The con­struc­tion of open wells and rain water col­lect­ors provide com­munal access to cleaner drink­ing water. River hand pumps provide irrig­a­tion, and toi­let con­struc­tion aids hygiene and health of both the vil­la­gers and the environment.

Water is essen­tial for life, for cook­ing, wash­ing and bathing. But water is also essen­tial for sub­sist­ence farm­ers, for irrig­a­tion and agri­cul­tural use. Most rural Cam­bod­ian house­holds col­lect their daily water needs from rivers or streams – this not only takes up valu­able time (mainly women’s) but it also means that the water sources are often pol­luted, and that col­lect­ing water for agri­cul­tural pur­poses is not pos­sible so fields are left unirrigated.

We sup­port fam­il­ies to build their own rain­wa­ter col­lect­ors next to their homes, which is a rel­at­ively clean, free and close source of water to be used for house­hold con­sump­tion. We also sup­port agri­cul­tural bene­fi­ciar­ies to set up small irrig­a­tion aids such as river hand pumps, which brings river water closer to the fields and enables farm­ers to grow off-season veget­ables and sell them at profit.

Open wells are con­struc­ted by the vil­la­gers them­selves and fit­ted with plat­forms and hand pumps to provide com­munal access to cleaner drink­ing water. The con­struc­tion of these wells has many bene­fits com­pared to deep drilled wells, in that they are rel­at­ively easy to con­struct, do not col­lect arsenic, and can be eas­ily repaired by the com­munity. Coupled with hygiene and san­it­a­tion train­ing and edu­ca­tion, these wells improve human health and provide water for veget­able gar­dens and livestock.

Read more about just one of the spe­cies we’re try­ing to pro­tect from destruc­tion with our work along the Mekong — the Irrawaddy Dol­phin.