“In 2025 Mother Nature and man continued to unleash anger on our planet causing communities to suffer. However, I am amazed at the generosity of our volunteers who turn up every week to help families and communities caught up in suffering through no fault of their own. Activities include making our water filters, filling Aqua-Aid boxes, making re-usable San Pads and spreading the word of the work we do to help raise funds through our Community Liaison Group and Aquabox Ambassadors. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of those who donate funds to keep us running. My fellow Trustees and I would like to thank you all for another year of hard work.”
Roger Cassidy Chair of Trustees
The past 12 months have proved to be a very busy period for Aquabox. We have responded to disasters across the world, including Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Lebanon, Malawi, Uganda, Mozambique, Rwanda and Ukraine. In December we despatched a consignment of water filters to Jamaica in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa as well as sending a shipment to Sri Lanka to support the relief effort in the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah along with a combined shipment of Filters and Aqua Aid boxes to Pakistan.
cyclone Ditwah in Sri Lanka in December 2025.
In 2025 we sent out:
4814 family filters…63 community filters,
692 Aqua-aid boxes and 2250 re-usable San pads…
Helping over 88,810 people…
Producing 373 Million litres of clean drinking water…
(2.6 Billion over 7 years)
in 12 countries…
From £35,000 to £35
Looking back even further, in our early years starting in 1992, Aquabox supplied humanitarian aid-boxes that included water purification tablets. Although these tablets provided clean water the taste was unpleasant and it was a short-term solution.
We turned to John Griffiths for help. In 2008, John had already been asked to use his engineering skills to take forward a water filter project being run by Rotarians in the North East. A testament to Jonh’s engineering skills saw the cost of an early version come down from £35,000 to £35 for a family filter, not to mention the ease of use in challenging locations.
John, alongside his wife Gill, went on to set up Grifaid “to relieve hardship, preserve health and support education among people in poverty residing in developing countries.” John also set up The Safe Water Trust (SWT) to manufacture the family and community water filters.
In 2010, he generously offered his expertise to produce a filter for Aquabox which didn’t require purification tablets. What started in a garage became a robust, field-tested solution that’s helped deliver safe drinking water in emergencies and communities worldwide.. During this time Wirksworth Rotarian and Aquabox volunteer David Haspel worked with John to refine the filter to the MK3 version we send out today.
John kept on refining the family filter to the MK5, but in November 2025, he and Gill took the decision to retire and close the manufacturing company Safe Water Trust. John and Gill agreed to transfer the manufacturing rights to Aquabox for all GrifAid filters. We feel honoured to be continuing John’s legacy and are currently setting up the assembly lines to produce the community and Mk5 family filters.
Thanks to John’s expertise and our partnership with him and Gill, many thousands of people have been and continue to be helped.
New production room for community filters
As we start to gear up the production of the technologically advanced Mk5 family filter, and the manufacture of the community filter – completely new to Aquabox – our team of volunteers alongside Dominic Wish, Operations Trustee are looking forward to these new challenges.
This means we need to keep the donations flowing as demand is still at an all time high for our lifesaving water filters.
Fundraising events planned
UkeWirks Concert
March 7th at the Maltings in Wirksworth – Fundraiser for Aquabox. Entry by donation
