Aqua Box update - Roz Adamson

25 May 2023: Aquabox Talk - Roz Adamson

Roz commenced her talk by saying that she is a Trustee of the Aquabox Trust and a Member of the newly established Derbyshire Dales Rotary Club.

She said that she had become a member of Rotary as a result of her volunteering for Aquabox following her retirement from teaching and searching for someway of using her continuing energy.

She had started at Aquabox as a shelf filler and had progressed to hold various roles as a volunteer currently being the champion for Aquabox Ambassadors.

Aquabox was founded in 1992 when 2 members of Wirksworth Rotary Club hatched a plan to find a way of helping to provide safe clean water to people affected by disasters where water supplies are interrupted.

The first Aqua boxes contained water purification tablets that that were used in the plastic boxes provided and whilst providing safe water it was tainted by the chemical purification.

The remaining space in the boxes was filled with items that had been donated as a result of appeals for items that people who were homeless due to disasters were felt to need.

Whilst donors were generous many of the things donated proved to be inappropriate for the needs of those who were affected so much time was spent unpacking and repacking filled boxes.

Overtime development of water filtering systems allowed Aquabox to move away from chemical water purification with the provision water filtering equipment.

Concentration on the provision of clean water led to the cessation of filling boxes with donated items many of which proved to be unusable.

A great step forward in the development of Aqua boxes provided today came about 10 years ago with the development of the Grifaid Filter System by renowned design engineer Rotarian John Griffiths in Rotary District 1030.

The water filters are manufactured by a not for profit company the Safe Water Trust and assembled under licence by Aquabox at their depot in Cromford, Derbyshire.

Now each Aquabox Gold Box, which is tailored to support a family group, contains water purification filters as well as items of humanitarian aid to help with shelter and shelter building, lighting, cooking and feeding, educational development and hygiene.

The boxes are packed by the volunteer Aquabox teams and filled with specially selected humanitarian goods to meet the basic needs of the recipients.

Boxes filled with 12 Family Filter units and a larger capacity Community Filter unit are also supplied to meet specific needs.

The Aquabox Trust is run entirely by volunteers apart from One Part Time paid employee.

There are more than 70 volunteers who assemble the filters and pack the boxes at the Depot.

Recently some new trustees from local business have come on board and this has spawned a project to revaluate the production procedures with the aim of increasing the efficiency of the work carried out at the depot. This is a collaborative procedure with the Volunteers being involved in the development new procedures.

Aquabox works in partnership with Aid Agencies operating throughout the world who supply Aqua boxes as part of their disaster response efforts and in support of communities that have no access to clean water.

The Trust always welcomes visits to the depot and would be happy to receive help from anyone who might wish to become a volunteer.

Roz was thanked for her excellent talk and complimented on the continued success of Aquabox. It was good to see that they are forward looking and refreshing their procedures.                              ST/AR