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Before the AID foundation installed ram pumps villagers had to fetch and carry water up steep slopes.

Many people living in hillside villages in the Philippines do not have easy access to fresh water, and have to make a difficult journey down steep slopes to collect what they require for their basic needs from springs, valley streams or rivers. The water is then carried back in jerry cans on a shoulder yoke. This is dangerous and time-consuming, and means that water is often used only for essential purposes like drinking and cooking, with little spare for hygiene, sanitation or agriculture. Wells are sometimes available, but these supplies can become contaminated by agricultural or industrial run-off.

Since the early 1990's, the Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation Inc. (AIDFI) has been exploring ways of providing these communities with access to clean water that is cheap, reliable and does not depend on fossil fuels.

Given that the terrain is ideally suited to ram pump technology which pumps water from a lower level to a higher level without the use of electricity or diesel pumps, AIDFI decided to focus on this technology as the best and cheapest available solution.

Well aware that many ramp pump installations have been unsuccessful due to poor design and a lack of maintenance and spare parts, Auke Idzenga , one of the founders of AIDFI, set about designing a ramp pump that would last. He travelled round the Philippines surveying all the ram pump installations that he could find, identifying the design factors crucial to successful operation, and seeing what was needed to reduce the cost of the pump. The result of his research was an innovative durable ramp pump design that included cheap, locally available options for those moving parts which need regular replacement.

In the last ten years, under Dutch-born Auke Idzenga's leadership, AIDFI has installed 98 of these ram pumps in 68 communities, providing over 15,000 people with access to clean water as well as irrigating large areas of land. The ram pumps use the power of the water flowing in the spring, stream or river to lift a small fraction of the water up to 200 metres vertically, and sometimes pump it over a kilometre to where it is needed. It operates continuously and delivers water to a reservoir in the village of 1,000 to 50,000 litres.

Now the villagers have an ample supply of water - 200 to 1,000 litres/day per household - they no longer have to undertake the difficult and sometimes dangerous task of collecting water and they can now use water for personal hygiene, sanitation and irrigation. As one villager put it: "We used to be so dirty at the end of the day... now we're all clean."

Another adds: "Our children eat properly now. They used to have bad diarrhoea. Now we can prepare good food for them to take to school."

Women are also saving 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.

"I used to have to bring food down to the river for a days laundry; and bring the children too otherwise there would be no-one at home. Now they stay at home and so do I." Araceli Carbajosa , Sitio Bagacay, Barangay Inapoy

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."

Growing food in the dry season saves families a significant amount of money, about P20 (£0.22) a day, which would otherwise be spent buying food. In one region AIDFI has set up a lemongrass oil distillery as a self-sustaining small enterprise, using the water provided by a ram pump and heat from a solar water heater.

If a community has surplus water after they have met all their own needs, they may sell it to a neighbouring community that does not yet have a ram pump. Water is also used to help establish newly planted trees – AIDFI insists on tree-planting whenever a ramp pump is installed in a region whose water supply is at risk due to deforestation.

About 10% of ram pump installations have replaced electric or diesel pumps for water supply. Here, the community saves P7,500-9,000 (£80 - 100) per month in running costs, so the ram pump pays for itself in under two years, and avoids the associated CO₂ emissions.

Perhaps the most interesting consequence of AIDFI's efforts, is the way in which it has influenced the mindset of the villagers who can see with their own eyes that renewable technology works and that it is the best, cheapest and most reliable option for them.

"At first I didn't believe it would work. How can you raise water higher than it was without some power? But you know, seeing is believing." Pedro Zayco Jr, Mayor, Kabankalan City

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.

AIDFI selects two or three local people to be trained as technicians. The installers live in the community during the installation, and the local trainees learn from them. After the installation is complete, the local technicians are trained further in maintenance and provided with a tool kit and spare parts for the pump. The technicians are typically paid a fee of P70/day (£0.77) from the community fund to maintain the pump and replace parts, which is a significant amount of money in a region where the cash income from agriculture is P40 (£0.45) a day. With this incentive, locals are incredibly innovative in ensuring the pumps last, such as using plywood to make replacement gaskets, which works well because the wood expands when it is wet, ensuring a good seal.

There is a tremendous need for this kind of technology in many parts of the world. Both AIDFI's approach and the pump design itself, with durable permanent parts and low-cost, easily obtained replacement parts, is ideal for replication, and AIDFI has taken care to document information well, so that other people can understand.

Ashden Award money will be used to develop micro-finance schemes for installations, to set up more installation teams, to publicise and promote the benefits of technology and to help other groups outside the Philippines to manufacture the ram pumps.