I went along to Hollingwood Hub for North Derbyshire Rotary Club’s World Water Day. I met with Dominic and Cheryl to discuss Aquabox and how it supports people with clean drinking water in disater zones.
Transcript
Toby: So, I’m here at the Hollingwood Hub on Sunday. I’m here with the North Derbyshire Rotary Clubs. Dominic and Cheryl here promoting the work they’re doing with Aquabox. Dominic just tell us what Aquabox is all about.
Dominic: Aquabox is a charity run wholly by volunteers and we make these water filters. These hand operated water filters which we then donate as aid into disaster zones around the world. So it could be Ukraine, it could be Syria, Yemen, Napal or Jamaica. These are hand operated. It’s a simple as this. You drop it into the water, pump by hand and using ultra filtration technology it takes out all of the bugs, all the dirt, all the pathogens that are killing the kids.
Toby: Good to drink?
Dominic: Absolutely.
Toby: Excellent and so, how do we actually, you’re making these in Wirksworth, in Derbyshire, how do they get from Wirksworth to Myanmar or wherever they need to be?
Dominic: It’ll all demand on where the disaster has happened and which organisation in the world has actually got access in there and it’s very, very dependent. I’ll give you an example through Myanmar after the earthquake there we used Rotary. The links with Rotary we went through Thailand Rotary, they got the products to the border and across the border into Myanmar. We will use anybody.
Toby: And you were saying the only thing that holds you back, you’re up to 8,000 of these units being made a year, is volunteers and funds. How can people get involved?
Dominic: So, we are constrained with donations. It’s donations that drive this organisation. If we had double the donations we could make twice as many filters. Aquabox.org, find us on the website, you can donate there.
Toby: So, please support it if you can and Cheryl, you’re on the volunteer side, just tell us about how people can support what you’ve got people doing.
Cheryl: People can support practically as well. So, we have the teams that actually making filters and coming over every day of the week and I have a team of over 60 ladies now and we make products for women around the world and girls. Sanitary products, reusable ones so, we are pioneering really and we have shipments going out to Bolivia, Napal, Ukraine and so, it’s women helping women. Which is very positive.
Toby: Absolutely. Well, thank you both of you, Dominic, Cheryl, for the work you are doing and for coming here to the Hub to promote it.
Cheryl: Thank you.