Kopang is located in North Lombok. Most of the residents in this village are farmers, but there are also some people who work as craftsmen. Access to water in this village is very difficult. They have to go to the river for all their water needs including bathing, washing clothes, getting cooking water and drinking water. This river is about 300 meters from Kopang, but their main problem is that this river is located at about 65 meters lower elevation than the village. Due to the difference in elevation, ordinary water pumps cannot be used to push water up to the Kopang community.
This village was also impacted by the 2018 earthquakes and the Access Life Lombok Water Team was asked to come and survey their water situation with the hope of a long term solution. We met with village leaders from Kopang to discuss the project. Our hope with every project is for a strong commitment from the community to work hard so that the project will be completed well and the community will take responsibility for it. After our team met with the community, we started the design for the Kopang project. Because the main challenge for this project was the elevation difference between the river and the houses in the Kopang community, our team made a design that used two pumps and two reservoirs. This was so that we could use the water pumps that were locally available.
Our team worked with the Kopang community to build a collection tank and install a series of pumps, water pipes, and water tanks to ensure everyone from the community had access to water. Relief efforts after the earthquake had already provided a public water filtration system that we encouraged everyone to take advantage of.
Even though we had some challenges with this project, we were able to overcome them all with the help of the Kopang leaders. We are very grateful that this project has been completed and the people living in Kopang can have access to water.