Clean Water for Displaced Families
In conflict-torn North Kivu, families returning home have no safe water and are dying of cholera. A $50 membrane filter changes that — for years. A joint project of PALPER and Clean Water Help.
The challenge
Years of conflict have displaced hundreds of thousands of people across North Kivu. As families return to their villages, they find the water infrastructure destroyed — so they drink from whatever lake, river, or puddle they can reach. Cholera is the number-one killer here, typhoid the second.
The danger is not only in the water. Women and children walk hours to collect it, and those long walks carry a real risk of violence. Safe water close to home is also a safety issue.
On average, providing clean water to roughly 1,500 people who lack it saves one life every year. In a crisis this acute, the cost to do that is astonishingly low.
Our solution
Phase 1 (now): we distribute simple gravity-fed membrane filters — about $50 each, no electricity, no chemicals, removing cholera and typhoid bacteria at 0.1 micron. Half go to a central PALPER-run distribution point, half to families directly. Each filter delivers years of safe water with nothing but a periodic backwash.
Phase 2 (next): a simple, locally-operable water treatment point that PALPER staff run for whole communities — sited where women and children can reach it safely. Deliberately simple: ultrafiltration with a washable pre-filter, no fragile chemical supply chains to fail.
A small community contribution funds the local operators and builds the ownership that makes a system last.
Where We Work
North Kivu, territory by territory.
Conflict has displaced hundreds of thousands of people across four territories. Select a territory to see the challenge on the ground and how we respond.
The challenge: epicenter of the crisis
Masisi is the statistical epicenter of the cholera outbreak, recording roughly 127 new cases each month. With a scattered rural population and a measles epidemic also raging, the challenge is breaking the chain of infection: clinics are overwhelmed, treating patients who return to the same contaminated water that made them sick.
The response: fortify health clinics
Fortify local clinics with high-capacity ultrafiltration, ensuring safe water for patients and staff — turning clinics from treatment centers into places that stop disease at its source.
The challenge: a multi-faceted emergency
Nyiragongo faces a complex public-health emergency: an acute cholera crisis (120 new cases/month) alongside a severe mpox outbreak. Destroyed infrastructure demands immediate intervention to prevent catastrophic loss of life.
The response: a two-pronged approach
Distribute emergency household disinfection kits to halt outbreaks, while installing permanent filtration in community centers for long-term water security and resilience against future epidemics.
The challenge: a returning population
An estimated 400,000 displaced people are returning to a territory where water infrastructure has collapsed. In the Rwanguba health zone alone, 94% of 174 water sources are non-functional or undeveloped — a perfect storm for a large-scale outbreak.
The response: resilient, scalable systems
A tiered approach: rehabilitate the 69 damaged wells, develop the 94 uncaptured springs, provide household filters for remote families, and install community-scale systems for a sustainable, safe supply.
The challenge: a volatile urban flashpoint
As the provincial capital on Lake Kivu, Goma draws people fleeing violence, and its resources are stretched to breaking. Dense displacement camps with little sanitation create a constant, high-stakes risk of explosive disease outbreaks.
The response: high-impact urban WASH
Install high-capacity ultrafiltration at central water points in camps and dense neighborhoods, serving thousands of people daily as a firewall against urban epidemics.
Click a territory name or the map to zoom in. Figures reflect the North Kivu displacement and cholera crisis.
Who does what
The local partner leads and the science partner supplies the engineering, the design, and the funding.
- Operate the central filtration and distribution point
- Identify and reach the most vulnerable families first
- Train every household in the local language
- Secure government blessing, permits, and logistics
- Diagnose source-water quality and match the filtration technology
- Fund filters, spares, and shipping — 100% of donations
- Engineer the Phase 2 community treatment point and write the grants
- Document every distribution with photos and records
Clean Water Help
A United States 501(c)(3) nonprofit of volunteer scientists and engineers. Clean Water Help supplies the water science, the treatment design, and 100% of project funding — PALPER operates every system on the ground in North Kivu.
Empower a Community
$50 saves a family from cholera.
Every dollar buys filters, spare parts, and training — nothing else. This is the highest-need, lowest-cost work we do.
Donations are collected through GoFundMe and managed by PALPER's local team in Rwanguba. PALPER asbl is registered N° JUST./SG/20/1170/2018.