The FASEP green innovation project run by Fonto de vivo in Colombia began in 2021 with the support of the French Treasury and contributions from the Colombian government, the department of Vichada and an association of indigenous people from the Mataven forest.
A scheme to help finance social and environmental projects
The French government’s Recovery Plan supports local SMEs and start-ups with a number of funding schemes. One of these is the Fonds d’Etudes et d’Aide au Secteur Privé (FASEP), which aims to set up a project with an environmental and social impact: the FASEP innovation verte.
Within this framework, Fonto de vivo has set up a programme to deploy 2,430 ORISA® water purifiers in the department of Vichada, in eastern Colombia. They have been distributed to associations, indigenous families and isolated communities, as well as in schools and health centres. This large-scale project was inaugurated on Monday 1 March 2021 in the presence of Michèle Ramis, the French Ambassador to Colombia, and local partners. On 29 November 2023, the last distributions of ORISA® purifiers were carried out in the presence of the local authorities, a delegation from the Ministry of Housing and Water, teams from the French Embassy and Fonto de vivo France and Latin America.
©The Embassy of France in Colombia
Unequal access to water in isolated areas of Colombia
In Colombia, it is estimated that contaminated drinking water is responsible for over 500,000 deaths a year. This is a scourge that affects populations suffering from water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid fever and poliomyelitis. It’s a public health disaster that governments must tackle to protect the population.
It’s against this backdrop that France and the department of Vichada, already linked by strong cooperation, decided to take joint action. The deployment of ORISA® domestic water filtration systems is part of this continuity and, in particular, at the heart of the Colombian national government’s priority “Water for the Countryside” programme. Its aim is to “reduce inequalities in coverage, continuity and quality in the country’s rural areas”. In rural and isolated areas, access to water is a public health issue and represents a real challenge for Colombia, a country where it is estimated that 15 million people have random access to water fit for human consumption and 1.6 million people have no access to drinking water. This colossal figure highlights the need to develop “basic domestic public service infrastructure or alternative solutions” such as ORISA® domestic purifiers.
©Colombian Ministry of Housing – ORISA® water purification demonstration on the Orinoquo river
©Colombian Ministry of Housing – Children from the Esperanza PAVI indigenous community benefiting from ORISA® purifiers – Puerto Carreño – Vichada – Colombia
©Colombian Ministry of Housing – Water from the Orinoquo River purified by ORISA®.
A stand-alone turnkey solution for long-term water filtration
©Colombian Ministry of Housing – Children from the Esperanza PAVI indigenous community drinking water purified by ORISA® – Puerto Carreño – Vichada – Colombia
At the start of this project, 2,430 water purifiers were intended for beneficiaries identified by the Fonto de vivo LATAM team and local partners. Over a period of 2 years, they visited more than 8,500 beneficiaries in 300 completely self-sufficient communities. They also visited 51 schools and 10 health centres. They talked to them at length to understand their habits and lifestyles and to raise their awareness of unsafe water consumption and its short- and long-term effects on health.
The first distributions of 82 ORISA® purifiers took place in Puerto Carreño in Vichada, in 3 communities. Implementation has continued with the distribution of 730 filters in the communities of Cumaribo, in the same department, and Puerto Inírida in the department of Guainía in November and December 2021. The distributions are being carried out with the logistical support of Fonto de vivo staff, the Corporation for the Integral and Sustainable Human Development of Colombian Society, Coredukar, and the Association of Traditional Indigenous Councils and Authorities of the Mataven Rainforest, ACATISEMA.
Accompanying beneficiaries is essential to ensure they take full ownership of the system
Each beneficiary family and collective establishment has been trained in the use of the ORISA® water purifier. Particular care has been taken to help beneficiaries install and maintain ORISA® water purifiers. Hundreds of families have been trained in use and maintenance so that they can meet all their daily and domestic needs over the long term. In community establishments, educational supervisors have been trained to meet the drinking water needs of all staff and pupils. In health centres, health professionals have been trained in the use of ORISA® water purifiers, which provide microbiologically safe water for medical treatment. In each indigenous community, particular attention was paid to identifying a “water guardian” so that they could receive more in-depth training in the maintenance and monitoring of the purifiers. This enabled the local Fonto de vivo team to maintain direct contact in each community to follow up and make maintenance recommendations in the months following the start-up of the ORISA® purifiers.
©Fonto de vivo Latam – Presentation of an ORISA® to an indigenous family from the Esperanza PAVI community – Puerto Carreño – Vichada – Colombia
©Fonto de vivo LATAM – Training in the use of the ORISA® purifier for all the families of the Esperanza PAVI indigenous community – Puerto Carreño – Vichada – Colombia
©Fonto de vivo LATAM – Follow-up visit to indigenous families benefiting from ORISA® purifiers – Puerto Carreño – Vichada – Colombia
A successful FASEP project based on Franco-Colombian cooperation
Nearly two years after its launch, and following a follow-up of the first distributions carried out at the end of 2023 with beneficiaries by the Fonto de vivo France team, this FASEP project is proving to be a real success.
The distribution phase came to a close last November in Puerto Carreño with the final handovers in the presence of the Colombian Minister for Housing, Cities and Territory, Catalina Velasco Campuzano, and the French Ambassador to Colombia, Frédéric Doré. For this final distribution under the FASEP project, 44 ORISA® water purifiers were handed out to all the families in the ESPERANZA PAVI community, as well as to 2 schools.
The organisation of the project, the logistics, the ownership of these autonomous filtration systems by the beneficiaries, but also and above all the reduction in water-borne diseases that they were able to witness, are all factors that demonstrate the relevance and effectiveness of this FASEP green innovation project. So much so that 760 new ORISA® water purifiers have left the Vendée manufacturing plant in France for Colombia. This was at the request of the department of Vichada, which asked Fonto de vivo’s local partners to roll them out to the region’s farmers, who told the Governor that they too would like to have an ORISA® purifier in their homes.
The Colombian government is also planning to set up new projects in other regions of the country to meet as many of the needs of Colombians for autonomous water purification as possible. Given the scale of the problem and the urgent need for action, the government considers that the cost/benefit ratio of a home ultrafiltration solution is the most advantageous for rapid and widespread access to healthy water for the most vulnerable and isolated populations.
The ORISA® technology, based on a low-tech approach, is the perfect answer to the problems of the poorest and most isolated areas, enabling everyone to have access to healthy, safe and reliable water produced directly by themselves.
©Fonto de vivo – Latest distribution of the ORISA® purifier in the presence of the French ambassador and the Colombian housing minister
©Fonto de vivo – Water purified by ORISA®
FASEP project partners
Members of the FASEP monitoring committee
“Le problème d’accès à l’eau demeure majeur. Nous apportons de l’autonomie aux personnes qu’elles soient en situation d’urgence ou de développement humanitaire.”
“Adapter et rendre abordables les technologies de filtration aux usages de chacun, pour relever les défis sociaux et écologiques de notre époque.”
Interlocuteur pour l’aide au développement et à la coopération internationale.