Philippines: Saving Lives with Clean and Safe Water

Joliet, 30, is a Barangay Health Worker from Sinuda village (barangay) in the province of Bukidnon in the southern part of The Philippines. She is also one of the indigenous peoples (IPs) living in the area and a member of the Matigsalug tribe. In her village, the people are faced with many issues concerning health. Malnourishment is a problem as is low awareness of family planning methods. But one of Sinuda’s most pressing issue is the lack of access to secure and safe water.

In Sinuda, Joliet says her family needed to walk for at least 20 minutes to get water for their daily needs. Her children would carry water containers three times each day to satisfy the needs of their home. It broke her heart, she says, to see the children carry these heavy containers just so that they could drink, wash, and do laundry in their home. But as much as she wanted a better life for them, Joliet knew her family couldn’t afford to purchase and set up hoses to connect their home to the stream near their village. Her worries increased when in August 2011, one of her children, little Bhreesae who was only three at that time, suffered amoebaisis, leading her to suspect that the water they were drawing from was not safe to drink. Bhreesae was sick for two weeks only gradually getting better with help from the doctors in Saint Ann Hospital in Quezon, Bukidnon.

Joliet’s problem is not an isolated issue but one that affects the rest of the village as well. She shares that some families even have to walk for more than an hour to access springs or streams. Diarrhea is a prevalent illness in their barangay.  The village’s problem of accessing water also translated to problems in hygiene. Since many of the families in their village did not have easy access to water, they also did not have restrooms. Some of the residents had grown accustomed to defecating in the nearby stream where other families regularly bathed and used as a source for drinking water.

All this changed when the EU-financed IP MNCHN Project - Mindanao came into the picture in 2012. The project, which counts Sinuda as one of its project sites, issued a grant in February 2015, that allowed for the installation of a water system in Sinuda. The water system, which connects a spring source through storage tanks and pipes going to the community, is now catering to Sitio Salalayan, the sitio (site) that Joliet lives in. Today, Joliet’s children just need to cross the street from their house to get clean water. Life has become easier for Joliet’s family, knowing that the water they drink is accessible and safe. “Malipayun kayo ‘ko kay na dasig mi magpadayun ug tabang sa mga tao, (I am very happy since we are encouraged to continue helping the people around us),” Joliet says. The project has strengthened her resolve her resolve to further help the people around her and is one of the reasons why she continues her work as a barangay volunteer, now knowing that her family back at home has safe and easy access to clean water.