Innovative Solution

sustainability – rural communities – social entrepreneurship – Water Operator Partenerships – peace – renewable energies – capacity building – autonomous – green -

technical

Educational

The Living Springs support sustainable development projects in water purification and water treatment, manage the installation of purification water systems in the emerging countries and offer assessment and ongoing consulting support in the area of renewable energies such as water, electricity, sanitation, etc. The Living Springs works with public as private actors, small communities, NGOs, villages and international institutions.

In 2012, The Living Springs aims at providing safe drinking water per day to anyone who does not benefit from it since now by:

. Supplying small rural communities with a turnkey solution including one sustainable equipment, training & ongoing support
. Transferring knowledge and/or technologies for R&D purposes with local Universities
. Boosting up local economies & entrepreneurships through local assembly and/or production and micro-financing
. Providing sustainable drinking water at scale by working with rural water services (Public Operator)
. Impulsing & Promoting awareness on water education and management.

In The Living Springs organisation, we take up the challenge of a sustainable development which should unite a world divided by wealth, religion and geography.

Benin: See all projects and details on Map : http://www.thelivingsprings.org/index.php?p=1_32_Projects-in-Benin

Chili: Juan Fernandez Islands

India: Visianagaram District in Andhra Pradesh in India

Morocco

The Living Springs is a non profit organisation governed by articles 60 to 79 of the Swiss Civil Law and is specialized in the water sector, more specifically in water treatment and renewable energies.

Our Team is composed  of projects and coordination management members and partners who are engineers and technicians with more than 30 years of experience in the water sector (hydraulic, chemistry, mechanics) mainly coming from the water public operator of Geneva (SIG).

Catherine Lanvers is the founder of The Living Springs Association. She has initiated the activities and dedicate her time to develop the association activities.

The Living Springs aims to provide solutions for public operators of water services in emerging countries but also small remote or not rural communities as hospitals, schools, cooperatives, dispensaries, etc. and promote the development of collective and public water management involving in that process all public, private, corporate or civil economic actors, i.e. North-South and South-South.

The purpose of The Living Springs is to support sustainable development of projects in the fields of water purification and water treatment, to provide consulting services, training and assessment services in that framework of capacity building.

We support our counterparts in the selection of the appropriate solutions for their communities’ needs and their implementation.

We also aim at developing the installation numbers of purification and water treatment systems in local communities, NGOs, villages or communities, located in emerging countries. We plan with our counterparts the maintenance and follow up guidelines in a long term basis.

Our Approach

The Living Springs works with international institutions, non-governmental organizations, local organisations, education centres and universities, as well as the private sector.  We ask for the direct involvement and implication of local population in each of our projects by empowering social entrepreneurship and autonomy, and by involving the local / rural public  water operators.

Our technical partners had implemented 3 projects in Kenya and Cameroun, as “proof of concept”, since 2007.

So far, we could say that it has been a success.

IN BENIN – Village of Gobjé:  We are actually looking for funds to be raised for the projects in Benin.

IN INDIA: We are looking for partners for dwelling wells in India and implementing household and sanitations solutions. We are also looking for funds.

IN CHILE:  Works in progress. Water Training Center.

Our System  provides affordable Water for All and its lifespan proves its sustainability (>15years).

We work with underserved villages to design and implement locally sustainable water purification systems. Local operators are trained and received a salary; families learn proper hygiene to maintain the integrity of water; local city hall is involved in the project and given a practical and autonomous tool to manage in a sustainable and long term manner its drinking water resources. A follow up is concluded and maintenance is organized on a long term basis.

Figures related to the exploitation of a H2O Equipment:

Our standard H2O water purification system treats20,000 litersof water a day in a continuous manner and can provide20 litersof drinking water per day to a community of 1,000 people. Its performance is scaled up upon identified needs. Our system has a lifespan of 15 years, and which could be extended even more if it is well maintained.

Potential Long Term Impacts

Access to clean water for millions of people in low-income villages will eliminate rampant water-borne disease, allowing time and energy for productive activities. Children return to school; women gain time for livelihoods; and communities grow stronger. 

By implementing our system in the village of Gobjé in Benin (replacing or not dysfunctional purifying water systems), we will be able to deliver a Green sustainable Solution which will provide:

1-      Access to drinking water to people

2-      Appropriate technologies

3-      Water delivery models

4-      Capital-recovery models (from water revenues) and “reasonable”profit

5-      Employment

6-      Local capacity building programs

7-      Training, manuals and toolkits

8-      Consciousness about water management: Ongoing education programs on health and hygiene

9-      Improvement of local water management Systems by integrating Geographical information Systems (while scaling up): local to national.

The added values of our solutions are the following ones:

- Beneficiaries training during the installation of the water treatment systems meant for its maintenance

- Technical support for maintenance and long-term follow-up

- Running & exploitation models of the water treatment systems management and for water distribution: water kiosks or mixed public-private Concessions

- Customized solutions to the needs of the small communities

Our Water Purifying Filters are certified by the Laboratory of the Geneva Water Department (Services Industriels de Genève). It complies with both Swiss drinking water standards and World Health Organization standards.

Our System is easy to be installed and maintained.

It provides affordable Water for All ( 0.02 euros for 20 litres of safe drinking water) and its lifespan proves its sustainability.

Depending on type of projects, we provide either manual systems or automatic devices which allow a real-time monitoring for bacteriological content (it detects all Rod-Shaped Bacteria: bacteria such as Pseudomonas, Legionella, E. coli, Shigella, Salmonellae, etc.) in the produced water (by GPS or internet) on 24 hours a day continuously (with alarm). Both solutions – manual systems or automatic devices – are easy to operate.

The communities need to provide water (and sometimes the power). 

As we do have a lot of demands from Benin, we would say by extensions, that our solutions would benefit to all subsaharian countries and african countries. 

Our solutions work if there is a continuous flow of surface water in a year time. And a way to get a  minimum of elecriticity (the minimum required would be for the UV Lamp: 30 W and Pumping Unit (optional): 300W).

We can also treat underground water, but sometimes the water turbidity level would not require water filters.

The best context is when local social entrepreneurs are ready to engage themselves to work with and for their communities. It is what we call local Private and Public Partnerships (concessions to be delivered to operate a water kioks). 

Catherine Lanvers, Founder and President

www.thelivingsprings.org

The Living Springs Association
Rue des Courabiers 19
1227 Carouge, Geneva – Switzerland

T.  : +41 (0) 21 624 99 16      
M. : +41 (0) 79 882 0227      
F.  : +41 (0) 22 346 31 16

clanvers@thelivingsprings.org