Stichting Connect International

On 19 November Mr. Henk Holtslag, technical coordinator of Connect International, has been decorated Knight in the Order of the Royal family Oranje Nassau. The decoration was awarded by the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs during a special celebration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Holtslag has worked for more than 25 years on the development and promotion of what we call SMART Techs. Mr. Holtslag has specifically worked on the now famous Rope pump (for which he is often called 'Mr. rope pump), of which currently many thousands function to provide the poorest on earth with good and nearby drinking and irrigation water. Mr. Holtslag has done his work in many occasions on his own account, without any financial support. While others were focusing on conventional (often not sustainable) technologies Henk Holtslag knew that the solution would rather be technologies that can be locally produced and maintained and that are affordable to even the poorest people. He has proven right and for that he has been rightfully awarded the very high royal decoration, as with these technologies now hundreds of thousands of people have better health and better welfare. We congratulate Henk wholeheartedly and are very proud to work with such a frontliner in appropriate technologies and such a friend and especially also respected example for many other people in the development sector.

November 2008

We are very sad to announce that our collegue and friend Ron Rivera passed away. Ron has been active for some 25 years with the so called pot filter, an effective low cost ceramic water filter. He and the organisation Potters for Peace started the local production of this filter in 20 countries.

Ron was a collegue and close friend of our Smart Techs coördinator Henk Holtslag with whom he worked together for 20 years. Since last year we worked with Ron on the local production of the new siphon filter in Mozambique. In the spirit of Ron, Connect International will go on with his objective of life "Safe water for all".

Read here for tribute for Ron Rivera.

September 2008

With Funds of the Programma PvW (Partners voor Water), Connect is studying the possibilites of a local production of the so called Siphon water filter in Mozambique. The Siphon filter is an innovative filter which is more effective and lower in cost than other ceramic filters known so far and is smaller than the so called pot filters as promoted by PfP

The recent publication Marketing safe water by Mr Urs Heierli describes the Siphon filter as a promising low cost option to reduce water borne diseases. See for more information about the siphon filter also the website of Arrakis.

June 2008