By Isadora Pennington
“If you want to talk about helping a community, the starting point is always water,” said Joshua Sanders, executive director and cofounder of Atlanta-based Trashwater.
Trashwater is a nonprofit dedicated to providing clean drinking water to impoverished urban communities. The organization is currently operating in the Los Brasiles and La Chureca neighborhoods of Managua, Nicaragua.
Worldwide, more than 840,000 people die each year from water-related diseases and over 750 million people lack access to clean water. It was during a humanitarian mission trip to Cairo, Egypt that Joshua and his travel companion, Colin Denlea, first encountered the problems that unclean water can cause when Joshua fell ill.
“I knew I wanted to do something that was geared towards serving people, I just didn’t know what exactly,” Joshua explained. Being in the hospital from drinking impure water gave him an insight into the importance of clean water. “That was the epiphany moment.”
Joshua and Colin founded Trashwater in 2010, initially focusing their attention on a boy’s orphanage in Cairo. “We saw a need in Egypt,” said Joshua. “We were just a couple of guys who saw a problem and wanted to fix it.”
The two lacked formal experience in starting and running a non-profit, and they relied heavily on Google and their background in church mission trips to grow the organization.
In their research, Joshua and Colin discovered a niche. While most similar clean water initiatives were focusing efforts on drilling wells and purifying river water, there were still many people in urban environments who had no clean water solution. The Trashwater program set out to provide continued support, education and communication in addition to the filters themselves to these communities.
Trashwater had to halt their work in Cairo when the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 erupted in violence throughout the city. “The political turmoil in Cairo made it impossible for us to work there for quite some time,” Joshua said. “Cairo is always a wait and see kind of situation for us. We all have families and partners and we want to be cautious.”
While the unrest stalled the initiative’s work in Egypt, they remained committed to their cause. Joshua conferred with a friend who was connected within the nonprofit world about their mission and need for a new community to serve. In turn they were introduced to former Peace Corps worker Coburn Murray, who had started an initiative to provide food and education in Los Brasiles.
“We talked for almost an hour,” said Joshua of the conversation. “He shared with me that at any given time a large portion of his students would ill with water related parasites and diseases.” In the years that followed, Trashwater’s partnerships with these local communities have all but eradicated those waterborne illnesses.
Originally, Trashwater provided ultraviolet water purification systems, but they have recently made the shift to a terracotta bucket filtration system that is made locally in Nicaragua. “We try to source everything from Nicaragua as much as possible,” Joshua said, emphasizing the importance of empowering the local community without creating a dependency on the outside support. “At some point, you do have to let the community take it over,” said India.
There has also been a focus on training people in the communities to make repairs to the water filtration systems.
“We look for people in the community with a sense of leadership,” said Joshua. “We encourage them and equip them to take over the projects.” By keeping the local relationships intact, the organization has a much better chance of affecting long-term positive change.
As part of the company’s commitment to evolving with the times and the needs of their community, they have also started offering clay stoves, or “rocket stoves” that drastically reduce cook time, prevent cross-contamination and conserve resources.
As Trashwater continues to grow, change, and adapt, they hope to expand their aid into other communities and will host fundraising events in Atlanta. They are also planning to host a Latin American themed block party in September to celebrate the Nicaraguan national holiday that commemorates the Battle of San Jacinto.
To learn more about the organization, visit trashwater.org.
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