These water pipes that connect, these valves, these taps, these tanks… These few images represent life, better health, eating and drinking more and better.

The Sustainable Development Goals call for clean, non-lethal water for all. This is why Fair Future has created the “Water Connections” program dedicated to the most rural regions of eastern Indonesia.

Economically poor rural people in eastern Indonesia lack safe water supply and sanitation access. This fact, we repeat, entails enormous health and economic costs. It creates inequalities between the sexes and other social inequalities.

Many people who make up the rural population here cannot write or read. Most are “unqualified” in the literal sense of the term (I apologize for having to use this generic term, but I repeat once again how strong, resourceful, brave and courageous these people are.). On the other hand, their life experiences in rural areas are incredible and doing almost everything with almost nothing is astonishing to observe.

These communities are composed mainly of elderly people, women and many children who do not have the resources to support/cope with natural variability and its impacts on their village and family. Support for water supply and sanitation in rural areas here is more difficult due to access that is often non-existent, development models dominated by diverse cultural values, poor economic situation and the challenges associated with impoverished communities.

The communities with which Fair Future and Kawan Baik work come from the rural and ultra-peripheral world. They are 99% farmers and also have to deal with different problems. All families depend on local water sources (almost dry wells, springs, rivers, etc.), often contaminated, dirty or unfit for consumption.

The general objective of this area of intervention, which represents access to clean and non-lethal water in rural areas, is to support the development of an integrated development strategy to ensure the sustainable security of the water and sanitation in rural areas.

Here, rural populations do not have access to appropriate technologies, and families are content with what can be produced locally for their water, sanitation and hygiene needs, i.e. nothing at all or very little. Except through what NGOs and other local organizations can offer them. But here, Fair Future and Kawan Baik are alone to do what we do. We only have support from you and the villagers who want things to change.

Advanced technologies dedicated to the urban or developed world are not suitable for rural areas of Sumba. For example, here, electricity is generally not available, road access is non-existent, and to build something, we would need to have access to water in quantity, which again is not the case.

Fair Future and Kawan Baik consider other issues, such as energy efficiency and the use of natural treatment systems, which are robust and inexpensive. We also try to consider the cultural values ​​of the populations with whom we work and are in daily contact to develop innovative technologies around water and sanitation solutions in rural areas.

This gallery and all the others related to the Water Connections program show you how we work and find the best possible solutions for these communities. Fair Future and Kawan Baik consider the realities on the ground, the fundamental differences between “the city and the rural areas”, and the economic realities of these incredibly brave populations.

These water pipes, these valves, these taps, these tanks… These few images represent life, better health, eating, drinking more and better. Nothing less, nothing more! Thanks to this water, these connections, these taps, and valves, we can build healthy toilets and water tanks and improve people’s lives.

Let’s open more taps, connect more valves and bury more pipes with us.

This is what we suggest you see in the pictures here.
Rumah Kambera, the 15.08.2022/fff/aw