By Dylan Terrell | Executive Director
Dear GlobalGiving Supporters,
The rains have been relentless this year, which is great news for us, as all the rainwater systems, including the new ones we’re just finishing, are overflowing with safe drinking water for thousands of people in the region! We are continuing to move strongly on our “Agua y Salud” (Water & Health) project that is largely being financed by the Gonzalo Río Arronte Foundation as well as supporters like you! Please check out our last updates to learn more about the background of this project.
Since our last update, we have finished the 38 new systems we had mentioned, and since then, we have been hitting the ground hard, especially in the municipalities of San Diego de la Unión and San Luis de la Paz. In total, we have broken ground on, or in some cases finished, a staggering 52 new, large-scale rainwater harvesting systems in 11 different communities. This means that we are on track to build at least 141 new rainwater harvesting systems this year -- far and beyond our most impactful year to date.
These 12,000-liter (~3,200 gallon) systems store enough healthy water to provide up to two families enough water to last all year round. When combined with our certified ceramic water filters, rainwater from these systems becomes one of the safest sources of drinking water around.
We have also continued to implement educational workshops as well as our “Comunidad de Aprendizaje del Agua” (Water Learning Community) where we invite community leaders and grassroots organizations, from more than 30 communities throughout the watershed participating in this project, to come together once a quarter. Here we provide information, educational workshops, and teaching and organizing tools for community leaders and community organizers to take back with them and implement in their own communities. We are very excited to provide a beautifully designed “memory” document, included below in this report, that shows exactly what the Water Learning Community is all about through the words of those who are participating in this series. Unfortunately, it is currently only available in Spanish, but the visuals are very impactful. We hope you will take a moment to flip through the included document!
Moving forward, we are also working closely with the Municipal Government of San Miguel de Allende through the Department of Environment and Sustainability. We recently signed a contract to build an additional 21 large-scale rainwater systems in the community of Salitrillo. So, we hope to get that project off the ground before the end of the year as well!
As always, we continue doing this work as safely as possible under the current reality of COVID-19. This means we have to stretch our team thin to be in multiple places at once, but we keep forging ahead. The rains have hit hard this year and keep on coming. We’re taking advantage of every drop we can! We are very grateful to all of our GlobalGiving supporters who have been very instrumental in all of this work. Sincerely, thank you.
Saludos,
Dylan and the Caminos de Agua Team
Links:
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