EarthEnable
Reducing the Incidence of Disease with Low-Cost Flooring
Location: Rwanda
EarthEnable: Grantee in 2014, 2015 and 2016
The mission of EarthEnable is to provide healthy, low-cost flooring to those who can’t afford other available alternatives to dirt floors for their homes. Dirt and mud floors are a known cause of malnutrition, respiratory illness, infections, and the spread of vector-borne diseases.
EarthEnable team members came together in the Stanford Design for Extreme Affordability program. They searched for inexpensive solutions to the problems bred by the need to rely on dirt and mud flooring. Hard, cleanable floors reduce the incidence of such health issues as childhood diarrhea and parasitic infections by an estimated 49% and 78%, respectively.
The flooring technology utilized by EarthEnable draws on the lesson learned from sustainability-oriented homeowners in the United States who revived the use of earthen flooring. The team created a low-cost variant by developing a proprietary process to mirror the effectiveness of the U.S. product; they devised a system to convert locally available oils to the equivalent of the more expensive linseed oil used in earthen floor sealants in the States. Field tests at pilot sites in Kigali, Rwanda were successfully completed in 2013; 19 installations created five jobs, provided healthy floors for 32 people, and set the way for expansion.
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GRANT SUMMARY AND PURPOSE
2014: $20,000 to develop marketing materials and train local masons to install floors in Rwanda.
2015: $25,000 to scale operations in Rwanda from 30 to 70 masons and provide healthy flooring to 175 families monthly.
2016: $30,000 to support
IMPACT
