THE Violeta Integrated Farmers Association (Vifa) in Silay City has signed an agreement to avail water sanitation facilities under the Community-managed Potable Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (CPWASH) Project of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) recently.

The project amounting to P103,000 includes installation of an iron removal filter and a 3.5-cubic-meter rainwater collector bundled with vegetable production training.

It will benefit 58 members of the association as well as their respective households and the entire community at Barangay Capitan Ramon.

The DAR and local government unit (LGU) will work hand-in-hand in the establishment of the infrastructure for the delivery of basic sanitation services.

They will provide counterpart funds for the project and allocation of technical support for the sustainable use of the facilities.

Officer-in-charge Chief Agrarian Reform Program Officer Aisha May Ardiente, of the agency's Program Beneficiaries Development Division (PBDD), said that clean and potable water is vital to the development of the community.

"We understand that this project will lead to having a healthy body that would resemble, in effect, an increased income for the association," she added.

Municipal Agrarian Program Officer Edna Claver, who was also present at the activity, said that "there is strength in unity."

"Continue to be better each and every day so more blessings and projects will flow in the association just like our precious water," she told the beneficiaries.

Vifa also aims to include the adjacent Violeta Integrated School (VIS) as one of the community recipients of the project.

VIS Principal Ma. Isabel Javier, for her part, thanked the association and the DAR for the project that would also benefit at least 400 students.

Vifa President Armando Desoyo Sr. also thanked the agency and city government for the opportunity given to them.

They vowed to strive for a progressive and productive organization, which was registered with the Department of Labor and Employment as an association on June 28, 2021.

The CPWASH project is a focused enterprise development and livelihood project that aims to install low-cost water supply technology and sanitation systems to address the need of the agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs) for more sanitized water.

The DAR said it also models a theory-based intervention that addresses water, energy and health, and promotes the green local economy.

The project also upholds participation, cooperation, capacity building, enterprise creation and a platform for change.

Its vision is to reduce the huge proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and improve sanitation.

The project has been effectively assisting different agrarian reform beneficiary organizations since 2007, it added. (With PR)