On Monday, July 3rd, 2017 MEDLIFE Staff visited the communities of 15A1 and 15C in Villa MarÃa del Triunfo to innaugurate a brand-new water project. In June, several of the Lima mobile clinic participants were working on a staircase project in 15C. Here, they listened to the community members discuss the need for a way to pump water from the bottom of the hill to the top. The volunteers asked that their participation fees go towards funding this particular project. Soon after, MEDLIFE created a community agreement with both 15A1 and 15C stating that MEDLIFE would provide materials for the pump-system. The communities then worked together set up the new system. This water project with hopefully improve the quality of life of people living in the area as they will no longer have to carry, by hand, heavy buckets of water up multiple flights of steep steps several times a week.
Using a series of hoses, the new pump system will carry water from the bottom of the hill to the very top.
The system consists of multiple smaller pumps like the one pictured above.
Community members check the system at the halfway point to make sure everything is functioning properly.
MEDLIFE Interns and community members of 15C work to connect the new pump system to the water tanks at the top of the hill.
From the storage tanks at the top of the hill, the water then relies on gravity in order to be distributed to the houses below.
Each tank holds 1100L of water, and they will need to be refilled every 3 or 4 days.
Aidan Wells, one of the 2017 MEDLIFE Interns, checks the water tanks to make sure they work.
Finally, with the traditional bottle smash, the project is officially inaugurated!
