Guatemala Volcano Emergency

We want to thank our supporters for your speedy and generous response to the explosion of Volcan Fuego on June 3rd, 2018.

Thanks to you, we were able to address a key issue in crisis management. Over 3,000 people affected by the Volcan Fuego eruption were surviving on bottled drinking water. With no trash service in these rural communities, one can imagine the contamination of sudden influx of plastics. Within a month of the crisis, donations were slowing down and families still had no place to go, no clean water and their no crops to harvest.  Thanks to your donation, we brought in 200 Sawyer water filter kits that provide over 100,000 gallons of clean drinking water with no need for replacement parts. These filters will provide years of safe drinking water as families recuperate from the disaster. . 

We practice Radical Transparency to assure donated goods benefit the families who need them most.  The deliveries were made in person to one head of household, who showed identification, reported their household situation, and signed (or fingerprinted) their commitment to use and maintain these filters according to the training session we held. (We have a stack of signed documents that we displayed at our fundraiser in Michigan this month.) 

We delivered a Water Filtration workshop to discuss the health benefits of a well-used water filter. The workshop led each family to put together their own Sawyer water filter kit, learned about good hygiene practices and how to maintain their filter to avoid waterborne diseases for years to come.

August 9 in Panimache and Palo Verde, 752 people:  ATC/AEIDS Field Workers Marilena and Brenda delivered 82 water filter kits to each family in the villages of Palo Verde and Panimache.  19 solar lanterns – 5 with cell phone recharge capabilities – were distributed to community leaders based on their geographical location to create access to each “neighborhood” for emergency phone recharge and lighting for frequent blackouts or an emergency evacuation at night.  

August 15 in la Rochela, 840 people: Marilena, Rosy (SEA) and Monika delivered 94 water filters to each family and 16 solar lamps to community-identified leaders distributed geographically to provide emergency access to solar lighting and cell phone recharge. This opened a discussion about emergency evacuation plans where people will converge at the neighborhood leader's home where they have light and access to call for help.

We served approximately 3,330 victims of the volcano with clean drinking water and emergency lighting since the day after the explosion. 

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