On Wednesday we officially launched our “Give us your Pitch” campaign to highlight current and imminent crowdfunding projects that needed a little publicity. You can see the post here, where we highlight our plans and what we are looking for. You can also see out first Pitch that went live a couple of weeks ago to pilot the feature.

We have had a few good pitches through in the first couple of days, and they are under consideration for next week – Wednesday is the planned day each week, when a pitch will appear.

However, we thought it was only fair to highlight this pitch immediately, as it is for a very good cause and with only 13 days to go to raise the cash, next week would be too late…..

Project: A innovative water disinfection system, which uses sunlight to disinfect water in Ndulyani, Kenya has been a success. However the village is now without a water source and they need help asap to provide an alternative water source.

Okay, before we get to the Pitch – the basic are that: “the funds raised will allow over six hundred people to access safe and reliable drinking water”

They need: 22k (Euro) for the project and currently have 10k raised with 13 days still to go…

Interested in finding out more? Read on…

“We are Laurence Gill and Joanne Mac Mahon from the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering at Trinity College Dublin and we are currently researching an innovative water disinfection system, which uses sunlight to disinfect water. The solar disinfection unit is a low-cost, low-maintenance system, which requires no energy to run, and uses one of the most abundant resources in the developing world, sunshine.

The Civil Engineering Department implemented a successful pilot project in the remote village of Ndulyani, Kenya, in 2008, serving over 600 people. We visited the project site in July 2011, however, and discovered that the widely publicised drought in the region had caused the village water source (a dammed river) to dry up. The system had worked successfully for over one year but the lack of water supply means that the solar disinfection unit can no longer be used and the villagers must make a 14km round trip on foot to collect water.

The villagers want their solar disinfection system up and running again and we are determined to raise the necessary funds to provide an alternative water source in the form of a borehole. This would allow the solar disinfection system to be used again and villagers would have access to safe drinking water. The positive impact in terms of improved health and time saved would be invaluable for the community and they are ready to implement the project with us. We have also tracked down the original project engineer, Colin Price, who has just returned from working in Haiti, and he has been roped into returning with us to help with project implementation. It is planned to implement the project over a 3-4 week period in the first half of 2012.

Laurence and I have both worked previously with rural communities in the developing world, where we witnessed first-hand the problems that lack of access to safe drinking water can cause. We believe that our solar water disinfection system can provide a sustainable solution to the problem of contaminated drinking water, helping to improve the health of isolated rural communities, as well as their prospects for the future. Laurence is so dedicated to this project that instead of receiving wedding gifts when he got married, he asked guests to contribute to funding the pilot project in Ndulyani. Joanne promises to do likewise for another pilot project, if she ever decides to get married!

We very much want you to become involved in this project too. Drilling a borehole to provide an alternative water source in Ndulyani, which will allow the solar disinfection system to be reinstated, will be a major step forward in developing this sustainable and environmentally-friendly water treatment solution. The funds raised will allow over six hundred people to access safe and reliable drinking water and will be money extremely well spent.

Many thanks for your interest in our project. Interested in helping us out? Click here to visit our crowdfunding page…

Want to watch our Pitch Video; check it out below: