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Bringing clean water to the heart of the Amazon
“This water now allows us to cook our food, wash clothes and bathe our children without any danger” – Vilma in the Amazon rainforest.
Vilma lives in a small village in the Amazon with her three young children.
It’s a region where water is hard to get hold of. Made even more challenging by a changing climate, swinging between droughts and floods, as well as difficult terrain.
Last year getting water meant a treacherous trip to the village’s only source, a small stream riddled with slippery rocks and accessed by a long, treacherous trek through dense rainforest, often leading to serious injuries.
Women walking through the Amazon rainforest to collect fresh water.
But in 2024, with Vilma’s leadership and support from Cool Earth’s generous donors, the community of Katish started planning how they could create a system that would bring water to every home in the village.
Together, we got to work. First the community identified where they needed water most, planned where the large storage tank would need to go and started to dig trenches for the water pipes. Following a lot of planning and the challenge of getting large equipment into a remote community, the water started to flow.
There was hope and celebration across Katish as water reached every home and the village square for the first time.
Vilma tells us, “we are very grateful for this support that allows us to move forward little by little. We exist, we are here, we want to continue improving our community. We are very excited to see this great change, which now allows us to cook our food, wash clothes, bathe our children without any danger”.
Direct access to water is now available throughout the Katish community in the Amazon rainforest.
Water is a basic human right
Safe water is vital for any community. Yet 54% of the Indigenous population in the Peruvian Amazon do not have reliable access.
But how does access to water prevent deforestation? Well, we must ensure rainforest communities have everything they need to remain strong, healthy and resilient. They help protect the rainforest, their home.
If they go, those that want to destroy the rainforest for profit will move in. We can’t let that happen.