interested in partnering with us. 
  4. How many water filters did CWEF give out in Cambodia last year? Last year we gave out 30 biosand water filters in Chang Village and 30 biosand water filters to the villages of Deh and Samkanigh in Rattanakiri province.  So far this year, we have distributed 60 biosand water filters in Davealeng village, Deh village, Banlung, and other villages.

Think of each of these individual families – their grandparents, parents, and children – who now not only understand how their drinking water was contaminated and causing illness, but they are now empowered to sustainably access clean water every day!  These families are experiencing greater health and happiness and are spending less money cleaning their water and treating water-borne illnesses because of you and your generosity!  What better way to transform someone’s life?  Thank you so much for your heart for clean water for families in Cambodia!

Help more people in Cambodia have access to clean drinking water! Click here to give today!

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CWEF biosand water filter recipient, Yun, drinking a cup of filtered water and standing next to the biosand water filter

Man at Work

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Yun’s family kept borrowing money. More and more money, more and more debt. What could he do? Everyday life simply cost too much. He couldn’t afford the things his family needed to survive. 

Yun is a young man of twenty-five years old and lives in Kampong Thom Province in Cambodia. 

He and his whole family kept falling ill over and over again. They returned to the hospital over and over again. Every month they needed medical treatment, and the treatments cost a lot.

More bills, more debt. 

Yun wanted to earn money through his work as a farmer; but he often felt so physically terrible due to sickness that he couldn’t work very much, and he had no other way to earn more money for his family.

Yun standing with his family next to a CWEF biosand water filter

At home, when Yun and his family wanted to cook dinner or wash clothes, they retrieved water from a well. But they knew that the well water was dirty, and they feared what might happen to them if they drank dirty well water. 

So they came up with another idea: collecting rainwater for drinking. The rainwater must be clean, they thought. But still the cycle continued of more illness and less work and more debt. 

Thanks to your generosity, Yun’s family eventually received a biosand water filter through CWEF! Yun watched his family closely in the days and weeks after they began drinking the filtered water, and he happily realized that they came down with sicknesses much less often. He also suddenly discovered that he had more free time.

And on top of that, he had more energy. Enough time and energy to farm and earn more money and, even better, start saving money! Best of all, he received fewer and fewer expensive medical bills. Isn’t it amazing what clean water can do?

Now before he goes out into the fields to farm, Yun brings bottles of water from the the biosand water filter. And he will drink multiple glasses of filtered water before he goes out to the river to catch fish. Yun says, “Now, I am very happy after having received a Biosand Filter from Concordia Welfare & Education Foundation (CWEF) in 2019. All of my family members and I are healthy, and I hope that in the future my family’s living condition will be better.” 

Yun thanks you for your generous donation and for supporting his living situation!   

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Man at Work Read More »

Clan John with family members

Down an Impassable Road

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John, a farmer from a remote mountain village in Cambodia, along with his wife and children always drank from the village well. Many times a year they would all fall ill with stomach aches and diarrhea as well as frequently experience other health complications like lower back pain and eye problems.

John filling up on clean water from the biosand water filter!

John is descended from an ancient Cambodian ethnic group. Because he lives in the remote mountains, it is very difficult to travel outside of his own village. John attended school until fifth grade and can speak two languages: Khmer and Jarai. In 1998 during the Pol Pot regime, he married his wife in Vietnam near the Khmer border. They had six children together; but sadly, in 2001, one of their daughters died from leukemia.

Now John owns 10 hectares of land where he works hard morning until evening six days a week with his wife to farm cassava and cashews. Despite all of their faithful hard work, for a long time John and his wife could not afford enough food or medical care for their family.

In 2010, a CWEF team – together with a partner organization – visited John’s village. They shared the gospel with John and his family and also taught them how to eat healthy, how to wash their hands with proper technique, and how to boil water in order to make it safe for drinking. After CWEF’s first visit, John began to serve his local church, study the Bible outside of his village, and share the gospel with other people in his own community. Because he speaks both languages, John also assists with translating the Bible from the Khmer language into the Jarai language so that people in his community can better understand God’s Word.

In 2014, a few years after CWEF’s first visit, John requested a biosand water filter from CWEF. Unfortunately, the materials for the filter could not be transported over the terrible village roads. But recently with improved roads, CWEF was finally able to fulfill John’s request and delivered thirty biosand water filters to John’s community! In 2023, with your generous support, we plan to provide clean and safe drinking water via biosand water filters to many more in John’s community and the surrounding area.

John with his children and a few nieces/nephews.

Today John says:

“My community is so blessed by God through receiving Biosand Filters from the CWEF organization. Now we do not spend a lot of time boiling drinking water, and we feel comfortable after we get safe drinking water at home. Thank you CWEF for continuing to work in my community and encouraging us so much in the name of God.”

John and his wife have also now achieved better production on their farm and are able to provide enough food and medical care for their family.

Thank you for your generous support of the HEAL (Health Education, Advocacy, and Literacy) program, facilitate by CWEF! You make it possible for families like John’s to not only hear about the goodness and generosity of God, but also to experience it through clean water, health education, and improved sanitation. Your generosity is transforming lives!

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This story was written by Kanhchana, CWEF Director of Cambodia, and edited by April Chiasson, CWEF Communications Manager. This story was translated into Mandarin by Qian Qian, CWEF Volunteer.

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Project Success Leads to New Work in Tboung Khmum

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Since 2011, CWEF has collaborated with local churches and government partners in Cambodia’s Kampong Thom province to improve health through holistic development projects. A pillar of CWEF’s work in Kampong Thom has been the Biosand Water Filter project supported by your generous gifts, which have provided local families with convenient access to clean and safe water in their homes, reducing the impact of water-borne illnesses. Additional work in this area over the past decade has included an Animal Gift project, which has provided sustainable income for 44 low-income families, along with eight new water wells in four villages.

“When a family receives a Biosand Filter, they also participate in health education training related to safe drinking water, how to use the Biosand Filter, and instructions related to installation and maintenance,” shares Kanhchana Thoy, CWEF Cambodia Health Programs Director. CWEF works in partnership with local pastors and village leaders throughout the length of the project, providing these remote communities with life-changing health provisions.

In total, 310 Biosand Water Filters have impacted a total of 2320 people in the Sandan and Chheu Tile communes, serving both families and primary schools. From time to time, the filters need to be renewed and repaired, and this project also restores broken Biosand Filters as needed. We are thankful to share that because your generous gifts, the most acute needs of this remote area have been provided for.

CWEF’s Kanhchana Thoy expresses our gratitude to Pastor Koy Thea in Kampong Thom
Visiting families with Pastor Sareun in Tboung Khmum

Now, our CWEF team in Cambodia is shifting its focus to a new area, again working closely with local church and village leaders. Tboung Khmum province is the location for a newly launched HEAL (“Health Education, Advocacy and Literacy”) project, which includes holistic health education and infrastructure like water wells and Biosand Water Filters.

This community development work will help the “large population of older women, who are taking care of their grandchildren and receiving remittances from their adult children (especially daughters) working in urban areas,” shares Kanhchana. In this area, the average income is between $3 and $4 a day. The health education program, coupled with reliable water wells and Biosand Water Filters, will help “communities live better lives by reducing sickness.”

First TOT (Training of Trainers) at Tboung Khmum

CWEF anticipates a process of 3-5 years to implement a holistic approach as we equip local health advocates and local families in Tboung Khmum with training and infrastructure.

“This project will have a sustainable impact on many families in Tboung Khmum as we equip them with new knowledge and skills they can use to develop their own communities,” shares Kahnchana.

Thank you! Your support continues to help bring a life-changing renewal of health and hope to families in rural Cambodia.

Project Success Leads to New Work in Tboung Khmum Read More »

Health is Priceless

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The rising costs of health care is a common concern in the West. People often take for granted the infrastructures and systems that automatically provide sanitary conditions and safe drinking water. Imagine what life is like for people, without health insurance, who are ill on a regular basis by simply drinking (unsafe) water.

Sambo and his wife, Ku, are 25-year-old farmers in the Sandan District of Kampong Thom Province in Cambodia. With a 7th grade education, Sambo makes a living by working the land on farms owned by others. But frequent diarrhea and abdominal pains not only kept Sambo from working; his chronic illness also incurred many medical bills for treatment. The whole family was ill and needed to borrow money just to cover their daily living expenses. The burden was very heavy on Sambo—how to provide for his family and pay the bills? Plus, all the while, they and their young son were struggling with poor health.

Using water from a well and collecting rainwater met their daily needs for washing clothes, cooking, and drinking. Ku believed that the rainwater was clean and was safe to use. However, the family was actually suffering from water-borne illnesses. In 2019, their lives dramatically improved after they decided to participate in a Biosand Water Filter and health training program facilitated by the local church and made possible by your generous donations to CWEF.

Sambo shares, “I regularly bottle the water from the filter and take it to the fields when I work, and I drink a lot of water before I go fishing on the river. All of my family members and I got healthier, and I hope that in the future my family’s living condition will continue to get better.”

Sambo now has enough time and energy to farm and provide for his family’s expenses. Not only are they healthy now—without abdominal pains and diarrhea—but they no longer need to spend so much money on medical treatments. Sambo and Ku can even begin to save money for their family’s future.

Here’s Sambo’s final word to you:

“Now, I am very happy after getting a Biosand Filter from Concordia Welfare & Education Foundation. Thank you for your donations to support my family’s living situation!”

Renew Health & Hope for Families Like Sambo’s

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Sustained Health and Hope for Sarer

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Sarer was a young wife and mother when she was widowed in 1994 in rural Cambodia. Her husband died of malaria, a common malady for farmers in tropical areas. Sarer lives in a multi-generational home with her elderly mother, along with her daughter and son-in-law. She works hard to provide daily necessities for her family.

“As a widow, without a good education, I don’t have any opportunity to work in higher-paying jobs. I work as a farmer, raising chickens, and I grow some veggies,” shares Sarer. “I remember a few years ago, my mom got sick with typhoid and stomach pains, while my daughter’s health was also weak. It required so much money that I took some loans to solve these problems. I thought that sickness is a part of [normal] life … so I didn’t fight to get anything better.”

Through a CWEF Animal Gift project, Sarer’s livelihood started to improve. She received animal husbandry training and five chickens. Her brood of chickens now numbers around 80! With the money from her chicken business, Sarer purchased a rice mill machine. She sells organic rice and uses the rice bran to feed her animals.

Sarer processes her crops

Later, CWEF introduced health training and made biosand water filters available to Sarer’s village. “I learned more about the bad effects of using unclean water.” She discovered that the cause of many diseases that her family and neighboring villagers experienced were from unclean water, such as abdominal pain, typhoid fever, and diarrhea. Sarer was very interested in using a biosand water filter. “I thought that I need to protect myself and take care my family from now on.”

Sarer’s health improved dramatically once she received a biosand water filter in 2018. She no longer needs to search for firewood needed to boil and purify her drinking water. “I trust the biosand filter!” she shares. “I use the water for cooking, drinking, and showering. I am now healthier than in the past. I have more strength to work and take care of my family.”

CWEF’s vision is a “world of thriving communities, serving and inspiring hope in others.” Through CWEF projects, Sarer and her family are now thriving. In her own words, she reflects:

“My life is better than five to six years ago. Thank you so much for bringing the development projects – both Animal Gift and Biosand Filter projects – to my community.”

Sarer tends to her chickens and eggs
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