A Fallen Changemaker: Remembering Ron Rivera

September 12, 2008

The Changemakers community has suffered the loss of a valued member, Ron Rivera, who died Sept. 3 from malaria contracted while he was working to ensure safe water supplies in Nigeria. In his Changemakers profile, Rivera wrote, “I look for sparks, and feed those sparks so others become changemakers also.”

Rivera, a self-described “sociologist, potter and appropriate technology enthusiast,” was pursuing his dream of bringing workshops for production of water filters to Africa and Asia. He also worked with handicrafts cooperatives in Nicaragua, where he lived, advising them about making quality handicraft.

Rivera died in Nicaragua at age 60 after returning from a trip to Nigeria where he contracted one of the most dangerous types of malaria caused by the falciparum parasite. He was working with a group of students and professors from Princeton University to set up a water-filter factory.

The New York Times noted that Rivera spent 25 years traveling "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 . . . 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. "

Rivera's dream was to establish at least 100 locally-owned, self-sustaining factories in Latin America, Africa, and Asia by 2020 to make water filters that produce safe drinking water. The water-filter factory in Nigeria was his 30th. He worked tirelessly and was often heard saying that every 15 seconds a child dies of diarrhea somewhere in the world due to lack of drinking water.

Rivera shared his plan for realizing this dream in two entries in the Changemakers “Tapping Local Innovation: Unclogging the Water and Sanitation Crisis” competition, titled “Ceramic Weapons of Mass Bacterial Destruction” and “The New Kid on the Block, the Siphon Filter.”

According to the New York Times:

"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.

"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'.”

Rivera was a Bronx-born sociologist by profession but with a craftsman’s heart. He and his family have lived in Nicaragua since he arrived in 1988 to work for the Sandinista Revolution, and since that time he has been dedicated to advising handicraft cooperatives. He did this throughout Nicaragua, especially in the most difficult and hardship areas, working for and among the poor as a member of the Pottery for Peace.

Rivera learned to be a potter while studying in Mexico with the radical educational theorist Ivan Illich, who had said that people are becoming disconnected to the earth. For Rivera, it was a chance to learn to create something with is own hands.

Delegations of potters from all over Nicaragua came to a ceremony in Managua to celebrate Rivera’s his life, creating an overflow crowd that remembered him with their testimonies, music, and guitar playing. During the ceremony, Rivera’s ashes rested in a water filter made of simple materials such as sawdust and mud, symbolically representing many lives saved from death.

Rivera would always introduce the filter by saying, "I am presenting the most powerful weapon of mass destruction which exterminates parasites and bacteria" (see video, below).

Video of Ron Rivera describing ceramic water filter international projects at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum's Design for the Other 90% panel discussion.

The New York Times describes how Rivera discovered the filter:

"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."

Rivera was a cheerful and optimistic man. His wife Kathy spoke at the end of the ceremony for Ron in Managua, finishing saying in conclusion that: "Some say that God is Love, for Ron Love was his God."

In his Changemakers bio, Rivera notes that he joined the Peace Corps at age 19, serving three times in Panama (1969-1971) and then Ecuador (1975-1978). He then served in Bolivia with the Catholic Relief Services for three years, actively supporting resistance to the military dictatorship. Rivera studied at the School for International Training and founded the local consultancy office for the Inter American Foundation in Ecuador until 1988 when he moved to Nicaragua.

In his Changemakers profile, Rivera said that one of his favorite geographic places is overlooking Lake Atitlan in Guatemala (above). Otherwise, he said the place where he feels a fondness or connection is "When I am among people who feel empowered, have dignity and are 'compañeros y compañeras,' working together for a common good."

Changemakers is an initiative of Ashoka	A Changemakers Partner	A Changemakers Partner