Less than a year ago, 45-year-old schoolteacher Rekhaben and her family drank unsafe water every day. Living in the small Indian village of Randheri, the only water available was bore well water that was piped into her home starting at 7am each morning for 45 minutes on a good day. On bad days, days when the electric was out or the well was low from drought, there was no water at all.

In 2019, Kohler teamed up with World Vision to bring access to safe water to over 400 people who live in Rekhaben’s village. After studying the safe water needs of the village, we built a centralized kiosk with a large-scale reverse osmosis filtration system that can provide 500 liters of safe water each hour—enough for everyone. 

Now Rekhaben’s entire family, neighbors and anyone she can get the word out to uses the filtered water. “I meet a lot of people in the village. I talk with many of them in meetings at work, we discuss about pure water availability and we spread the news to other people as well,” she says.

The impact on daily life and health is significant. While the water that’s piped into Rekhaben’s home may look fine, it’s actually filled with minerals, bacteria, salts and dissolved solids that are harmful. To give a little context, waterborne illnesses cause one death around the world every 37 seconds, not to mention 443 million student-missed school days.

As a mom and schoolteacher, Rekhaben is acutely aware of the health issues that accompany unsafe water and the benefits of the reverse osmosis filtered water. She’s delighted that now “people use filtered water which is safe for kids, pregnant women, and breast-feeding women. It’s really good for health.”