 Nature's Voice Our Choice - Demonstration Garden Nature’s Voice Our Choice began with an idea, a vision, lots of hard work and conviction that simple natural solutions could be found for the complex environmental, sanitation, and water shortage problems facing developing nations.
In March 2004, in response to the growing sanitation problem and water shortage issues in Nouakchott, Mauritania, former Peace Corps Volunteer, Brandy Lellou, founded Nature’s Voice Our Choice as a local Mauritanian NGO.
Natures’s Voice Our Choice’s primary goal was demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of treating domestic waste water in Nouakchott, for reuse in agriculture production in the city’s market gardens, by constructing a natural treatment system using aquatic plants and wetlands.
Using the EPA’s ‘Design manual for constructed wetlands and aquatic plant systems for Municipal Waste Water Treatment’, and research conducted on numerous similar systems worldwide; Brandy designed a treatment system that was capable of maintenance and operation in an undeveloped country’s desert environment. Confident that this was a future solution to waste water problems in developing countries yet unable to secure funding, she used $5000 from her savings account to create a demonstration site on donated land in Mauritania. In addition, the University of Nouakchott, Dr. Mohamed Lafdal, provided two years of ‘in kind’ biological and chemical water testing. By March 2005, the pilot project was fully operational treating 1000 liters of water/day from the apartment complex. The treated water consistently met World Health Organization standards for water to be used in the irrigation of vegetables for human consumption.
In January 2006, the pilot project was used to train local women concerning the theory, operation, and maintenance of the system and the ability to use the treated water for alternative income generating activities (vegetable production, compost, brick making, and tree and plant nurseries
With the success of this pilot project, potential was seen to develop the system on a larger scale and duplicate it in other developing countries to simultaneously: improve sanitation, create a new source of irrigation water, and improve the environment and economy. In addition, with the high consumption rate of water in developed countries and depleting water resources throughout the world, there is an urgent need to educate the public about preserving, conserving and restoring water resources.
Therefore, in 2007, Nature’s Voice Our Choice was incorporated in the United States and a Board of Directors with diverse backgrounds was elected with the objective of expanding the original pilot project’s success and developing additional activities that give communities throughout the world the knowledge and capacity to become vehicles for change.
|
