A Pictorial Update: Agreement Signed, Construction Commences

A Pictorial Update - the past two days (Sunday/Monday) in images

Reviewing and negotiating the terms of the tripartite agreement. Concluded to sell @ 15 paise/L for school-children, @ 20 paise/L for below-poverty line card holders, @ 100 paise/L for non-below-poverty line card holders. The brand name chosen as : "Shuddhodaka" ("Pure Water") sold by the "EPGL-KNS Foundation Karnataka Model" water system.

A done deal! Agreement signed between EPGL (Deepinder), KNS Foundation (Swami Ji), and Financial Funder (myself, as representative)

About 20 community leaders were invited and introduced to the project, including people who would help with implementation (construction, electricity), and individuals who could play crucial roles in future expansion throughoutGadag. Picture shows us surveying the compound for proper placement of the water plant.

Group photo - amazing momentum behind the water plant from the get-go!

After Gadag, Deepinder, Jabashetti, and I drove about 60km to Kukanoor, Koppal to explore another opportunity to plant a reverse-osmosis system in this community suffering from a flurosis problem. Interest was very high - the 2nd community-based R/O system of Karnataka may not be very far away!

Breaking ground - Day One of construction: excavating the ground to lay the foundation for the plant housing


Alex, Nina, and I were invited to lunch by a beautiful family who literally live just three minutes away from the water plant. As an above-poverty line family, their living conditions were visibly much better than their BPL neighbors throughout the community. And yes, if you did not notice, I am holding a baby squirrel in my hand.

Progress of the excavation by early afternoon. This lone construction worker blew me away with his endurance and strength, working hour after hour, while I exhausted after just 30 minutes... Every person is vital to the water plant, from planning to implementation, start to finish.

Planting a Reverse-Osmosis Water Plant: A Sustainable and Scalable Clean Water Solution

What if there is an opportunity to sell purified drinking water to an entire needy family of five for a measly $0.04 a day?

What if this opportunity would initially serve hundreds of households, generate significant profits, and thus eventually could scale to bring clean water to tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of individuals?

On practically the first day I landed in India, just eight weeks ago, I got connected to a company that takes the "what if" out of these questions. Sam Reid, a USC MBA alumnus and the Asia Portfolio Manager of the Grassroots Business Fund, sent me an e-mail after I invited him to read this CTB blog, "I just finished due diligence on a company focused on setting up franchised Reverse Osmosis water purification plants in rural India..." My curiosity picqued.

After a few introductory e-mails from Sam--as they say--the rest was history. Upon arriving in Hubli, I began furiously exchanging e-mails with Deepinder Mohan, the visionary CEO of Environmental Planning Group Limited (EPGL). EPGL currently operates over 35 community-level R/O water plants in North India (Punjab, Delhi, and Rajasthan) and is the recipient of grants from reputable funders like Acumen Fund. EPGL takes an advanced and proven water technology traditionally limited to the rich (think bottled water), and makes it financially and structurally accessible to the poor who could benefit from this technology the most.

With my team's very broad project goal of "improving needy people's health through improvements in sanitation and water quality", I was very open and extremely excited to explore any potential collaborations with EPGL. So I quickly dove in. I worked closely with Deepinder and wrote a mini business plan and created proforma statements to test financial feasibility.

Initially, the intention was to launch a R/O plant in S.M. Krishna Nagar: the target slum community in Hubli from last summer's project. However, during a meeting with Jabashetti, Director of the Water Literacy Foundation and an invaluable contributor to our project, I soon discovered that such a plant was not the appropriate water technology that could help this community; the handful of borewells--from which R/O plants got input water--were drying up and were thus necessarily tightly controlled by the Hubli-Dharwad Municipal Corporation (government entity).

Not willing to toss the R/O plant idea in the can, I asked Jabashetti a simple question that changed everything, "Well, do you know of any nearby community that could benefit from such a system?"

Almost instantly, Jabashetti excitedly replied, "Gadag! Water quality problems are abundant in Gadag. Gadag has so many borewells available. And, I know an influential Swamiji who will listen to me. If I say to bring a R/O system, there will be a R/O system".

A few days later, I was on the bus to Gadag to meet and discuss the plant opportunity with the Swamiji, a local spiritual leader as well as environmentalist who founded the KNS Foundation responsible for recently planting over 300,000 trees! Seated next to me on the bumpy hour-long ride was my friend Dan, another Innovator from a different USC Global Impact project who kindly agreed to be the "token white guy" for the day. Although my Chinese/Filipino looks caught eyes in South India, Dan's fair skin could catch even more, and more importantly establish instant credibility in the community.

To make a long story short, after hours of ceremonies and such, we eventually sat down in a quiet room with Shivakumara Swamiji and Jabashetti and received his buy-in. He could provide his private borewell, electricity, and handle sales and operations. We jumped back on the bus to Hubli: mission accomplished.

Over the next week or so, I helped facilitate negotiations then agreement of terms between Deepinder and Shivakumara Swamiji. Originally, we aimed to create a partnership scheme whereby EPGL could front some start-up capital, share a percentage of sales, and cover certain expenses. However, eventually discussions led to following a different more simplified and traditional scheme whereby EPGL would simply serve as a plant supplier and maintenance provider, and KNS Foundation would retain complete ownership.

* * *

This takes us up to where we are today. With two key players--manufacturer and implementer--secured and aligned, there is just one last player to bring into the game: the financial funder. Currently, Jabashetti and I are seeking an organization/individual interested in helping to plant this single pilot R/O water plant that could eventually germinate dozens more throughout Gadag and bring clean water to tens, or even hundreds, or thousands of people. Gadag is home to a major fluorosis problem with debilitating dental and skeletal effects on those affected. This problem could be significantly mitigated by establishing community-level R/O plants at just a fraction of the 300-450 borewells throughout Gadag's many villages.

All we are requesting from the financial funder is to cover the start-up costs (~INR 400,000, ~$8,000) via an interest-free loan guaranteed full reimbursement within 18 months.

And thus, my last call is this: if you, someone in your network, or an organization you know may be interested in acting as a financial funder to this project, please shoot me an e-mail (bchang20@gmail.com) so we can connect and discuss things in greater detail.

The finish line is close, but we are not there yet. We have only two more weeks to complete this final leg of the race, but we will fight on, and we will finish.

-Bronson

A smile and a deep breath of satisfaction

July 11, 2009

Today is the first day that I feel truly proud of what I am doing here in Hubli.

The education program that I have been setting up for the past five weeks finally commenced today. We have 17 volunteers from The Women’s College that are split up into groups to teach at four different primary schools. This morning each of the groups went to their respective primary schools and spent an hour introducing themselves and playing games with the kids in order to get to know them before they start teaching the health and sanitation curriculum next Saturday. I went with one of the groups and sat in the back of the classroom and watched.


The children’s faces had huge smiles during the hour that the five volunteers were standing in front of the class. The volunteers asked the kids to tell jokes, what their favorite hobbies are and made sure that the kids were respectful (all in Kannada of course, but I could still understand what was going on). When it was over the volunteers told me that the kids didn’t want them to leave and that the kids said they would be waiting for them next Saturday. The volunteers were so delighted by their experience.

I took the bus back to the Women’s College with the girls and I ran into some of the other volunteers and asked them how their mornings went at the primary schools. Laxmi told me that she had a great time. Only half of her group showed up, but she was fine with that because it meant that she got to talk to the kids more. Sarala, a volunteer from another group, could not stop thanking me for setting her up with the primary school she was at. She said that the kids were so cute and she just wanted to pinch their cheeks. The head master of the school asked if she and her group would come teach a class everyday of the week for them! Sarala and her group were all smiles and could not stop raving about their morning.

Seeing all of these girls so happy to be helping kids that really need it just warmed my heart. The kids need these positive role models in their life to inspire them to go to college and to show them that learning can be fun. The lesson plans have lots of games and interactive activities so that the kids get really into it. I can’t wait to watch the volunteers begin teaching during my last few weeks here. I can tell that they are really going to make a different in these kids’ lives.
-Nina

A Guest Lecture

Yesterday, I gave my first ever guest lecture at the Arts and Commerce Women’s College in Hubli. In front of 70+ second-year commerce students, I passionately shared my presentation titled “Change Through Business: My Journey as a Social Entrepreneur”. Although my pulse raced as I took the stage, my words flowed calmly and my mind stayed pin-point sharp. For all the while, I recognized the great magnitude of what was happening and I needed to “bring it”; this was an amazing opportunity to inspire, if even just one person in the crowd, to see entrepreneurship as a tool for social change, but more importantly to live with Pure Aloha.

In my presentation, I gave a “Crash Course on Social Entrepreneurship” that went over the “what”, “how”, and “why” of the concept. I talked about my definition of social entrepreneurship, the “three Ps” and “triple bottom line”, and pioneering social entrepreneurs like Muhammad Yunus (Grameen Bank) and Bill Drayton (Ashoka: Innovators for the Public).

Following this crash course, to really bring the concepts home, I shared the story of Uncle Clay’s as a real-life and personal example. First however, to truly understand Uncle Clay’s I wanted and needed everyone to understand and experience Pure Aloha: the absolute core of Uncle Clay’s.

To do this, I prompted an “experiment” that aimed to connect hearts by opening them to one another via expressions of gratitude. The hope was to fill the lecture hall with Pure Aloha to provide everyone the experience of being in such a special space. I started the experiment by directing my sincere thanks to Hema, the head of the Economics Department and organizer of the event, “I appreciate you for being a great teacher that truly cares about her students and empowers so many through education”. A huge smile formed on Hema’s face.

“Now, you see how it works? Now you try. Go for it,” I announced. At first, only a few pairs of students embraced the experiment. The rest of the crowd remained unmoved. Yet, only a small part of me worried that this experiment was going to disprove the hypothesis I was “testing”: 1) that Pure Aloha goes beyond all distinctions--ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion--as it exists in the heart of every human being, and 2) spaces of Pure Aloha could be instantly created anywhere in the world--even a large and sterile college lecture hall--by the simple opening of people’s hearts and minds. I just need to try a little harder.

So, I asked one of the girls who did catch on to the experiment to share what she told her partner. She hesitantly agreed, slowly stood up, and took the microphone, “I want to say thank you to Sophie for being such a great friend who has always been there to help and support me”. The room filled with applause. The Pure Aloha energy meter spiked.

Now, with hearts a little more open and hesitations a little more subdued, exchanges of gratitude initiated here and there in pockets throughout the audience. I could feel the room filling with more and more Pure Aloha. It felt great. The experiment worked. The hypothesis was validated.

I continued the presentation explaining how Uncle Clay’s aim is to create a restaurant where Pure Aloha flows powerfully and easily. At Uncle Clay’s, ohana members (customers) can taste the flavors of the world through a multicultural menu that brings the best of the best foods from different countries across the globe. More importantly, Uncle Clay’s will bring people from all walks of life together, under a single roof where each person is recognized as a member of our one world ohana (family) in space of Pure Aloha.

To wrap everything up, I ended the presentation by introducing “The Pure Aloha Oath”. I passed out pocket-sized copies printed on yellow paper to each person in the audience. Stanza by stanza, I explained the meaning behind the Oath, as everyone followed along, some reading the words with me.

Finally, I asked each to take out a pen and draw a heart on the back of their Oath, write their name, and finally write an action of Pure Aloha inside the heart. Minds plunged deep in thought and pens scribbled away.

“Finished? Could everyone show me their hearts?” I proclaimed after waiting for about a minute. Yellow Oaths sprang to the air as I peered across the crowd smiling. My eyes met hearts of all different shapes and sizes, each filled with something personal, meaningful, and unique. At that very point, the hour was up. So I gave my sincere thanks and descended from the stage with a profound feeling and absolute knowing that, in that moment, Pure Aloha truly lived in me and every other person in the room.

-Bronson

Quick Update

Hi All,

Bronson reminded me today that we only have three weekends left in Hubli, which makes the rest of this whole experience sound rather short. I'm glad to report that we're advancing on all fronts, and that I hope to make a report of my "safe water storage" experiments rather soon. The potential to work with Chinyard is an exciting one, and we'll soon be receiving a report of their orders-to-date. The RO plant opportunity in Gadag is advancing well, and our volunteer teachers (college students) will be visiting their schools this Saturday to make introductions, with the first lesson being taught in two Saturdays.

Life is good in India, but I'll be brave enough to say that it will also feel good to be home soon.

Much Love,

Alex

Project Updates!

Wednesday July 1, 2009

Finally a post that I have been meaning to get at for some time now:

1. Chinyard – Chinyard is a micro-finance and livelihood NGO that we have been working with. We introduced them to the Basic Water Needs filter:



This filter is easy to use and relatively cheap (about 350 Rupies, which is a little over $7). The Basic Water Needs filter is made here in India and is targeting the top of the lower class as customers.
We showed Chinyard how easy the filter is to use and explained that it filters out both dirt and harmful bacteria, where as the most popular and more expensive filters on the market in India today only filter out dirt. Chinyard is in contact with about 3500 different self help groups in about 250 villages. Chinyard invited us to one of their staff meetings where we trained their field workers to use and demonstrate the filter:



Then, we went to two villages with a field worker and spoke to women’s self help groups about the filter (with the field worker translating):


After another meeting with Chinyard, we got wonderful news from them that there is a demand in the villages for the filter! Now we are in the midst of setting up a plan for Chinyard to buy a whole bunch of filters for themselves to sell to the villagers using “pay plans.”
Our one problem is that because the people in the slum neighborhoods cannot afford to pay the whole cost of the filter all at once, Chinyard has to buy the filters themselves and not get paid back for about six months to a year. This is a problem for Chinyard because they cannot afford to front the money either. So, right now we are looking into other funding options as well as maybe just having Chinyard start out slow for their water filter business and only buy as many as they can afford at a time.

We are very happy with this aspect of our project because if successful, it will be fully sustainable; we basically just introduced Chinyard to Basic Water Needs. We are letting Chinyard do everything themselves (ordering the filters, doing demonstrations) so that they are not reliant on us.



2. Education – I spent the past week revising and expanding the health and sanitation curriculum from last summer. The lesson plans were so successful last year, that the primary school asked if the program could run longer this year. I have added three extra lesson plans and updated some of the old ones based on feedback from one of the college volunteer teachers from last year.
We have also decided to expand the program: Last summer there were volunteers from one college, Karnatic University, going to one primary school, The Rajiv Ghandi School, to teach. This year, we will have volunteers from two different colleges splitting up and teaching in probably seven or so different primary schools.
Out of the 15 Karnatic University students who signed up last year, only 6 really stuck with the program until the end and taught the lesson plans week after week. These M.B.A. college students just finished their final exams about two weeks ago, but we caught them before they went on holiday. We are taking 20 volunteers this year: 10 to teach the curriculum and 10 to market the water filter door-to-door around the community that the curriculum is being taught in. The students who volunteered to do the marketing are excited because most of them are business/marketing students and feel that this will be good hands on experience. The students don’t resume school until mid-August, after we go back to America, which is inconvenient because we need to train the volunteers to be good teachers. Luckily, there is a woman who works at Karnatic University that has offered to be in charge of the program. We are happy about this as is ensures sustainability of the program and gives us hope that it will continue in the years to come.

The college we added this year is the Women’s Arts and Commerce college – an undergrad college for women. Their school session just started in mid June, so we have the convenience of working with the girls while we are here. We had a recruitment presentation at which we got about 20 sign ups. This week, I held training sessions for those volunteers who are still interested and by the end of a two day training, we got 17 volunteers to sign the Volunteer Agreement.



On the first day of training I went over the goals of our program and our expectations of the volunteers. I briefly spoke about what it is like to work with kids and techniques for talking in front of a group. Then I gave each volunteer a curriculum booklet and went over each lesson plan. We mock-played each of the activities and I mock-preformed the demonstrations. I asked the girls to read aloud and found that some of them had pretty good English, but a few of them had a very hard time even understanding English – they had stuck through the recruitment and training, but had to ask around to know what was going on. From this we learned that we can’t always assume that we are being understood. We found out that the girls can read and understand English if they have some time with it, so the curriculum having been printed in English wasn’t a problem.



On the second day of training we had the volunteers go in front of the class in groups and choose a lesson to teach to us:

They mostly taught in Kannada (the local language here), but it wasn’t hard for me to tell who felt comfortable and who had experience. I wrote down notes about how well I thought each girl did. Then we split the girls into teaching groups – one leader in each group and making sure to split the not-as-talented girls into different groups.

3. Reverse Osmosis – R.O. is a technique used to purify water on a community wide scale instead of in each house hold. It uses permeable and non-permeable membranes and an equilibrium gradient to filter bacteria and dirt out of water.

With help from Jabshetti, the head of the Hubli office of the Water Literacy Foundation (an NGO), we were put in contact with a community in Gadag, a village about 50 km from Hubli. It looks like the implementation of an R.O. system in Gadag is a viable way to provide the community with water. There is a Swamiji in Gadag who ownes land on which a bore well can be dug to get the water and the Swamiji offered to provide electricity to the system as well.

We haven’t worked out the details yet, such as funding and how involved we as outsiders should get, but I am excited that we made the connection between the city of Gadag and the CEO of the R.O. system company.

Even if we stopped our whole project now, it is still awesome that we are bridging gaps between people who are all here in India and can help each other. We introduced Chinyard to Basic Water Needs and the governor of Gadag to Deepinder, the CEO of Environmental Planning Group Limited, the company that sets up R.O. systems.

Memories from the Past - Aspirations for the Future

As I gazed across the rows upon rows of school children standing in the open dirt grounds, a feeling of remembrance swept through me. I remembered how not so long ago, I was just like one of them. I was just a kid.

My thoughts drifted back, back to a time when life was so simple and innocent. I loved playing basketball, and my dream was set on being the next Michael Jordan. I couldn't wait for school to get out so I could go home and watch Power Rangers with my brother and sister. My favorite cereal was Pops.

My attention returned to the present, and I was back to my 21 year old self. Oh, how so much has changed. Oh, how much have I experienced to evolve into the man I am today. A man seeking self-realization by going head-on with life's deepest and most difficult questions. A man willing to self-sacrifice to fulfill his aspirations of profoundly impacting the world. A man driven to live a life of great responsibility and grand expectations.

Being in India this summer has both rekindled my childlike personality from the past and emblazoned my mature visions for the future. In one moment, I am wildly running around playing alleyway cricket with other innocent kids, without a single responsibility. In another moment, I am conducting an important meeting with influential community leaders, with the great responsibility of bringing clean drinking water to hundreds of needy families.

My hope is that I can stay in the present moment. Most sharply aware of who I am today, but also attuned to who I was yesterday and who I can be tomorrow. Living this way, I know decades from now, I can reminisce about when I was just 21, be happy for who I am then, and excited for the years to come.

-Bronson