I have come to Cambodia to visit IDE Cambodia’s office in Phnom Penh for an introduction to our specific projects here, but most importantly, to shoot a 3-minute promotional video marking the Cambodian sale of IDE’s 100,000th “Rabbit Ceramic Water Purifier” or CWP. The video‘s purpose is two-fold. It will be broadcast on Cambodian TV’s CTN channel during late June and July as a way to raise public awareness of the benefits of the filter, but also as a way for the international community to recognize IDE’s efforts in the region. I suppose you’d call it a “TV commercial” if using the crass parlance of Madison Avenue (or, in my case Boylston Street, Boston. Wait, on second thought, they’d probably call it something like a “viral opportunity” or a “low-fi documercial” or some other term being bandied about by a couple creatives riding scooters down the hallways of the Pru as I write this).

IDE runs a small factory for producing these affordable water filters here just outside the town of Kampong Chhnang in the province of the same name. SInce Kampong Chhnang is pretty close to the center of the country, it makes sense for distribution, but the province has also long been known for the ceramic vessels it produces. In fact, IDE’s filter factory is just down the dirt road past the area’s “pottery village” where tourists are sometimes taken to view the local ceramicists’ techniques and styles.

We’ll have two days of shooting at the factory and around the villages in the area, looking for random houses that have a CWP visible from the road (or path) and asking the residents how they like their CWPs. Certainly nothing as effective as a few old-school testimonials to help sell “product,” especially when the people are real and the product is a genuinely valuable tool that directly addresses a household’s health and productivity.

What would be the equivalent product here in the US? Something that saves a significant amount of time usually dedicated to gathering fuel and tending a fire for boiling, lessens smoke pollution in the house and the rest of the neighborhood, decreases cases of water-borne illness by more than half, and costs maybe four or five days worth of personal income. A bicycle? That’s getting to be the closest equivalence here with the cost of gasoline these days, but it pointedly leaves out the water-borne illness issue, especially as it affects children. Since we’re not nearly as attuned to clean water issues in our daily lives here, what would be the equivalent concern? And, if we can’t readily imagine what that might be, is the world headed not closer to a global culture, but further from it? Discuss.

— A.G. Vermouth, IDE Director of Communictaions