When clean water flows close to home, everything changes. Families gain back hours each day. Children have more time to learn, rest and play. Communities can better protect their health, safety and dignity.
Around one in five people in rural Timor-Leste lack access to a basic drinking water service. Many families must walk long distances to springs and streams, carrying water home by hand in five-litre jars.
Access to sanitation is also limited. Just 49 percent of households have access to basic sanitation, leaving many families facing risks to their health, privacy, dignity and safety.
Busadau
In Busadau, a village in Timor-Leste’s highlands, collecting drinking water could mean ten or more trips a day. Each journey took almost an hour because the spring was far below the community and could not be reached by car or motorcycle.
With many adults away working during the day, the responsibility often fell to children. Carrying heavy containers across difficult terrain put their safety at risk and took time away from school and play.
Sometimes, the long journey was for nothing. During the dry season, water sources could disappear. During the rainy season, flooding could leave the water dirty and unsafe to drink.
Thanks to supporter for our Clean Water Project, families in Busadau no longer spend hours fetching water from far away.
The Clean Water Project
Delivered by our local partner, Jesuit Social Service (JSS) Timor-Leste, the Clean Water Project works alongside rural communities to establish safe, sustainable and locally owned water and sanitation systems.
The project supports the infrastructure that makes clean water possible, including:
- Pumps, tanks and pipelines that bring water closer to home
- Household toilets and septic tanks
- Lighting for safer use of sanitation facilities at night
- Hygiene education and water-conservation training
- Environmental activities such as tree planting to help protect water sources
In 2025, Jesuit Mission’s supporters helped fund 28 new household toilets and sanitation systems, restoring greater privacy, safety and dignity for families. The Clean Water Project aims to reach three more communities and a further 1,000 people by the end of 2026.
Built and owned by the community
The Clean Water Project is about far more than pumps, pipes and tanks.
Community members are involved from the beginning through consultation, planning, construction and maintenance. Local people help build the systems and are trained to manage them for the future.
Local water committees take responsibility for managing the systems, while participating households contribute a small maintenance fee for their ongoing upkeep. This strengthens community ownership and helps keep the water flowing after construction is complete.
“Our community has experienced a big change. We no longer spend hours fetching water from far away.”
Agostinho, Busadau
Agostinho, who lives in Busadau and helped install his community’s water system, shared:
“Our collaboration with the JSS team was very good. The village chief organised our work into groups. Some worked on tanks, others on installation.”
Alongside construction, communities receive hygiene education, water-conservation training and support for environmental activities such as tree planting. These activities help people protect their health and the water sources on which they depend.
These systems are not simply given to communities. They belong to them.
Built with local hands. Managed by local people. Made to last.
Our faith in action
In 2025, supporters of the Clean Water Project helped:
- 1,756 people gain access to clean water and improved sanitation
- Complete 7 new community water systems
- Build 28 new household toilets and sanitation systems
- Achieve a reported reduction in water-collection time for 99% of people reached
Now, the Clean Water Project aims to construct three more community water systems, bringing clean water closer to home for a further 1,000 people. It also aims to build 30 sanitation facilities, provide hygiene awareness training to 150 families and train 30 water committee members.
A donation to Jesuit Mission helps us deliver this critical water and sanitation infrastructure.
Find out more about the Clean Water Project
