Today we’d like to introduce you to Darrel Larson.
Hi Darrel, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started a clean water non-profit called Give Clean Water in 2008 after becoming aware of the clean water crisis in the world. There are a lot of sicknesses that cannot be cured, but waterborne sickness is not one of them. According to UNICEF, a child dies every 90 seconds from waterborne sickness around the world.
The first thing to do with my NGO, was to find out where we wanted to work. I had a friend of mine that grew up in a rural village of Fiji and he told me about the clean water need there. At that time, over 50% of the population of Fiji did not have access to a treated water supply. I found that hard to believe since I had a much different picture of Fiji in my mind.
I made my first trip to Fiji in August of 2008 to see the need with my own eyes. Sure enough, the needs were great in the rural areas. Give Clean Water was born out of that trip.
The next big decision we had was to decide on the technology we would use to make clean water. I had become certified in BioSand filters, which were a basic sand filtration system that does a fair job at removing bacteria. The challenge of those units is that they weigh about 200 pounds when the concrete mold is loaded up with sand and gravel. This would make transport to the rural areas a big challenge. Plus they just did an OK job of removing bacteria.
About 2 weeks before our August trip, I was made aware of a gravity fed filter by Sawyer Products. This filter claimed to remove bacteria at .1 microns absolute, meaning no harmful bacteria could pass through the filter. I ordered a couple filters and took them down to Lake Miramar to collect some unfiltered and filtered water sample, and then took them to a lab in San Diego for bacteria testing. The lab results were astounding! The Sawyer filter removed ALL of the harmful bacteria like E. Coli making this a perfect filter for our NGO work! It was gravity fed, attached to a 5 gallon bucket, and could last for 10 or more years of use. Amazing!
In October of 2008, we took a group of 36 people from Newbreak Church in San Diego to distribute Sawyer water filter systems to 450 families in Fiji.
From that experience, we began to develop best practices of using Sawyer filter that focused on behavior change for sustainability. We also began measuring health and economic outcomes associated with using Sawyer filters. I’m a system’s minded person and I knew that we did not want to just deliver filters, do a quick training, take some photos, and think that everyone would all live happily ever after. I knew that we had to do the hard work of following up with families to ensure that were building good use and maintenance habits with the filters. I knew that we also want to use data to show real outcomes. We began tracking Diarrhea reduction, purchased water savings, medical savings, work days recaptured by adults, and school days recaptured by students. These became the building blocks that would eventually get the attention of Sawyer.
Fast forward to 2015. I was feeling the tug of wanting to work on clean water projects full time. My friends would all tell me that when I spoke about clean water around the world, I went into a different gear. Many of them were encouraging me to make the jump and do this full time. There was one big problem. I was scared. How would I support my family? How would I raise money when I didn’t think I was that good at Fundraising at the time. Many questions were keeping me from moving forward.
About that time, I had several people and some pastors that began to challenge me. I am a person of Faith, but to be honest, I was trying to do this on my own. I felt stuck until one day I made the decision to put this in God’s hands. I’m not making this up. I literally prayed and told God “OK, I’LL DO IT! But You will need to provide the resources!
Two days later, I got a call from the owner of Sawyer who flew out to Carlsbad and met me for dinner. He sat across the table and looked me square in the eyes and asked me “Are you ready to quit your job?” He told me that they had been watching all of the data results coming in from Fiji and how we were tracking everything, and invited me to join the Sawyer International team as their International Director of Humanitarian Programs.
I couldn’t believe it! Of course, I said yes, and then a clean water journey began to unfold like I had never imagined.
I found myself on a flight to Liberia, Africa in July of 2015 where I would begin working with an NGO that had a vision to bring Basic clean water access to the entire country by December of 2020. Sawyer would end up donating 130,000 of their filters to this effort, along with data research through a US University, and a good chunk of cash.
That effort led to 130,000 families receiving clean water in the middle of the jungle of Liberia and on November 11th, 2020, Liberia became the first country to have Basic clean water access as defined by UN Security Goal #6. It was a grand celebration to accomplish what everyone said was impossible. I played the role of training trainers and overseeing the monitoring and evaluation of the project.
We also brought clean water to every household in the Marshall Islands through Sawyer Products.
Right now, Give Clean Water is working with Sawyer Ambassador and world record endurance athlete Katie Spotz, to bring 100,000 people in Fiji clean water. Katie was the youngest woman to row a boat across the Atlantic ocean, set the world record for 11 ultra marathons in 11 days, and many more accomplishments. Fiji will be the next country to gain access to safe water for every household. Katie’s row starts in December of this year.
What started out in Fiji in 2008 with the first 2 families receiving a Sawyer water filter, has now grown to over 31 million people impacted with clean water through a Sawyer filter!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Raising up people in other countries with no knowledge of water filters or data collection was a big challenge. We also learned that people will often tell you what you want to hear. That played itself out in the early days when we would follow up with families who received filters and we asked them how they were doing. They always answered that everything was great.
We discovered later that everything wasn’t great. People were just trying to save face and tell us something good. Upon further review, we discovered that people were using their buckets to store rice, laundry, and other things. We knew that we have to address behavior change: specifically the habits of daily use and maintenance of the filters. That process was tough, but has ultimately led to some great best practices that are now used all over the world.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I played in a big hair 80’s rock band for 10 years. You can find my photo by doing a Google search for “80’s men’s big hair.” Click on images and look for the black and white photo. Yes, that’s me.
I was a youth pastor for 8 years.
I worked for a house building ministry for 8 years called amor Ministries.
I’ve been a pastor at Newbreak church in San Diego since 2006, focusing on Missions work.
I started work at Sawyer Products in 2015 to present.
I’m still an active musician, playing regularly at the Sunset Market in Oceanside.
I’m happy to have been a part of my clean water work around the world, and for building systems that have helped over 31 million people be impacted with clean water around the world.
I’m most happy that I get to live out my life mission statement:
I want to use my love for people, and my love for systems, to give a tangible, compassionate expression of God’s love to the world.
Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
As I learned from one of my mentors, you should always have somebody out ahead of you in life, somebody beside you, and somebody behind you that you can mentor. Live life to the full and always approach life with a “What if” and “Why not” mentality.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.givecleanwater.org. www.sawyer.com
- Instagram: darrellarsongvw
- Facebook: darrel.larson.1
