By John Boccacino ’03
Throughout the pandemic known as COVID-19, properly washing your hands with soap under hot running water has been one of the biggest causes championed by health care workers for avoiding the coronavirus.
But what if, in your town or village, you don’t have access to clean water?
It’s a problem Nikita Chatterjee ’20 and Brianna Howard ’20 know all too well from their work reducing waterborne illnesses in one of the world’s most densely-packed cities, Dharavi, India.
When they were juniors at Syracuse University, Chatterjee and Howard moved ahead with plans to create a unique water filtration system, designed to eliminate debris and other harmful bacteria from a water source. Thanks to guidance provided at the Blackstone LaunchPad, and after spending a summer with Invent@SU, the two took their concept from a well-intentioned idea into a working prototype.
They’ve won more than $26,000 in funding and grant money for their project, and they credit their time on campus with providing the essential support to launch their global health company.
“The university has played a major role and impacted the success of this project. We learned how to start a business, how to pitch our ideas to investors, and how to connect with mentors, but we also learned that it’s okay to make mistakes. You have to be adaptable and fluid,” Chatterjee says.
Modern Solutions to a Centuries-Old Problem
They launched their global health company, PAANI Solutions, named after the Hindi word for water, in December of 2018. The goal? To equip the women of Dharavi — who often walk four miles roundtrip several times a day to access a water source — with clean, drinkable water, free of the numerous bacteria and contaminants that often plague the largest slum in Asia.
With a population of about 700,000 people packed into 2.1 square kilometers, Dharavi is one of India’s most impoverished cities. The problems facing Dharavi are widespread throughout India, as more than 163 million people lack access to clean water.
Chatterjee and Howard incorporated their water filtration system into a sari, a traditional garment worn by Indian women, blending new-age water purification technology with the rich customs of India.
COVID-19 Brings About New Health Crisis
When COVID-19 struck, Chatterjee and Howard decided to help by providing essential face masks for the residents of Dharavi. With its tightly-packed streets filled with houses containing multiple generations of families under one room, and with many citizens sharing common toilets, the conditions create a perfect breeding ground for the spread of the coronavirus.
“There is definitely a shortage of personal protective equipment around the world, and especially in India, which, with a population of 1.3 billion is in need of more than 38 million masks for its most vulnerable areas. We wanted to be a part of the solution, helping communities in need,” says Howard, a public health major in Syracuse University’s Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics who recently was named the 2020 undergraduate recipient of the Chancellor’s Award for Public Engagement and Scholarship.
Opportunity to Improve Lives
It’s a purpose-driven mission that hits close to home for Chatterjee. Both of her parents, Jaishree and Sourav, were born in India. Whenever Nikita would go back to India with her parents, she was struck by the abject poverty she witnessed: children begging for money and food on the streets, families building houses out of cheap fabric.
Chatterjee, who entered Syracuse on the pre-med track with the hopes of becoming a doctor, vowed to make an impact on this Dharavi community that was lacking basic resources while facing a potential public health crisis.
“I just had this intrinsic feeling of wanting to help out. As someone who wanted to become a doctor and save lives, this cause, providing an opportunity to improve people’s lives, is really important to me,” says Chatterjee, an economics major in the College of Arts and Sciences and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Preparing for an Uncertain Future
Working with local companies already producing face masks, PAANI is donating enough materials to produce 1,500 masks for the citizens of Dharavi.
Through a Go Fund Me initiative, Chatterjee and Howard hope to raise an extra $7,500 to cover the costs of producing tens of thousands of additional face masks. PAANI is also donating money to support the women in India who make these masks, as many of them earn approximately $2-$4 for their day’s work.
“There’s no way to practice safe social distancing, so how do we adapt to that situation to help out? Face masks are now required any time you leave the home, showing an even greater need for the production of masks. We want to help get these essential face masks out to the hospital networks and the residents so they are prepared for what is to come,” Howard says.
Recognizing that the need for face masks will remain high as long as the disease continues to spread, Chatterjee and Howard plan on providing masks for people in need in the tri-state area, which has some of the highest volume of COVID-19 cases in the country.