THE 450 villagers of Narata Village along Kavanagasau Road in Nadroga, have reason to smile now after the commissioning of their water project.

It is yet another project undertaken by the Rotary Pacific Water for Life Foundation and included sourcing water from a spring catchment in the mountain, upgrading the dam, installation of water tanks in the village as well as piping to individual homes, all completed at a cost of $20,000.

The new facility was jointly commissioned by Lenora Qereqeretabua of the Vodafone ATH Fiji Foundation and Jyoti Maharaj of Westpac Banking Corporation's Microfinance Unit, two of the four local corporate donors to the Rotary Water Foundation.

Most delighted amongst the villagers were the women who previously had to walk several metres to collect and bring back containers of water to their homes for cooking, bathing and washing.

The unique feature of this project is that the labour for the project was mainly provided by the women.

Established in August 2007, the foundation has been helping rural communities throughout Fiji in providing sustainable and safe drinking water. It has 60 completed projects costing $955,000 benefiting about 23,500 people with 130 more developing projects on Viti Levu, Yasawa, Kadavu, Vanua Levu and other islands.

These projects are a partnership between the foundation and either a settlement or village, the former providing the funding and the village providing the labour to help in the construction and installation works.

The foundation receives annual funding from four local donors which include the Fiji Water Foundation, Golden Manufacturers, Westpac Banking Corporation and Vodafone ATH Fiji Foundation while offshore funding is provided by Rotary International Foundation.



FIJI Times, September 30, 2009