Quick Facts:
| Where in the world | Philippines, Province of Negros Occidental |
| How did it start ? |
Hill dwellers were manually carrying uphill 40 liters of water per day 1-2 Km |
| How were they suffering? |
Lack of water leads to poor sanitation, spread of diseases and malnutrition. |
| What did they do ? |
Introduced Ram pumps and trained locals to install and mantain them. |
| How did it turned out ? |
Better lives with more food, better sanitation, less diseases for some 290.000 people. |
Reduced rainfall due to climate change, and lack of government help means that hill dwellers have to manually fetch an average of 40 liters of water per day from downhill (1-2 Km distances). Most of the villagers are too poor to afford alternative water sources. Life without sufficient water leads to poor sanitation, skin & waterborne diseases, and malnutrition for these hill dwellers.
The initiative aimed to supply water uphill for drinking, household use and boosting agricultural output in a way that triggers further community development and promotes environmental sustainability. Ram pumps need no external energy supply apart from the energy inherent in flowing water. AIDFI ram pumps are capable of pushing water fifty times higher for every meter drop/fall of water. This is without emitting greenhouse gases.
AIDFI establishes water associations, trains local technicians and fosters community participation during construction and installation. At the end of the project an official handover is organized ensuring true community ownership. The initiative has directly impacted 290,000 people. AIDFI has installed about 1200 ram pump systems in 580 communities, increasing the amount of water available per person per day, decreasing the impact of waterborne illnesses, improving education, and enhancing agricultural output. Installed pumps deliver together over 11 million liters of water per day. The innovation saves the environment some 8000 tons of CO2 yearly. Also, the initiative has trained over 1100 local village technicians and employs 33 people with fulfilling, regular, green jobs.
