Maria, the youngest of the ‘Laura Vicuna’ orphans, amazed by the new water supply The orphans celebrated the fact that they no longer had to walk down to the sea for water.

Water and Sanitation

Access to clean water is a fundamental issue of survival for all communities and children should not have to walk up to five kilometres carrying their own body weight in water. Life, Love and Health works with our Timorese Community Development Partner, HTO - ‘Hamoris Timor Oan’ (The Rebirth/Life of the Children of Timor) to establish gravity water systems. These tap a local natural water resource and pipe that water to community water points in the villages. If requested by the community, the projects can also include piping the water to agricultural areas and to drinking troughs for village owned grazing animals.

Recent projects have provided water to 230 girls at the ‘Laura Vicuna Orphanage’ in Laga. This project was carried out to alleviate the daily grind of the girls walking down the mountain to a well by the ocean, and once there, sharing a bucket on a rope to bathe and wash clothes. It also alleviated the need for the children to carry drinking water back up the mountain to the orphanage.

Thanks to the more than 30 individual donors, Aipex and Money Managers Ltd who made this project possible.

Our most recent Water and Sanitation projects were in the village of Ossolequimeta where we tapped a mountain spring and piped the water to the village. We also built toilets at the local school and laid pipes to service these toilets, improving hygiene and general cleanliness, comfort and pride for the children at their school.