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Access to water changes lives. Communities in the Philippines go from hardly enough water to drink and cook, to an ample supply of water � 200 to 1000 liters /day, per household. As one villager put it: "We used to be so dirty at the end of the day... now we're all clean." Women save significant amounts of time not only by avoiding the trip to collect water, but also because clothes can now be washed in the village, instead of down at the stream. Time saved is now being used to care for children and livestock, and tend vegetable gardens. Sufficient water for irrigation means that vegetable crops can be grown in the dry season and people can keep pigs and poultry and even fish ponds. Willy Granada, chairman of the Tara Small Farmers Co-op comments: "Look at all my tomatoes! They'd never be here without the pump. And some people have poultry now and they have pigs too. There are so many things you can do if you have water." Central to the success of AIDFI's project has been the involvement of the community in the whole process from installation to on-going maintenance of the ram pumps. This has helped avoid the pitfalls that other ram pump projects encountered which meant that ultimately they were not sustainable.
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