Dear IRWA Supporter,

Welcome to the webpage of the International Rural Water Association (IRWA).  I hope you find the work we do both exciting and valuable to the people of the developing world.  IRWA is unlike many other organizations involved in water and sanitation projects in that our primary mission is to provide ongoing technical assistance and training to rural communities empowering them to sustain their water and sanitation infrastructure.  Our technical assistance providers are called Circuit Riders or Asesores del Agua and the model is based upon nearly 40 years of success and experience operating a Circuit Rider program in the U.S.  

The National Rural Water Association (NRWA) began the circuit rider program in the U.S. in the mid 1970’s and it is still operating today helping rural communities throughout the 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories in the South Pacific.  The program was so successful that the then board of directors for NRWA provided seed capital to establish IRWA in 1988.  IRWA began operations shortly thereafter in Honduras and has been supporting rural communities in Central America ever since.     

Technical assistance and training is crucial to the success of water and sanitation projects.  Systems do not operate and maintain themselves; water boards are not formed from whole cloth with complete knowledge of how to finance a water system.  These things take time to evolve.  In fact in the U.S., the first water filtration system was installed in the early 1800’s, chlorination was not introduced until the early 1900’s and the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Acts did not exist until the 1970’s.  That is a period of some 180 years.  The good news is that we know how to do water and sanitation systems; we have lots of experience.  The goal of IRWA is to share that knowledge and give developing countries a big jump-start so that they don’t need 180 years of trial and error.  

All of us involved with IRWA have experience in some facet of water and sanitation, and many of us, like myself, have spent their careers operating and managing rural systems.  We know the value of the lessons learned from those that went before us.  Our water and wastewater systems and the personnel that mange and operate them do a tremendous job providing us with safe drinking water and turning sewage into clean water.  Our lives in the U.S. are made easier, safer, and healthier by the fact that we turn on the tap, drink the water and do not give it a second thought. 

That is unfortunately not the case for the nearly 1 billion people around the world that do not have safe drinking water or the 3 billion that do not have sanitation systems.  They do have to worry about their safety and their health when they take a drink of water.  Can you imagine as a parent having to be concerned for the life of your child when handing him or her a drink of water.  No one should have to bear that burden. At IRWA, we have decades of experience building rural water treatment systems.  The goal is to share our knowledge and sustain the effort so that everyone in the world can reach for a clean glass of water without a second thought.   

Why did I start off by saying that IRWA is unlike other organizations?  Because we sustain the effort: we keep the water flowing.  IRWA builds water and sanitation projects like all other organizations, but we sustain them through regular and consistent follow-up.  Far fewer than 1% of water projects completed by aid agencies and benevolent groups ever see any monitoring or follow-up past the first year.  By contrast, 100% of IRWA projects receive follow-up by our in-country Circuit Riders every 1 or 2 months - not for one year but since 1988 when we started.  

In 2011, IRWA made a significant change in how we operate our circuit rider programs that is consistent with our desire of sustainability.  IRWA wants the circuit rider programs to run forever with or without our financial support.  Up to this point, IRWA has been funding 100% of the program cost in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.  That model served us well during the early years when our local partners were learning the basics of the circuit rider model, but now we will be graduating the programs over the next several years to financial self-sufficiency. 

Each local circuit rider program is already the answer to sustainability from a technical standpoint and will soon be financially sustainable as well.  That will be a watershed event for the water and sanitation sector.  Circuit rider programs will be operating and funding themselves – we will have given them that big jump forward.  This will allow us to start new programs in new countries and begin the process toward sustainability once again.  

But none of this happens without the support of many dedicated people and many benevolent individuals, corporations, foundations and agencies.  From the nearly 40 years of experience gleaned in the U.S. and over 20 years in the international arena, we know the circuit rider is the answer to sustainability.  I hope you share that vision and will help us to help developing countries reach the point where turning on the faucet is second nature. 

Please explore our webpage, read the stories, share them with your friends, and then join the solution!  You’ve heard the stories in the past and wanted to help out.  Here’s your chance.  Don’t let it slip away.  Don’t make it take 180 years.  Keep the water flowing!   

Sincerely,

Mel Aust

IRWA Chairman

International Rural Water Association