Water hand pump use in Gartie Village, Mondulkiri

Gartie village is a target village of CRDT project called “Sustainable Development for Ethnic’s Bunong Community in Seima Protected Forest” funded by CDF-AusAID (Community Development Fund) from 2012 to 2015.This village was selected as recipient of a Community Pond in size of 30m x 40m x 3m to support local people on hygiene access, to have enough safe and clean water in dry season for both family consumption and crop irrigation. This community pond construction has been completed at 95% except for the installation of staircases for people to go down from the pond bank to get water.

However, the plan to build staircases has changed as the local people recognized that staircases will bring dirt into the pond as well as more dangers for the users especially small children who always would like to swim and play in the pond. Experiencing the above management issues, the pond user committees as well as the local people suggested that the commune and CRDT cancel constructing staircases, and instead install water hand pumps for all users.

CRDT decided to install a few water hand pumps as a pilot activity. A a result, the local people found them more convenient to use especially children and women. The water hand pumps were bought from Svay Reang province, and they were manufactured by Cambodian people; moreover, their spare parts are easy to be found in the communities if repair is needed. After using these for one month, 2 water hand pumps were broken by children, and the community reported to CRDT team to repair them. To ensure the communities can repair the pumps themselves in the future, CRDT conducted a coaching on pump repair with the user committees and some local people.

The people in Gartie are now very happy with these useful water pumps and are very grateful to the funder for bringing them another small infrastructure which is most needed for them at the moment.

By Meas Viphou, Project Manager in Mondulkiri project site