Though the Amazon Basin is the largest freshwater system in the world, most of its water is unsafe for drinking. Countless thousands of Brazilians suffer from frequent illness — and sometimes death — due to waterborne bacteria and parasites. The death toll is especially high among babies, children and the elderly who live in the river villages.

Simple Solution

In 1999, Project AmaZon (PAZ) and Samaritan’s Purse Canada opened a small production facility in Santarém and began training Brazilians to build and install BioSand Household Water Filters. This simple and inexpensive filter — developed in Canada by Dr. David Manz — is recognized by the World Health Organization as one of the most effective low-tech water filters in the world. It eliminates nearly all particulates, herbicides, pesticides and micro-organisms, delivering safe drinking water.

BioSand Filters are especially appropriate for the Amazon Basin, because we can build them using inexpensive local materials — cement, sand and gravel. We use local labor, providing Brazilians with much needed jobs. In addition, the filters are easy to maintain once they’re installed. In fact, the owner himself, with brief training, can do all the maintenance.

Giving Life

Over and over again, our installation crews and supervisors are praised for the filters. The filters make a powerful difference in the day-to-day lives of Brazilian families. In fact, when waterborne disease strikes an Amazon river community, it’s often possible to predict which families are going to remain healthy and which ones are going to be sick just by knowing where the filters are located. When the villagers find out that everyone in the village is sick except for those who have filters, they often come clamoring to get one. One community grew so impatient for delivery that they hired their own freight boat to come into Santarém to pick up their filters!

Your gift of $100 will provide the materials, labor and transportation needed to install a BioSand Water Filter, blessing a Brazilian family with clean water and improved health. But more, your gift provides them the chance to hear the Gospel and see it in action.

"Jesus answered, 'Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.' " John 4:13