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The Bo Mon community in Svay Rieng province is a place where access to clean water has always been a problem. People used to dig meters deep into the ground to create little pools of muddy water which could then be used for cooking or drinking. During the dry months however, the muddy pools often evaporated and deeper holes had to be dug to reach tiny bits of the precious fluid. With the help of CWS, a positive change was triggered in communities like Bo Mon.

In Svay Rieng province alone, 156 hand pumps were installed from which currently more than 493 families take benefit. Yet more improvement was obtained when a selection of extremely poor households were supplied with water filters that eliminate bacteria and dirt from the water. “Before the water was filtered, I often became sick”, Tee Polah, an inhabitant of Bo Mon told us. “The water has increased so much in quality now that it is a real pleasure to drink it!” A neighboring woman, a mother of five, confirms this; “I always thought our rice looked gray, but having cooked it with the filtered water I was surprised to discover that our rice is in fact very white!” “Water is life” is an often heard slogan and with the installation of water pumps and filters, CWS has brought new life to people who previously even struggled to make a simple cup of tea.

Not just water!

CWS works in cooperation with the community, local authorities and government departments on many water related projects like the one mentioned above. Latrines, hand pumps and filters were constructed last year and great effort was spend on training people about water related issues. CWS does however not see the construction of water pumps and filters as an end by itself but as a way for staff, partners and people to work together for other improvements such as health and nutrition. Last year we conducted awareness raising courses for 450 water user groups, covering discussion topics like water borne diseases, body sanitation, hygiene and dengue fever. Technical training was also given. The water filters, for example, can be reused after refilling it with locally available sorts of sand. During a short course, people were therefore taught how to do this, enabling them to keep using the filters for many years into the future. 

Furthermore, we always use a value based approach in our work which is not limited to only technical support and training. The way our staff and partners behave is equally important as the technical realization of projects and values related to peace, solidarity, equity, honesty and professionalism are therefore integrated into every aspect of our work. Sometimes we are challenged by cases where people do not operate according to these values. CWS was, for example, confronted with  practices of “payment for service” for hand pumps and latrines that were placed for everybody's use. After becoming aware of these practices, we gave feed back to the parties involved and asked them to never use community property for personal benefit. As a result of this, we have witnessed significant changes in attitudes and behavior among people and their local leaders and we hope that these changes will eventually lead to more sustainable development.