CAWST (the Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology) is a licensed professional engineering firm and registered charity – a unique model that combines the practical problem-solving of engineering with the accessibility of charitable services for those who need them most.
The company’s training and consultancy services help organizations in low- and middle-income countries learn how to get safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) into homes, schools, and clinics using simple, affordable technologies.
Responses to water and sanitation challenges often prioritize infrastructure – wells, pipelines, and sewage treatment plants. While these are essential, CAWST takes a different approach. In many places, piped water systems are not viable due to cost or technical complexity, making them difficult for rural communities to operate and maintain. To ensure safe water for all, a combination of both decentralized and centralized solutions is needed.
“CAWST takes science and turns it into free training on simple, affordable technologies and practices that anyone can implement themselves right away,” says Shauna Curry, CAWST President and CEO.
By training others, CAWST catalyzes independent action, creating a multiplier effect far beyond what any individual or organization could achieve alone.
Providing training, both in person and online, CAWST offers high-quality learning opportunities on multiple WASH-related topics in multiple languages, so that anyone, anywhere can start, strengthen, or scale up the projects in their communities. When this happens, “water knowledge” – previously inaccessible to many – quickly becomes common knowledge.
CAWST aims to reach 100 million people with improved water, sanitation, and hygiene by 2030 – and it’s halfway there, reaching more than 50 million since its inception. It’s an ambitious target but CAWST is confident it’s achievable, thanks to its expansive network and relationships with local organizations and partners.
“We continuously experiment, iterate, and improve based on insights from organizations worldwide to ensure our training and consulting remain as effective and locally relevant as possible,” says Curry.
Based in Calgary, Canada, CAWST’s network of training and professional engineering consultancy services ripples out around the world – to every continent on the globe, except Antarctica – improving people’s access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene. CAWST strives to support a diverse mix of organizations because then the impact continues to grow. When CAWST trains local partners, they in turn train communities, and the impact multiplies for generations.
The Sehgal Foundation in India is one of CAWST’s long-standing local partners. CAWST works with the foundation to improve the quality of life of people living in rural communities in India.
Through its support, the partnership has helped families from Mohammadpur Lakhanpur in Bihar state install and use simple, effective household biosand filters to transform the health, social, and economic outcomes for the village. This affordable technology uses sand and other locally available materials to filter impurities and contaminants, such as microbial pathogens. Thanks to an adaptation by Sehgal, specifically created to help in this region, it also removes the naturally occurring iron and arsenic.
Since the filters have been installed, life has improved significantly for the villagers, says Aparajeeta Vaibhav, Sehgal Foundation Engineer and Program Lead.
“By drinking filtered water, communities are safe from waterborne diseases, the families are empowered, and parents are not losing work opportunities and can better support their families.”
CAWST empowers people with training, consulting, and expertise on affordable technologies and best practices to effectively meet the challenge of SDG 6 – ensuring sustainable water and sanitation for all.
“It won’t be one individual, organization, or technology that solves the world’s water crisis. It will be many working together,” says Curry.
CAWST, together with our partners and training organizations, has reached more than 50 million people with improved water, sanitation and hygiene.