When Lupe Tapuy was raising her oldest child in the village of Machacuyacu, tucked into a lush bluff not far from the Napo River in the Amazon basin rainforest, he was constantly sick with stomach ailments. They drew water for drinking and cooking from a nearby stream where they also bathed, which looked clean but contained parasites and bacteria. To Tapuy, 30, and the other 170 residents, illness was simply a part life spent raising yucca, cocoa and plantains while living in

MedWater needs your help! We’re excited to launch a new, $36,000 campaign to help five remote villages in Ecuador’s Amazon basin rainforest gain life-changing access to safe water. The campaign represents an ambitious expansion of www.medwater.org’s years-long work to develop relationships and empower communities in Ecuador’s rural Napo River area with safe water, sanitation and hygiene programs. In a region long strained by petroleum development and deforestation, the five i

The president of Selva Amazonica reached out to Fundación MedWater health promoters, Jaime and Lucila Tapuy. He had heard about the safe water projects and the improvements in health. Jaime and Lucila followed up with a visit to the community to help them explore options. As the conversation continued, the community thought of a design for pumping water from the river up to a central location. While Fundación MedWater has primarily worked to treat existing sources of water,