When you have water...
Adjacent to the highly urbanized Filipino seaport city of General Santos lies Alabel City, the place Resty and her family call home. Most of Alabel’s residents, including Resty’s husband, Masayao, make their living through agriculture, farming crops like coconut, corn, and sugar cane. While Masayao tends to their cornfields, Resty cares for their home and runs a small “sari-sari” store on their property, selling everything from produce and snacks to hygiene products. Despite their combined incomes, the couple could not afford the upfront cost of a water connection.
Resty and Masayao are proud of the fact that all three of their children can attend school each day.
More than 1 million people die each year from water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases. Access to safe water and sanitation contributes to improved health and helps prevent the spread of infectious disease.
Without access to water on their property, Resty, along with their three children—ages 14, 9, and 7—woke early each day to make several trips to a neighbor’s home to collect the water they needed. In addition to collecting water from the neighbor’s well, Resty and her children walked to a nearby river to bathe and do laundry.
"...the water wasn't clean."
Reflecting on these daily routines, Resty shared, “The river is quite far from us. It takes about 20 minutes to walk there… and my children got diarrhea because the water wasn’t clean.”
Resty's bank representative from LifeBank was trained to support his community with financing for water and sanitation solutions as a result of Water.org's technical programs designed to educate our local partners on lending for WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) products.
Resty's family's health and time suffered from their lack of safe water at home. Her family lacked a basic resource essential for survival, and she and Masayao were unsure of how they could ever change this. Then Resty learned from her neighbors that they had financed their own water solutions through a local bank called LifeBank. LifeBank is one of Water.org’s financial partners in the Philippines. They offer small, affordable loans for water and sanitation solutions to households in the community.
"Your life feels complete when you have water."
Through LifeBank, Resty and Masayao secured a loan to install a water pump on their property. The loan, totaling $157 USD, will be repaid over the course of a year. Reflecting on the impact of this new solution, Resty said, “Now that we have a pump, everything is okay. Your life feels complete when you have water.”
With safe water now available at home, Resty feels a sense of fulfillment. Grateful for the opportunity to finance this life-changing solution, she is filled with renewed hope. Now, with access to clean water and the health that flows from it, Resty and her family can focus on earning income, their children’s education, and the bright future ahead.
