We will construct eight ferrocement tanks in Hambarita to provide clean water to isolated families. Six of these are currently funded, but two remain unfunded. 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.
Fair Future’s Picture of the Day unveils unseen rural realities through authentic field images.
Each photograph captures the raw truth of our daily mission in the most remote areas of Indonesia.
Fair Future’s work addresses health and wealth disparities in ultra-rural regions through community-based programs.
One Picture – A Story of Reality, Resilience, and Action
At Fair Future, we hold the belief that a single image can convey a truth that no written paragraph could ever capture. Our “Picture of the Day” serves as more than just a photo; it offers a glimpse into the daily lives in the world’s most overlooked regions.
Captured by our teams in the depths of rural Southeast Asia, particularly Eastern Indonesia, each image stands as a direct testament to the realities we witness, endure, and support.
These photos reflect genuine, unfiltered moments—Kawan Sehat health agents tending to patients in clinic-less areas, children gathering water from wells we constructed, a mother transporting her child across arid land, or the quiet fortitude seen in a face etched by malnutrition and illness. Each picture tells a tale of medical urgency, social injustice, isolation, and remarkable resilience.
This page showcases those stories. Through each image, we reveal the silent struggles we observe and the dignity of those who battle them. They are unposed, raw, and candid—taken by us, amid the mud, under the sun, and through the long nights.
“A photo speaks when words fall short. This is our everyday reality, captured with heart and grit.” — Alex Wettstein, CEO and Founder of Fair Future
Every photo demands awareness and action. We encourage you to look closer, experience our feelings, and join us—one story, one truth, one picture per day.
Alex Wettstein – Fair Future Foundation – Updated in May 2025
Our last News
Mental Health Support in Rural Indonesia
Bringing Mental Health Support to Rural Indonesia Through Listening and Community Care Why proximity and empathy matter more than clinics in rural mental health care Mental Health Is a Right, Not a Privilege Silence often conceals suffering in the ultra-rural regions...
Our last pictures of the day
SolarBuddy Lamps: Transforming Lives in Rural Indonesia
SolarBuddy lamps are making a difference in the lives of people living in remote areas of Indonesia. These lamps provide reliable light, which in turn improves safety, health, and access to education. With the support of Rotary International, Fair Future and Kawan...
Courage and Determination at Laindatang Water Connections
Our team at the drilling site of Phase 3 of the Laindatang Water Connection Project in East Sumba demonstrates remarkable courage, determination and perseverance. Despite challenges, our efforts have led to discovering an abundant water source. This milestone reflects...
Matawai the Shades of Water: Mbinudita’s Water Journey
Our documentary, "Matawai de Shades of Water," premiered in the remote village of Mbinudita. The film explores the hardships faced by people in East Sumba when trying to access water. About 300 villagers, who are featured in the film, attended our premiere at the...
Empowering Rural Women Health Workers
In the Mahu sub-district of Wairara, health workers from Kawan Sehat diligently restocked their medication supplies during a comprehensive multi-day training session. Hailing from remote regions, these remarkable women received vital instruction on life-saving...
Primary Medical Care in Rural Areas Saves Lives
Alex skillfully performed a surgical incision on a young man from Hambarita who had been bitten by a deadly snake. Alex's swift intervention and expert medical assistance decisively saved the victim's life. Their primary medical care program in rural communities is...
Life-Saving Primary Medical Actions in Rural Areas
Our team is training Kawan Sehat health workers to measure blood pressure in ultra-rural areas where medical assistance is scarce. This program has had a significant impact, with health workers being hailed as local heroes for managing and treating high blood...
Primary Medical Care: Lifesaving Rural Healthcare Initiative
Our Kawan Sehat health workers are trained by competent medical experts in the Mahu region, known for the highest rates of malaria in Southeast Asia. The primary medical care program supports villagers facing extreme poverty and inadequate health facilities, providing...
Revolutionary Primary Medical Care Program Saves Lives
Katrina, a pioneer in the #PrimaryMedicalCare initiative, has been saving lives in Lapinu for over two years. This revolutionary program provides quality medical care to remote areas without access to basic health services. With ongoing support from Fair Future and...
Empowering Women and Girls with Clean Water Access
Two young girls from a remote village in Eastern Sumba have discovered clean water and private toilets for the first time thanks to Fair Future's Water Connections initiative. This initiative provides essential sanitation facilities, significantly reducing the spread...
Clean Water for Children: Health and Life Preservation
What Pak Kudu Huring and the village residents have accomplished with the Water Connections program is solid. A 5,000-liter tank now provides clean water to schoolchildren. This transformation improves children's health by reducing illnesses linked to contaminated...
Life-Changing Water Projects in Ultra-Rural Villages
Pak Kudu Huring is building a 5,000-liter ferrocement tank to supply his village with drinking water as part of the Water Connections initiative by Fair Future. This initiative focuses on constructing sustainable reservoirs and improving infrastructure to provide...
Laindatang’s Water Crisis: A Lifesaving Initiative
This new “Picture of the Day” shows you Pak Kudu Huring, who leaves early in the morning to fetch a few litres of water from his house, which is too far from his village of Laindatang. He carries with him nearly ten Jerry cans on his shoulder; he walks quickly, and it isn’t easy to follow him. He makes this trip once or twice a day. He will have to walk several hours to return home with water to drink, eat, and water the animals…
Finding water is a big challenge in extremely rural eastern Sumba villages like Laindatang, finding clean water is a daily challenge. Residents have to venture miles to collect it and often find themselves with resources unfit for consumption. This situation further exposes their society to serious health risks, such as Malaria, Polio, diarrheal diseases, typhoid fever, dysenteric infections, and parasitic diseases, often attributed to the consumption of contaminated water, which aggravates cases of malnutrition while increasing infant mortality rates.
The Water Connections project in Laindatang, which Fair Future initiated, is appropriate for this situation. Drinking water points have been installed near homes, considerably reducing the distances travelled to fetch water. We guarantee a constant supply of clean water through deep drilling and installation of pumps, tanks, and filtration systems, ensuring high-quality standards are met.
In addition to providing water, our project also organizes educational sessions on hygiene and water management that aim to raise awareness of sanitation practices among residents. The program emphasizes the importance of washing hands with soap, saving water efficiently, and maintaining good personal hygiene to prevent infections – all of which villagers learn during the course of these information sessions.
The effects of Water Connections are already evident, as the reduction in illnesses associated with contaminated water improves the community’s overall well-being. With healthier children attending school more regularly, their educational opportunities and future prospects become more promising. Additionally, adults with fewer health problems tend to be more productive and help drive economic growth in the village.
In Laindatang, there is constant change. The female population, who generally bear the burden of water collection tasks, now have more time to devote to other educational or productive activities. With access to uncontaminated watering systems and thriving vegetable gardens in communal gardens, families can supplement their income while having more excellent nutritional resources within their reach.
Our efforts to address the water crisis in Laindatang go far beyond providing clean water. We are making significant progress toward improving health care and education outcomes and spurring economic growth in local communities.
Through this project, we aim to give villagers long-term solutions that will enable them to create a better future for themselves and their families. Our unwavering commitment to transforming disadvantaged regions is reflected in our commitment to ensuring access to vital resources such as clean water.
Fair Future Foundation medico-social camp in East Sumba – Rumah Kambera, Lambanapu – The 15th of July 2024.
Improving Children’s Health with Water and Nutrition
This new “Picture of the Day” shows Ayu spending time with a child from Laindatang in East Sumba, where we have been working for over two years as part of the #WaterConnections and #ZeroMalaria programs. Ayu will measure this child along with 78 others, and also weigh him to assess his hygiene conditions, in order to determine if he is doing well and gaining weight.
Our main objective at is to improve the standard of living of ultra-rural communities while ensuring their sustainable development. We pay particular attention to promoting the growth and physical well-being of children, as malnutrition remains a significant problem affecting approximately 15-20% of young people. This means that hundreds of children are facing weight and nutrition issues that concern us deeply.
We provide healthcare programs focused on educating parents, villagers and schools in ultra-rural areas about good nutrition. Due to the extreme poverty and isolation of these regions, healthy eating habits are often foreign ideas. Therefore, we provide them with nutritious meals using local resources while teaching them to grow their own gardens for a healthier diet.
Our approach emphasizes crucial skills such as eating vegetables as often as possible, drinking clean water through our #WaterConnections initiative, and protecting yourself from infectious diseases by adopting preventative measures.
Since years, we see firsthand the transformative power of clean water and nutrition. By empowering communities, we pave the way for healthier futures for all. Alex Wettstein. Founder of Fair Future
One of our team members can be seen in this new Picture of the Day, watching over a children. Our mission is to weigh, measure and evaluate hundreds of children every week to ensure their medical and hygienic well-being. This evaluation is essential to determine the effectiveness of our on-site programs. We have witnessed impressive results: Better access to water has improved nutrition, which translates into increased vitality, better health and an overall healthier lifestyle.
Improving water availability and nutrition creates a beneficial loop that transforms lives and strengthens disadvantaged communities.
Fair Future Foundation medico-social camp in East Sumba – Rumah Kambera, Lambanapu – The 12th of July 2024.
Paul Harris Fellow Award for Fair Future Foundation
We are proud to share that Alex and Ayu from Fair Future Foundation received the Paul Harris Fellow Award from Rotary International. This honor celebrates their 15 years of dedication to improving the lives of underserved communities in East Sumba, Indonesia. Their...
Drilling in Laindatang: Overcoming the Harshest Conditions
Behold the new “Picture of the Day”, showcasing the 8-inch borehole being drilled in Laindatang, one of the driest regions in the world. This demanding and logistically complicated work presents numerous technical challenges. However, our motivation is unwavering, as the livelihood of an ultra-rural village community without access to clean water hinges on our success.
The #WaterConnections project in the village of Laindatang is both a significant technical challenge and a demonstration of human ingenuity in the face of natural adversities. This project aims to drill a deep well in one of the world’s driest regions of East Sumba and the world. We are the first to attempt a deep borehole here, and the logistical challenges are immense.
Transporting our own drilling machine, weighing around six tonnes, to terrain that is not easy to access even for the #TruckofLife, demonstrates the team’s exceptional determination and adaptability. The process was quite an adventure, which you can watch in this short film on YouTube.
Using rainwater for drilling by creating a mini artificial lake and a dam made of earth and branches is an innovative and ecological solution that highlights our commitment to overcoming obstacles while preserving the environment. Managing the water required for drilling, approximately 10,000 litres per day, without depleting already limited local resources, demonstrates careful planning and execution.
We encountered some challenges along the way. There was a landslide at the beginning of the borehole, and then another one a few days ago. However, the project was able to continue thanks to land stabilization measures. These technical interventions show a careful approach to unexpected situations, ensuring the safety and success of the well. We have published a gallery of images related to the drilling, and we recommend you take a look here.
This drilling project represents more than a technical endeavour; it catalyzes change, offering crucial access to clean water for the Laindatang community. Access to water is essential for improving residents’ health, nutrition, and hygiene.
We anticipate that the drilling will be finished by the end of April, which means there’s about another month of work left. This aligns with our initial estimate of two to four months of drilling work. Fair Future and Kawan Baik are not only involved in the physical aspects of the project but are also preparing the community to make the most of this valuable resource. The training modules scheduled for mid-April are crucial to ensure that the water brings lasting benefits in terms of improved nutrition, good hygiene, and better health access.
This drilling project is truly a once-in-a-lifetime endeavour. I want to express my gratitude to all of you because what we are attempting to accomplish here is remarkable. Each contribution brings us closer to turning this dream into a reality and providing water and hope to a community in desperate need.
Together, we confront adversity with resilience and innovation, demonstrating that no challenge is insurmountable when we unite for a brighter future. Your generosity transforms lives and establishes a legacy of health and prosperity for future generations.
Link:
We recommend you take a look at this gallery of images related to how we bring the drilling machine on-site;
Some short films on YouTube about drilling here in Laindatang.
Alex Wettstein – Fair Future Foundation medico-social camp in East Sumba – Rumah Kambera, Lambanapu – The 28th of March 2024
Connecting Families in Rural Indonesia with clean water
In this new “Picture of the Day”, around ten people are seen burying HDPE pipes between a new 5000-liter ferro-cement tank and another 5000-liter ferro-cement tank. These pipes will later connect the new sanitation facilities, the school, the village houses, and the latest installation of eight sinks These sinks will allow the village’s children to wash their hands.
The #WaterConnections projects we carry out in ultra-rural villages in Indonesia, such as Laindatang, embody much more than a simple water installation. They symbolize a profound transformation in the living conditions of the communities where we work. By connecting kilometres of heavy and robust HDPE pipes, we weave water supply networks and links of solidarity and mutual aid between residents and our team.
These pipes, which we carefully bury to protect them from savannah fires—a work we do with the villagers—are not only water pipes; they are the vectors of better health and a vastly improved quality of life. Access to clean water radically changes the daily lives of these families. Drinking, cooking, washing, watering a garden, or simply washing have become simple and safe, eliminating many risks of using contaminated water.
The availability of clean water has a direct and measurable impact on the health of communities. Infectious diseases, often spread by unsafe water, see their rate drastically reduced once access to quality water is secured. Ailments such as malaria, diarrhoea, cholera, typhoid, and other water-related illnesses, which previously were part of daily life in these villages, are beginning to disappear. By providing a reliable source of drinking water, we attack the root of one of the leading causes of malnutrition, allowing safer food and facilitating the irrigation of small vegetable gardens, sources of better, fresh and nutritious food.
Beyond health, #WaterConnections is also revolutionizing villages’ social and economic fabric. Women and children, who were often responsible for collecting water, sometimes from long distances, were freed from this time-consuming and exhausting task. Children can devote more time to their education, and women to income-generating activities or personal development. This creates a dynamic of progress and empowerment within communities, promoting the emergence of new opportunities for all.
This project is not only a technical response to the problem of access to water; it is a door to a healthier, more equitable and more promising future for hundreds of families. By building these facilities, training residents in their maintenance, raising awareness of the importance of hygiene and sharing our knowledge, Fair Future and all our teams on site are sowing the seeds of an innovative and, above all, sustainable transformation. Each pipe laid, each meter of buried pipe, and each drop of clean water that arrives in a home brings us closer to this future for those families officially qualified by the national authorities as “Extreme Poverty”.
Thanks to the support of donors and partners, these projects can come to fruition. We are grateful to everyone from Rotary, those involved in the fight against malaria (RAM), and supporters from Switzerland, Indonesia, and worldwide. Together, we can save lives.
Your help is vital in supporting our mission to reach more villages and improve more lives. Water is essential, and together, we can make life healthier, safer, and more full of opportunities for Indonesia’s ultra-rural communities. Thank you for your ongoing support and for believing in our cause.
Alex Wettstein – Fair Future Foundation medico-social camp in East Sumba – Rumah Kambera, Lambanapu – The 27th of March 2024