Human Needs Project is a water based, Clean Technology Project which aims to insert utility-community centers into slums, and, through the use of new, clean technology, to provide an engine for self-expression and self-determination to the people who live there.

1 billion people worldwide live in informal settlements, - slums, where people are unable to meet their basic Human Needs.

Water and power are the most immediate problems because their absence create several other serious problems, like disease and unsanitary living conditions. There is no security as police rarely enter these areas, and little education - mostly because families struggle to pay school fees; much crime and few jobs. People living here become isolated from the rest of the society and lose the ability to break out of these conditions, - there are few services available to them which can offer the support and 'road map' out of there.

HNP believes that complex issues, such as the problems arising from living in informal settlements, need complex, compounded solutions.

Providing only water, say, or sanitation, often leads to short term solutions: In many instances different technical problems will arise, - the water pump will develop mechanical problems, or the water will be of bad quality, for example, - or the toilets will be too dirty, no-one will maintain them, or they will do it badly, and soon these services are abandoned, and forgotten. No one seems to own these utilities once the aid groups are gone, and no one seems able to fix them once the community has been left with them