NOT a day goes by that our activities do not require water.
According to Water.org, out of over one hundred million Filipinos, nine million rely on unimproved, unsafe and unsustainable water sources and 19 million lack access to improved sanitation.
Shaping lives one glass at a time To address the pressing problem of access to clean water sector, Unilever Philippines made a commitment to provide safe drinking water to five million Filipinos by 2020 through the distribution of their Pureit water purifying systems.
More than their own hard work and dedication to such an advocacy, what truly drove Pureit’s success was the collaboration between Unilever and their microfinance partners.
These are financial products and services, such as deposits, loans, and payment services, that are offered by MFIs to the working class with small businesses, also known as the entrepreneurial poor.
According to the 2017 Financial Inclusion Study, out of the 23 percent Filipinos with a formal account, 8.1 percent of them are clients of microfinance organizations.
Because of their wide-reaching services and the relationships they have established with the communities they operate in, MFIs are the perfect partner for Unilever’s cause and the distribution of Pureit units.
One of the partner MFIs located there, KFI Center for Community Development Foundation (KCCDFI) of Zamboanga del Sur, is led by Mercy Faustino who first learned about Pureit in 2017.
Upon witnessing the suffering of residents from far-flung barangays who could only rely on wells, springs, and rivers as their water source, Faustino and her organization realized how much it would mean to bring water access to areas that lack water systems.
Faustino reported that majority of their clients were mothers whose lives had been changed because of the water security and convenience that Pureit has brought.