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I was introduced to Potters For Peace and Ron Rivera a lifetime ago, before kids and real careers. While our time together was short, the lessons I learned from him were received like a tall cool glass of water, on a very hot dry day. Water, as it turns out, was Ron's passion. As one of the founding members of PFP, an organization that was started by potters around the world to help families in Nicaragua affected by the Contra War, changed under the leadership of Ron. For the last many years he has been waging a global war with ceramic water filters, using what he called “weapons of biological mass destruction.” Ron traveled to poor communities throughout the world developing micro-businesses and teaching local potters to make modified terra-cotta flower pots for purifying water.
30 facilities are now in operation in South and Central America, Asia and Africa. But Ron's goal of building 100 filter factories around the world was cut short last month, when Ron died on Sept. 3 in Managua after contracting a very dangerous form of malaria he received in Nigeria while setting up a filter factory.
In 1980, he met a Guatemalan chemist, Fernando Mazariegos, who was sharing with local potters a ceramic pot he had designed using clay and sawdust, which after firing, left pores small enough to block the passage of water-borne bacteria while letting the water seep through. After being coated with trace amounts of a colodial silver solution, the pot effectively eliminated 99 percent of diarrhea-causing contaminants like E. coli, cryptosporidium and giardia. The pots were simple to produce and cheap to buy.
Ron later improved the filter by developing a mechanical press and standardized molds to ensure consistent production. To date, there are more than 300,000 filters in use, selling for $5 to $25, and used by about 1.5 million people. At the moment, 13 more filter factories are scheduled to begin operating by the end of next year.
For more information on Ron, Potters for Peace and the Water Filter Projects he so championed, please visit
http://s189535770.onlinehome.us/pottersforpeace/
I found this quote on a website that Ron had posted his bio
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral" - Paulo Freire
30 facilities are now in operation in South and Central America, Asia and Africa. But Ron's goal of building 100 filter factories around the world was cut short last month, when Ron died on Sept. 3 in Managua after contracting a very dangerous form of malaria he received in Nigeria while setting up a filter factory.
In 1980, he met a Guatemalan chemist, Fernando Mazariegos, who was sharing with local potters a ceramic pot he had designed using clay and sawdust, which after firing, left pores small enough to block the passage of water-borne bacteria while letting the water seep through. After being coated with trace amounts of a colodial silver solution, the pot effectively eliminated 99 percent of diarrhea-causing contaminants like E. coli, cryptosporidium and giardia. The pots were simple to produce and cheap to buy.
Ron later improved the filter by developing a mechanical press and standardized molds to ensure consistent production. To date, there are more than 300,000 filters in use, selling for $5 to $25, and used by about 1.5 million people. At the moment, 13 more filter factories are scheduled to begin operating by the end of next year.
For more information on Ron, Potters for Peace and the Water Filter Projects he so championed, please visit
http://s189535770.onlinehome.us/pottersforpeace/
I found this quote on a website that Ron had posted his bio
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral" - Paulo Freire
