According to the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report, more than one billion people
in the world do not have access to clean water and over two billion people do not have adequate sanitation.
This is an ongoing problem in the rural Philippines where rough mountainous terrain makes fetching
water an arduous task. The mission of the Northwestern University Ram Pump Team is to provide the
rural villagers of Tress Hermanos access to clean running water and sanitation through the
implementation of a RAM pump system. The team will be working in conjunction with NGOS
Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation Inc-AIDFI and Green Empowerment. AIDFI is an
NGO based in the Philippines with over 17 years of experience in ram pump technology and has been
utilizing their own (see Figure 1) to improve the lives of many Filipinos. My role on the ram pump team
is to 1)offer a solution to a flaw in the currently used model; 2) visit a village where installation is taking
place in order to develop appropriate technology and best practices; 3) use data collected from the trip to
finalize the model and recommend long-term solutions to the problem. During Spring Quarter I will
design the mechanism itself. This summer our team will travel to Tres Hermanos to assist with the
installation of the pump and training local residents to use and repair the pump. My project this summer
will be to assess the effectiveness of the unjamming mechanism in the field to develop strategies for
improving the ease of use and repair. This research will contribute to the further improvement of the
design and help promote Ram pump technology as a safe and cost-effective solution to clean water
delivery in developing areas.