“Potters for Peace mourns the passing of Ron Rivera. Ron was a remarkable human being who left a profound impression on many people worldwide. To a great degree PFP in its present form is a product of Ron’s efforts and wisdom.

He died as he lived, working tirelessly to bring potable water to the poorest of the poor. On a recent filter work trip to Nigeria Ron contracted a severe form of malaria resulting in a heart attack and his death on September 3. ” Potters for Peace website

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Ron Rivera liked to call his ceramic water filters “weapons of biological mass destruction.” For 25 years he traveled to poor villages throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia teaching local potters to make what appears to be a big terra-cotta flower pot but is in fact an ingenious device for purifying water.

Ron Rivera, who taught how to make life-saving filters, in 2005.

“You put dirty water in — gray water that many communities still drink — and it comes out crystal clear,” he told an audience last year at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in Manhattan, where his filters were included in an exhibition called “Design for the Other 90 Percent.”

A recent study in Cambodia found that the filters cut in half the incidence of diarrhea, a leading cause of death in the third world, especially among children.

Mr. Rivera died on Sept. 3 in Managua, Nicaragua, after contracting falciparum malaria, the most dangerous form, while setting up a water-filter factory in Nigeria, said Kathy McBride, his wife. He was 60.

Mr. Rivera, a Bronx-born Peace Corps volunteer who spent much of his life as a development worker in Central and South America, discovered his life’s mission in Ecuador in the early 1980s. A Guatemalan chemist, Fernando Mazariegos, was showing local potters a ceramic pot he had invented. It was made of clay mixed with sawdust or ground rice husks that burned off during firing, leaving pores so tiny that they blocked the passage of water-borne bacteria while letting the water seep through.

After being coated with a bacteria-killing silver solution, the pot effectively eliminated 98 to 100 percent of diarrhea-causing contaminants like E. coli, cryptosporidium and giardia.

The pot was easy to make and cheap to buy. Suspended inside a five-gallon container to collect the water, it could purify one to three quarts an hour, drawn through a spigot.

Off and on, Mr. Rivera began working with charities and development groups to set up workshops for turning out the filters. He later improved the filter by developing a mechanical press and standardized molds to ensure a consistent product.

After Hurricane Mitch cut a swath through Central America in 1998, Mr. Rivera, who had been doing development work in Nicaragua for the previous decade, joined with a tiny American organization called Potters for Peace and went into high gear. “He became the guy you went to to set up a filter factory,” said Daniele S. Lantagne, an engineer working on safe water systems at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Mr. Rivera often said that his goal was to set up 100 enterprises. The factory in Nigeria was his 30th.

Ronald Rivera was born to Puerto Rican parents in 1948. After graduating from World University in Puerto Rico, where the family moved when he was 11, he joined the Peace Corps and spent two years working in Panama. He went on to do development work in Ecuador and Bolivia with the Peace Corps and with Catholic Relief Services, although he was an atheist.

It was while studying with the radical educational theorist Ivan Illich in Mexico that he learned to throw clay pots. “Illich said that human beings were disconnected from the earth, and Ron realized that he did not really know how to do anything with his hands,” Ms. McBride said. “So he moved in with a Mexican potter and learned.”

In 1977 he married Maggie Padilla, whom he later divorced. She survives him, as does their son, Demian Rivera of Bloomington, Ind., and Mr. Rivera’s four brothers: Larry, of Parkland, Fla.; Eddie, of Miami; Dennis, of Orlando, Fla.; and Louis, of San Diego. The marriage ended in divorce. After he moved to Managua in 1988, he and Ms. McBride, who had been high school sweethearts, reunited and eventually married. Three stepchildren survive, Camilo Power of Brooklyn, Ana Gabriela Power of Norfolk, Va., and Maria Belen Power of Minneapolis.

For the last decade of his life, Mr. Rivera traveled all over the world setting up microenterprises in Ghana, Cambodia, Yemen, Colombia and other countries. Many thrived, especially after Mr. Rivera began organizing the workshops as profit-making microenterprises. Some produced filters for a short period and then shut down, either abandoned by their sponsors or caught up in political turmoil, as was the case with a workshop in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Beverly Pillers, the chairwoman of the board of Potters for Peace, said Mr. Rivera’s factories had produced about 300,000 filters, selling for $5 to $25, and used by about 1.5 million people. At the moment, 13 more filter factories are scheduled to begin operating by the end of next year.

“I saw Ron as a Pied Piper,” said Robert Pillers, the treasurer of Potters for Peace. “He had the capacity to draw people in and then give them the means to accomplish something.”

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We wish to express our sincere condolences to you over the passing on of our
great friend, Ron.We can only imagine the pain of the loss. Take courage.
Rest assured he made you some good friends in kenya.
To us he has left such a vacuum in our lives. No words can describe the
emptiness we feel.

We all meet Ron when he first came to kenya looking for an established
potter.To us when you spoke of the filter it sounded impossble, since we had
used clay for the past 20 years and never heard of it.
When you came back last year, you blend in and became a part of our family.
You taught  us in the most simple way how to make, use and sell the filter.
You were indeed a great teacher. A  man rich in knowledge, full of energy,
drive and had a passion for his job. You talked about the filter to everyone
you meet. Today, we have the knowledge, confidence energy and the passion
that Ron instilled in all of us.

Ron had a mission and a vision, we can only ensure that we work tirelessly
and passionately towards his goal, “let every poor person access portable
water”.

We will truly miss you.

The entire Wambugu Family

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Thank you.

Ivania

No podía creer cuando esta mañana trataba de traducir el email de Henk….Hace 4 anos Ron contacto con nosotros, Argenol, en Zaragoza, Espana, para que enviasemos plata para una de sus nuevas fabricas. Sin comprender muy bien la finalidad, enviamos nuestro primer producto. Desde entonces nos ha llenado de orgullo dedicar esa pequena parte de la fabricacion a este proposito, agua limpia para todos!

Este ano, en el que se celebra la Exposicion Internacional sobre el Agua en Zaragoza, un Filtron ha mostrado durante los 91 días que ha durado la exposición, el proyecto de Ron. Voluntarios de la exposicion explicaban la importante finalidad: un sistema tan sencillo, economico y eficaz para potabilizar agua.

Amigo Ron, te aseguro que desde esta posicion vamos a hacer lo imposible para que se construyan esas 100 fabricas que tanto deseabas. Con esa entrañable forma de ser, esa energia y esa simpatia, has dejado amigos en todos los rincones del mundo y una ilusion contagiosa para que continuemos con tu objetivo.

Cuenta, desde donde estes, con este grupo zaragozano, orgulloso de colaborar en tu proyecto.

PAZ para ti,

Ivana

Tribute to Ron Rivera

Ron

When I first met you in 1988 in Managua you were asking me technical assistance to improve the press you needed to make “your” pot filter.

Already 20 years ago you had the vision that the combination of ceramic and silver had a huge potential to make safe drinking water affordable for people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Ever since then we have worked together, dreamed up ideas, organized funds, started up filter production in El Salvador and Ghana, brought the filter into the WHO network, solving problems of the filter production in Nicaragua, presented the filter at water fora and recently worked together in Mozambique on the new  siphon filter. We shared success but also our frustrations and discovered together; “ simple is not easy”.

It is hard to imagine how to go on without your drive, your knowledge, your friendship

Still I am sure that the best tribute we can give to you is going on with what was your goal in life; providing safe water for all.

Your friend

Henk Holtslag

Tribute para Ron Rivera

Amigo Ron

Cuando te encontré por la primera vez en 1988 me pediste asistencia técnica para mejorar la prensa para la producción de “tu”  filtro. Ya hace 20 años tu tenias la visión que la combinación de cerámica y plata tenia un potencial enorme de mejorar la calidad de agua para personas de pocos recursos.

Desde este entonces hemos trabajado juntos, sonando ideas, organizando fondos… Iniciamos  producción de filtros en Ghana y El Salvador, solucionamos problemas en la producción en Nicaragua, empujamos el filtro hasta la Organización Mundial de Salud, presentamos  el filtro en foros mundiales de agua, y hace unos meses trabajamos juntos en Mozambique en el nuevo modelo,  el filtro Siphon.  Compartimos éxitos pero también  frustraciones y juntos descubrimos “lo sencillo no es fácil”.

Es muy difícil imaginar como seguir sin tu entusiasmo, tu experiencia y tu amistad.

Sin embargo estoy seguro que la mejor forma de manifestar mi amistad es de seguir con el objetivo de tu vida: Agua segura para todos.

Fuiste un especialista de barro y agua, siendo un hombre de oro.

Tu amigo

Henk Holtslag

Over the next few years Ron and I collaborated on a number of projects. Most mornings my computer was full of e-mails from Ron and that night there would be a text message on Skype, asking me to log on. I fear that my computer will be eerily quiet after this week-and that’s when it will hit me a second time. Ron brought an incredible focus and urgency to our work. Ron felt deeply the need to provide clean water in communities that have none. His commitment came out of a strong connection to humanity.

Amongst ourselves Ron wouldn’t speak in those terms, but we felt his drive. His drive was concrete; he wanted to see more working filter factories producing filters throughout the world. He wanted to put clean water into the hands of the very communities who were most at risk. Ron was a mentor to me. He saw something in me that he felt would be useful, and he encouraged me to contribute whatever I could. I know he did the same with others. His loss hits me personally. He left us too soon. Ron was a brother and a Mensch.

-Burt Cohen-

Potters Without Borders