Community Water Solutions

Global Water Challenge: What is the Problem that CWS Addresses?
Today, 1 in 6 people around the world lack access to safe drinking water. Four million people die each year from preventable water-related diseases, and 90% of those deaths are children under five. Community Water Solutions’ (CWS) initial target market is northern Ghana where 50% of the nearly 2 million residents lack access to improved sources of drinking water. Furthermore, in urban areas where residents do have access to “improved” water sources, as many as 83% may drink contaminated water due to source contamination and/or unhygienic handling. The lack of access to safe drinking water continues to be a public health challenge for the region where approximately 20% of children under five are suffering from diarrheal disease, and the child mortality rate is 150 deaths per 1000 live births.

Solution: How does CWS Meet this Need?
Water management techniques used in high-income nations are neither economically nor technically feasible in much of northern Ghana. As a result there is a significant opportunity for implementation and scale-up of low-cost water treatment and safe storage solutions.

To address this challenge, CWS implements sustainable, scalable water treatment businesses owned and operated by the communities we serve. The CWS model is based on three primary components:
1. We offer community scale water treatment at the source (when needed, only required for rural areas where “improved” water sources are not available).
2. We use low-cost chlorination and safe storage solutions to make sure that the water stays safe and clean while users transport it and store it in their homes.
3. We have an innovative revenue-driven business model that generates enough capital to sustain the local water businesses, ensuring that CWS communities have continuous access to clean water.

Currently, CWS provides the only sustainable source of safe, clean drinking water available today in the rural communities we serve. In addition, we are able to serve our individual customers at a price per liter of clean water that is three times lower than our closest competitor.

Impact
To date, the CWS team has implemented three locally managed water treatment centers, reaching over 2,500 individuals and providing 600 children with a clean, reliable source of drinking water in their homes. In addition, we are currently expanding our work to urban areas where our research has shown there is significant drinking water contamination, despite access to “improved” water sources. To meet this need, we are adapting our community mobilization, chlorination, and safe storage model to urban settings. We believe that by leveraging existing water sources we can efficiently bring safe water to underserved urban communities.

Team
CWS’ four person founding team includes business students as well as two former MIT graduate engineers with specializations in household water treatment. In addition, CWS has had the opportunity to learn from a fantastic set of mentors and advisors including individuals from the MIT Public Service Center, Pure Home Water, UNICEF, PATH, and the CDC.