Drasa Lomolomo residents in Lautoka have been surviving on unfiltered water since 2016 when their filtration system was destroyed by Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston.

Drasa Lomolomo water project committee vice president Amar Dass said the dam connecting to 60 households would collect debris each time it rained.

“Because we didn’t have any filtration system, we would get dirty water in our homes,” he said.

“So there really wasn’t anything filtering out the dirt that would collect in the dam.”

He said after a heavy downpour, residents would manually clean the dam.

“If we didn’t clean out things like rubbish from fallen trees or branches and leaves from the dam, it would get blocked.

“So we had to go and clean it up. “We also did a temporary filter for the water by putting stones at the outlet. So that was our filter.”

In response to the committee’s plea for assistance, FRIEND Fiji gave a filtration system for the water dam.

The community was visited by FRIEND Fiji director Sashi Kiran and Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre coordinator Shamima Ali who handed over the new system.

According to FRIEND Fiji, the community was one of 15 pilot communities working on disaster preparedness planning in partnership with the Global Civil Society Network for Disaster Risk Reduction.