Hello, my name is Rick Johnston, and I started this course
when I was working in the Sandec Department at Eawag.
Now I work for the World Health Organization
in the WHO/Unicef Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation.
And I am Sara Marks, a research scientist at Eawag
and group leader of the Water Supply and Treatment group.
My team works in countries in Africa and Asia
to improve drinking water quality
through developing innovative treatment solutions.
And one way that people can improve drinking water quality themselves
is to treat it at the household level.
And that's the topic of this course,
an Introduction to Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage.
This course is the first in a series of e-learning initiatives
jointly developed by Sandec and EPFL,
which will cover the full range of Sandec research activities,
Household Water Treatment, Sanitation Planning
Solid Waste Management and Faecal Sludge Management.
The first week, of course, is an introduction.
We'll start by exploring why it could be useful
to treat drinking water at the household level.
We'll talk about the global burden of disease,
discuss how drinking water can be contaminated
and get a brief introduction to the technologies
used in household water treatment.
In the second and third week we'll go through these technologies
in more detail
with examples of actual applications from around the world.
But the course is not only about technologies.
We'll also look at implementation strategies,
which are successful or not,
we'll consider how household water treatment
can be targeted to particular vulnerable groups,
such as in emergencies or through schools.
And in the final week we will look at monitoring and evaluation
both of the technologies and their implementation in the field.
We're looking forward to the course
and hearing your contributions on the online forum.
So let's get started now
with the module about the diseases caused by unsafe water.