1 Million Liters of Safe Drinking Water in Mexico

Dear GlobalGiving Supporters,

We are so excited to start 2018 off with this new campaign! Our last GlobalGiving campaign, combined with other fundraising efforts, helped bring more than 1.7 million liters of rainwater storage capacity, and 225 ceramic water filters, to dozens of communities without access to safe and healthy drinking water. We are hoping to hit one million liters of storage capacity (or roughly 85 large-scale rainwater harvesting systems) by 2019, and we’re off to a great start.

We ended 2017 working in the communities of Pozo Ademado and neighboring Villa de Guadalupe with long-time partner organization Pozo Ademado Community Services. In early December, we inaugurated six (6) new large-scale systems (two of which were funded directly through this campaign) for families in the two communities as well as provided 12 new ceramic water filter systems. The community drinking well is contaminated with excessive levels of both arsenic and fluoride, which has had a visible impact on the health of the community – namely in children in the form of severe dental fluorosis. The community well is also shared by several communities, meaning that Pozo Ademado, for instance, only gets water one day a week. The more than 60 families must store contaminated water in 55-gallon drums to get through the week. These 12,000-liter (~3,170 gallon) capacity rainwater systems will provide a consistent source of safe and healthy water to a family throughout the year.

Representatives from the county government were present at the inauguration and were taken aback by the severity of the water quality and scarcity issues. The mayor of the county reached out to Caminos de Agua personally and worked with our team to set up informational workshops for water committees as well as a comprehensive water quality study. In partnership with the University of Guanajuato and Texas A&M University, and with the support of the local government, Caminos de Agua coordinated a water quality study in mid-January. We were able to sample all 28 community drinking wells in the county through this study. The results will not only give us a better idea of the growing water quality and scarcity issues, but it will also help better inform local government and greater civil society of where the greatest needs lie. This rainwater harvesting project acted as a springboard to help get local government more involved, and we hope to take advantage of this energy to build more systems throughout 2018.

We’re off to a good start in 2018, but we still have a long way to go. We continue to see the need grow more acutely every day. We have begun finding increased arsenic levels – more than six times World Health Organization limits – in parts of the region that were once uncontaminated.

We need your support more than ever. Please consider a donation to our campaign today.

Thank you for your continued support.

Saludos,
Dylan and the Caminos Team