DAR provides safe water to North Cotabato residents
Libungan, North Cotabato – The Department of Agrarian Reform recently turned over the Community-managed Potable Water Sanitation and Hygiene (CPWASH) project in Barangay Kitubod in this town to address the community’s concerns on water supply, sanitation, and hygiene.
Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer II Charish Paña said the project, amounting to Php160,000.00, is composed of biosand filter, biogas digester, and rainwater catcher with iron removal filter.
“The project provides low-cost, culturally acceptable, and appropriate technologies to address problems on poor access to potable water supply like here in Barangay Kitubod,” Paña said.
Paña added that through this project, the department is anticipating a positive change in the lives of the residents and improvement of the community in the future.
“The said barangay is the farthest community of Libungan and CPWASH caused a great sigh of relief from the threat of acquiring water-borne diseases and illnesses to more than 600 individuals from 200 households,” she disclosed.
The biosand filter is made of a plastic container with carefully selected sand and gravel that serve as strainer of bacteria, iron, and other impurities which make the water safe to drink.
As part of the CPWASH project to Barangay Kitubod, the DAR also installed the rainwater collector and iron removal filter at Kitubod Elementary School providing 330 students and 13 teachers access to safe drinking water.
The DAR also trained 10 para-engineers in the community to facilitate the replication of the biosand filter and biogas digester.
Barangay Chairman Lucsim Ando thanked the DAR for bringing the CPWASH project to their barangay as they used to rely mainly on deep wells, hand pumps, and rainwater. These are not safe as drinking water, causing incidences of amoebiasis, typhoid fever, and other water-related illnesses but they still used them to survive their daily activities.
“Now, that we have the CPWASH technology, we will intensify the replication of these, especially the use of biosand filter so that every household will be assured of safe drinking water,” Ando said.