The beautiful, unintended consequences of innovation:
SODIS—derived of a Swiss water disinfection program—is the process of exposing water to sunlight in order to deactivate diarrhea-causing organisms in polluted drinking water. And it has profound effects on education.
Recently published in this months National Geographic
“‘It’s simple, it’s free, and it’s effective,’ says Ibelatha Mehela, principal of the Nodela Primary School in Tanzani. In 2006 her school started using SODIS to disinfect its contaminated tap water, places bottles on the building’s contaminated tap water, placing bottles on the buildings corrugated metal roof. The result? Absenteeism due to diarrhea dropped considerably, and examination scoars soared. ‘Before we started SODIS, only 10 to 15 percent of the children passed the national sixth-grade exams,’ says Mhelela. ‘Now 90 to 95 percent of the students pass.’”
