American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2011 World Water Day speech:

"USAID is working … with the private sector to open a ceramic water filter factory in Cambodia. With ceramic filters, people no longer need to boil water to make it safe to drink, so they don’t need to burn as much wood or charcoal, which in turn reduces greenhouse gases. And the plant has even applied to receive carbon credits for future sales." Click here to read the full transcript.

Hydrologic receives mention in USAID's Global Waters newsletter for January 2011 — see p. 8f. (Click image for PDF).

The Economist white paper on health innovation in Asia; see Hydrologic case study on p.26 (Click image for PDF)

  Technical specifications on the original Tunsai water filter (Click image for PDF)

 PATH report on its clean water project in Asia (Link)

  PATH report on demand generation for Household Water Purifiers (Link)

Tunsai water filters reduces boiling, carbon emission as well as contributes to protection of the rain forest. (Click image for PDF)

During the summer 2010 Hydrologic invited 22 senior government officials attending GIFT’s Global Leaders Module (GLM), a partnership with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy’s Senior Management Programme (SMP), to use their deep experience and knowledge in the region in order to produce a business plan which would enable the company to fulfill its mission of delivering safe water solutions to Cambodia’s poor households. The group hailed from Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Qatar and Brunei. (Click image for PDF)

Hydrologic’s new Cambodian production facility currently has the capacity to press and fire approximately 4,000 CWPs per month; minimum additional investment can double this capacity. Our innovative factory design produces twice as many units per employee compared to other CWP factories in Cambodia.

Hydrologic is helping to set the standard for industrial production in Cambodia with state-of-the-art safety, ventilation, and ergonomics. We are committed to the safety, comfort, and professional development of our Cambodian staff, training them in international standards of quality control, production streamlining, and uniform operating procedures.

Our process uses the equivalent of 25kg of firewood in the filter production and firing process, thanks in part to energy savings from modern kiln and production technology. By eliminating the need to burn firewood to boil water, each filter in circulation saves about 2 tons of firewood each year, according to conservative estimates.

Using marketing expertise from the private sector, Hydrologic is driving consumer demand for its CWP products. For the past 10 years, International Development Enterprises has developed a widely recognized brand with its Tunsai water purifer. (“Tunsai” means “rabbit” in Khmer, a creature popularly associated with wisdom and cunning.) The Tunsai water purifier continues to be distributed through NGO channels to the poorest Cambodians and special groups who cannot be served through ordinary commercial distribution channels

Cambodians demand better health, but the majority are also drawn to symbols of status. Hydrologic is excited to introduce the Super Tunsai, which is appealing on both counts. The Super Tunsai is a high-end CWP redesigned and repackaged for the rapidly growing consumer goods market here.

The Super Tunsai has benefitted from IDE’s experience in social marketing, comprehensive market research by PATH, and branding consultation from Cambodian and foreign experts.  Early product testing has shown an extremely enthusiastic response from Cambodian consumers in the Super Tunsai’s target demographic.

Development of a commercial sales and distribution channel will incentivize local merchants to carry spare parts and replacement units while building trust in local communities. Hydrologic’s professionally trained sales network, its new in-country production facility, and an ongoing marketing campaign will ensure that Super Tunsai is available, affordable, and effective for a huge segment of the Cambodian market. 

Above: Radio spot for Super Tunsai. It describes a happy family-dad, mum, and a daughter. Mum always takes care of her family with good food and clean water. She trusts only clean water that is purified by Super Tunsai. 

Above: TV Commercial for the Original Tunsai, featuring a popular Khmer song re-written with lyrics about clean water.

IDE is a non-profit International NGO with a unique market-based approach to poverty reduction. IDE helps to build profitable enterprises and value chains that deliver sustainable social and economic benefits to the rural poor, enabling them to increase their income and improve their quality of life. IDE works primarily in rural areas, where the majority of Cambodia poor live, and in two sectors that are critical for rural livelihoods: agriculture and water & sanitation. IDE is the current owner of Hydrologic.

For detailed info on IDE, please click here.

PATH is an international non-profit organization that creates sustainable, culturally relevant solutions, enabling communities worldwide to break longstanding cycles of poor health. By collaborating with diverse public- and private-sector partners, we help provide appropriate health technologies and vital strategies that change the way people think and act. Our work improves global health and well-being.

For detailed info on PATH, please click here.

Nexus is a global alliance of social ventures (non-profits, non-governmental organizations and eco-businesses) whose central mission is to reduce climate change while alleviating poverty. It is an integrated carbon services platform for awareness raising, carbon auditing, capacity building, carbon project development, and carbon asset management. Nexus is an incorporated non-profit organization in Singapore.

For detailed info on Nexus, please click here.

VisionFund Cambodia seeks to help those entrepreneurial poor who are highly capable of starting a business by providing them micro loans to generate a regular household income. Our financial service delivery extends and complements World Vision's development ministries with a strategic focus to reach out to the vulnerable poor to establish their own lives in a secure, healthy and dignified manner.

For detailed info on VisionFund, click here.

Small-scale ceramic filtration has a long history, having been used in various forms since antiquity. Locally produced ceramic pot-style filters have the advantages of being relatively inexpensive, chemical free, low-maintenance, portable, effective, and easy to use. The filters remove microorganisms from water by gravity filtration through porous ceramics, with typical flow rates of 2-3 liters per hour.

Research has found that the filters significantly improve household water quality, eliminating up to 99.99% of E. coli. In a comprehensive UNICEF study, households using a CWP reported only half as many cases of diarrhea as matched control households without a filter.

Since Hydrologic’s filters are enclosed in food-grade plastic containers, they ensure that treated water is safely and properly stored. Water treated by other methods in Cambodia (by boiling, for instance) is often kept in open containers and is easily re-infected. Hydrologic filters dispense water from a tap, increasing their effectiveness and ease of use.

Hydrologic’s filters have only one moving part (the tap) and need no external energy source (such as UV lamps) or consumables (i.e. chlorine packets). Unlike cholrine-based disinfection, CWP filtration produces no significant taste issues with water.

CWPs can become clogged if they are being used to treat particularly turbid water. In order to avoid clogging , Hydrologic recommends that extra turbid water be allowed to settle for a day or so in a storage container prior to filtration. Hydrologic’s filters can easily be removed for periodic cleaning, giving families the power to considerably extend the useful life of their filters.

Household-scale ceramic filtration technology is considered among the most promising options for treating drinking water at the household level in developing countries. Its use in Cambodia is widespread and growing, with the involvement of local and international NGOs and government efforts that have been supported by UNICEF, WSP-Cambodia, and others.

For example, today more than one billion people in the world do not have access to safe drinking water, roughly one-fifth of the world's population, according to the United Nations Development Program. More than 2 million people in developing countries, most of them children, die every year from diseases associated with inadequate sanitation and the lack of safe drinking water.

Cambodia is no exception. Despite the long-running efforts by international aid organizations, NGOs and government, nearly 40 per cent of rural Cambodians still have no access to safe drinking water, while only 20 per cent have access to adequate sanitation facilities today, UNICEF estimates. The consequence of this harsh reality is a high rate of diarrhea and other water-borne diseases among the Cambodian people, especially children.

In order to tackle the challenging drinking water conditions in Cambodia, the Tunsai (“rabbit” in Cambodian) ceramic water purifier (CWP) was introduced to Cambodia by International Development Enterprises (IDE) in 2001.

Born to IDE’s long tradition of expertise and know-how, Hydrologic today is an independent legal entity and social enterprise delivering safe drinking water to more than a half million Cambodian people through the well-known Tunsai CWP.

With the significantly increased production capacity at our new Kampong Chhnang production facility, Hydrologic is now equipped to scale up its marketing, sales and distribution throughout Cambodia and beyond. Capitalizing on rural Cambodian’s demands for safe drinking water and high status appliances, the redesigned Super Tunsai is a new product poised to dramatically expand the water filter market in Cambodia.

Anticipating continuous support from our valued customers, investors, partners and other stakeholders, we pledge to do our utmost in research, product development, quality assurance and timely service to our customers with the best possible, most economical and environmentally friendly ceramic water purifiers.

Thank you! 

Olaf Evjen Olsen
Managing Director
Hydrologic Social Enterprise

House 38B, St.494, Phsar Deum Thkov,

Chamkamon, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Telephone: 023 6911 981

Website: http://www.hydrologichealth.com

E-mail: info@hydrologichealth.com