Ron Rivera

Ronald Rivera (August 22, 1948 – September 3, 2008) was an American activist of Puerto Rican descent who is best known for promoting an inexpensive ceramic water filter developed in Guatemala by the chemist Fernando Mazariegos and used to treat gray water in impoverished communities and for establishing community-based factories to produce the filters around the world. Early years Rivera was born in the Bronx borough of New York City, of Puerto Rican parents. He was raised in both New York City and Puerto Rico. Rivera graduated from The World University in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He also studied at the School for International Training. Rivera worked with the Peace Corps in Panama and Ecuador, and with Catholic Relief Services in Bolivia. He founded the local consultancy office for the Inter American Foundation in Ecuador where he worked until 1988, when he moved to Nicaragua. Career and work with ceramics Rivera first became passionate about ceramics in the early 1970s when he studied in Cuernavaca, Mexico with Paulo Freire and Ivan Illich, who taught that human beings had lost their connection with the earth. Rivera then went to live with an experienced potter and learned the art of ceramics.