We will construct seven ferrocement tanks in Laindatang to provide clean water to isolated families. Three of these are funded, but four are still needed. We require CHF 2,300.- for each tank. Your support guarantees access to clean water for the most remote communities. Donate now and be part of this life-changing project.
All Articles & News: Fair Future’s Impact in Rural Areas
The news and articles page that reveals the essence of our organization. Each article highlights the experiences, values, and efforts of the Fair Future team. Our writing goes beyond reporting; it tells the essence of the communities we connect with and the challenges and triumphs we experience.
Welcome to the Fair Future News page! Our teams on the ground have carefully crafted each article, story, and update.
These pages contain a wealth of unique content that truly represents our mission, our work, and our interactions with the communities we serve.
These articles will give you a deeper look into our work, highlighting our sources of inspiration and sharing real-life experiences as they unfold.
Our stories convey our deep emotions about the people we impact, the obstacles we overcome, and the victories we achieve. Direct from action on the ground, we share authentic stories of providing medical aid, educational opportunities, and clean water to those who need it most, bringing hope into their lives. We offer honest reflections that tell real stories, reflecting the heartfelt spirit at the heart of our mission – all crafted without any AI help, but rather by individuals living this experience every day.
We invite you to engage with us and be inspired by the powerful stories of ourselves and the communities we have been privileged to serve. Enjoy reading!
Alex Wettstein – Fair Future Foundation – Updated in February 2025
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Building a 6,500-litre Ferro-cement tank
Building a water storage tank is something simple but complicated at the same time. Working day and sometimes night too, sleeping under challenging conditions, eating little and walking a lot… This is the life of the Fair Future and Kawan Baik teams in the field, every day for months with the support and unconditional support of the villages where we are setting up a new program. We are very involved in all the constructions, be it the reservoirs but also the healthy sanitary installations, the water connections, the filtration systems, and so many other things which, put together, create infrastructures which make them more useful, simpler life.
Clean water and sanitation for a magic trick
For a few months -thanks to the Water Connections program–, the families are feeling healthier, happier and have much more energy. The villagers, who are 100% farmers, are much less sick, and they are in better health. Vegetable gardens are created, and an economy is built. Women and children spend much less time fetching water from wells far from homes. As a result, children spend more time in school, and adults have more time to do things they couldn’t do before. On the other hand, water remains the absolute priority of each of the 250 families of #mbinudita, well before everything else! Today, we are building healthy sanitary facilities for the village and the villagers. Like all other families living in ultra-rural areas, people have never had access to toilets or a place to bathe or do laundry.
For the past two months, we have been on the Mbinudita site
Our teams have been on the SD Mbinudita site for two months for the Water Connections project, clean, safe and clean water for all. The Mbinudita school is the centre of life for an entire region, where more than 2,500 people live, divided into nearly 250 families, the vast majority of whom are children. The social, technical, medical and logistics staff and documentalists have been working for several months on the realization of this unique project. The Water Connections program connects groups of houses and an entire population to clean water connections, sometimes houses more than three kilometres apart from each other. This uses buried pipes, 6500-litre tanks, healthy sanitary facilities, and our boreholes. The innovation is that we mainly use gravity, iron and cement for the construction.
Two adults tell us about their life
From the village of Pepuatu, two adults tell us about their living conditions, the difficulties in eating, washing, drinking and getting basic medical care. He’s the village chief, and she’s an active person in the village, but she’s been sick for years. U Parkinson’s disease certainly, given the tremors on his face. They tell us that many children are undernourished, which we have seen during the day here. It is a rich and touching testimony in our opinion.
Pepuatu | Darma 10yo tells us about his life
Little Darma tells us about his life as a ten-year-old child, his problems also sitting in the grass, in front of a wooden house. He speaks to us from the village of Pepuatu, very isolated and very difficult to access. Darma, 10 years old, tells us about her life in her village, which is isolated from a lot of things. When we ask him if he is in good health, he replies that no, he is sick. What are the kid’s dreams? To have water, electricity and a road to access his village. A touching testimony of this child is Sumba East. He tells us about the hardness of his life, of his dreams too. He cannot walk too much, because he is not in very good health, and the appropriate medical care is not accessible, the village chief will tell us later.
Pepuatu | Herman, 17, tells us about his life in his remote village
From East Sumba, with frankness, sincerity and great maturity. What are Herman’s dreams? Have water, electricity and a road to access his village. A touching testimony from this young adult. He tells us about the hardness of his life, of his dreams too. How much time per day does he spend fetching water or food from the forest? His life at school too because he has to walk a long way to reach the main road.
Lukukamaru Sumba. A tremendous job to do here
East Sumba is full of villages that I believe we have to call “very poor”, where eating or drinking enough, taking a simple shower, and earning enough to buy a little rice is almost impossible. These villages are isolated from everything and everyone. We go there as often as possible, currently every day. These moments spent with the villagers tell us very clearly about what we can put in place to improve the living conditions of these people living in these regions. Lukukamaru is one of those villages. Everything is paid for at a high price, at the cost of incredible physical and psychological effort; here, we can speak of a state of daily survival.
Shortage of clean, safe drinking water
All these people, we meet every day. When we ask them what their biggest dream is, all without exception answer us this: To have clean water, some not dangerous for their health and that of children, and pregnant women. To have access to it here, close to home. To be able to water and cultivate a garden, eat better, shower, and wash. But above all to be able to drink more, cook more. The Fair Future and Kawan Baik foundations within the framework of the Water Connections project, strive by all means to fulfil their dreams. Their lives, their health and their future are at stake. Water is the source of life, of all life!
We carried out our first deep drilling with our own machine
Until last week, the 264 students of this school in East Sumba had no water in their school. As you can imagine, this posed unexpected sanitary problems for all the children, the teachers and the houses in the surrounding area. Fair Future has therefore decided to drill a deep well at the back of the school, and we have, thanks to our detection tools, found clean and clear water at a depth of almost 40 meters. A massive change for this community and the people who live nearby. Indeed, they will also be able to come and get water from this new deep well.
Mbinudita | Pak Awang talks about his everyday struggles
Pak Awang is Marapu, one of the foundation’s very good friends and an outstanding worker. Aged 55, Pak Awang is happy to have a new water tank for his family, made up of 19 people living in 3 small wooden and bamboo houses at the top of one of the hills in the region. He and his family have no money and are struggling to eat every day. He only has two goats left and no more rice, no more corn. It is a poignant testimony, touching in more than one way because it teaches us that we still have to do more to be able to further improve the living conditions of people living in ultra-rural areas of East Sumba, the poorest of the regions of Indonesia.
Mbinudita | Pak Kaur and his wife talk about their life
Mbinudita | Pak Kaur and his wife explain to us their living situation related to the lack of water. Their life is simple but so complicated! Like all the other families, that of Bapak Kaur works in the fields, they are farmers. Pak Kaur and his wife tell us about their dream of having clean water here, close to home. Water to grow a garden, eat better, take a shower, and wash. But above all to be able to drink more, cook more. Fair Future and Kawan Baik foundations built a 6,500 litres reservoir in front of their house to (temporarily) collect rainwater, once the dry season is over. The drilling of a deep well close to their home would allow them to have access to clean water in quantity and quality. You can help them achieve this dream!
Laindatang | Survey, a life without water, food, electricity
Mbatakapidu – Laindatang | Following a direct request from the authorities and the government of East Sumba, we were asked to help a very isolated village without any access worthy of the name. The inhabitants, numbering 35 families, do not have access to water, electricity or medical care. The nearest water point is located more than three kilometres away, and when it is dry (about eight months a year), nearly ten kilometres from the nearest dwellings. We went there with the Truck Of Life, following the profile of the hills, hazardous paths on which sometimes we had much trouble moving forward. For nearly three hours, we had little to talk with the villagers to discuss the daily lives of impoverished and disadvantaged families. Together, we took stock of the existing situation: They only have rainwater, which they consume daily. They recover it thanks to ingenious systems which demonstrate their infinite distress. They store this water in a few hand-built reservoirs. People are sick and poor. They eat little and wash only a few times a month.
Khris Praing, Bupati of East-Sumba to Mbinudita site
The Mbinudita school is now an official school, which falls within the bosom of the schools of the Indonesian state. A huge ceremony that took more than 4 days of preparation took place on June 25, 2022 on the #sdmbinudita school site. In the presence of the Regent of East Sumba, Drs. Khristofel Praing and a number of officials, we have been able to visit the facilities already in place and built as part of the clean water access project for more than 2,500 people. Doing it on a motorcycle with the Bupati was exceptional!
Lukukamaru | A village without water, electricity, food
Access is difficult in this very isolated rural village. No road or path leads there. We spend several hours with the villagers to better understand their problems in life, their health, and how they live with almost nothing. We ask them the right questions & share looks, smiles, and tears too for some. No water, no income, can only shower once a week at most, eat only boiled corn, a little rice when they can buy it, salt, and peppers. For the rest, they get it from the forest, nature, roots and wild green vegetables. Consequences of this life: Fatigue, various diseases, malnutrition, water stress, especially psychological. It should also be noted that the pests have completely destroyed the corn crops, and the gardens and this is additional anguish. We have been planning for months to do something for this village, as for the others. A borehole, a well, a Ferro-cement tank. This would guarantee them 100% better health, a healthier life, in harmony with their environment too.
Days of medical care in rural areas
Discover the different contexts and situations in which Fair Future teams intervene to provide care, including crisis and natural disaster situations, and how and why we adapt our activities to each. Days of care like the one we present to you below we do dozens of them a year and they are adapted to people from rural areas, who for the most part have never seen a doctor before us.
Lewa | Invasion of pests as East Sumba, with Koramil-Babinsa
For three years this scourge involving families and millions of grasshoppers has returned regularly with each harvest. During high population years, they feed and severely damage almost all crops, trees, shrubs and vegetable gardens. Acres are destroyed in minutes; nothing is left! The impact is enormous for these poor families since their income is not enough to buy additional food and other plants. Fear and stress drive people to meaningless actions…