SHI: Safe Drinking Water for 20,000 Rural Families

When I visited the community of Jerusalen in the municipality of Nueva Guinea, I was amazed to see almost the entire board of directors of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Committee (CAPS) be made up of women, with the exception of the president, who usually does not perform its function as he is usually focus on his personal duties. Instead, all of these women are in charge of managing and ensuring that the Jerusalem water system (Aqueduct) works and provides water to all families in the community effectively and with good quality. 

It was on June 28, 2022 when I met the women who make up the drinking water committee of this community, they represented each of the legal register positions that make up the CAPS such as: Secretary, Treasurer, Prosecutor, Member and the Plumber. On this occasion, the meeting with this CAPS, mostly represented by women, was to respond to a request from them to Self – Help International for the evaluation of their water system to achieve the installation of a chlorinator equipment in the near future in the water distribution tank, this way provide purified water to their families and members of their community, in addition to learn from training sessions the development of knowledge and skills to keep their water optimal for human consumption. 

On this occasion I want to refer to the work of Mrs. Tita, who currently holds the position of: “The Water Plumber woman”, as how the members of her Jerusalen community call her. 

Tita is a 49-year-old woman who has lived almost her entire life in the community of Jerusalen in the municipality of Nueva Guinea. She came to that community when she was only 4 years old. She has lived there for 45 years and has 3 male children who are 25, 22 and 15 years old, the youngest one is still studying in high school. 

Tita works as a plumber for her community in which she receives minimal financial support from the CAPS committee, and the rest of her duties as plumber are  voluntarily manner, to complement her family's livelihood she does simple sewing jobs from which she obtains some extra income and plus she along with her children work in the field planting grain and vegetable in a piece of land of her belongs. although Tita did not even complete the primary school, with the time pass on she has learned how to write down on her own, now, thanks to the training provided by the Clean Water Program Officer promoted by Self – Help International she learned how to keep records of the water consumption used by the people from her community. Tita told us that in each one of the training sessions she attends she have been learn several new things that helps her to improve her work, because she likes to learn and she continued saying that she does not care if what she is learning is something different from her gender, as she knows that it is somethign new and good for her own growth, since there are many people who are inhibited from growing. and she says that it is better to do a job, although hard but worthy to always support her family.

Tita continued saying that she has even learned how to use a computer that belongs to the CAPS committee and enter the data into it. She mainly uses an Excel spreadsheet to calculate the water consumption in cubic meters for each home that uses the water. She continues telling us that, although she does not have any position on the board, the Board members always call her to participate in meetings, and any other activities regarding the good management of the water where she attends it happily. She has had good and bad experiences while working as a plumber but she understands that it is part of her work and always tries to provide the best solution when needed. There are also users who have supported her for the work she does and understand her responsibility in which she feels really grateful to be recognized by the population. This way she continue motivated to work and support the CAPS directive, because she wants to always have water in her house and not have to carry water in buckets from the community well to her house, in addition to making sure that all of the people are receiving clean water and that it won´t harm the loved ones.  

She continues with her narrative saying: Since 2019, I have been performing the position of “plumber”, I am in charge of activating the operation of the pump and well to send water to the water tank distribution for the homes in the community. Even if it is at night or early morning, I have to fulfill this task. She smiles when she tells me this, because she says that she is also always doing the job of prosecutor, because the person in charge of this position is a new member and she need to learn all the process to be follow up reason why she is willing to support her, so in some way she is always supporting the members of the CAPS board and the only thing that matters to her is the well-being of the population in general. 

Tita is also in charge of checking the operation of the chlorinator and placing the chlorine tablets inside the chlorinator, as well as monitoring the use of the tablets to provide good quality drinking water to the population of the community. She always performs prosecutorial functions, evaluating what is right and refuting what is being done wrong. She also does plumbing and pipe repair work, installing and reading meters, as well as calculating water consumption per home. 

Tita always take care of the water distribution tank, she calls on the other women to clean and wash it in its inside, because of her concern is that the population does not get sick, so she works hard to maintain the storage concrete tank clean, washing it with bleach and scrubbing its internal walls to remove any dirt or sediment that it may have. To fill it and give the appropriate treatment to the water before being distributed to homes, she does this work frequently and she feels proud of collaborating so that the water in her community is of good quality. She also urges other women not to fear the change and learn things that are beneficial for them and their families. She thanks the Clean Water Program for the dedication to training and skill development that she has been putting into practice in her job duties as a plumber. 

Self – Help International is proud to share the growth and commitment of this woman who is dedicated to do jobs that were previously considered only for men. This woman is an example of self-improvement and self-learning in that community.

Carmen is a single mother who has raised her two daughters, now 28 and 24 years old. She has lived in the El Dorado No. 3 community for around 15 years, which is located approximately 32 miles from the Self - Help - International headquarters office and it belongs to the jurisdiction of the San Miguelito municipality in Río San Juan, it is a rural community with its people concentrated in 140 houses and a total of 700 inhabitants. 

Since Carmen began to live in this community, she noticed the lack of the water supply, since most of the sources such as rivers and springs were on private properties (farms) and to be able to acquire water either to drink or for the use of the home and personal hygiene, Carmen told us that people had to go and ask for permission from the owners of those wells, rivers or springs in order to obtain the water and the way they usually carried the water was holding on top of their heads mostly the women and children using plastic containers as buckets, since there were not pipes that reached their homes. She continued saying: we used to drink this water and since it was a natural resource in the open air, it did not have any type of treatment to make it drinkable, even so we drank it because we did not see any other option at that moment, although, I noticed that most of the time people got sick from the stomach, because the water was very dirty since the animals (cows, horses among others) also came to use the water and dirty it with their waste, also when it rained (because Río San Juan is a tropical region and the rains are very frequents) we had to used those dirty and muddy waters. 

This situation worried Carmen a lot about the health of the population, her daughters and herself, for which she decided to take action and seek solutions to the problem of water scarcity in her community. She began to meet with more people from her community in church activities to look for alternatives first to have a specific water resource for use by the entire community and then to work on improvements, although this would take more time. Carmen comments that she and some other members of the community did not stop until they achieved something more specific. 

By the year 2014, a gravity water project began, this was carried out with the contribution of the community and the investment of the San Miguelito Municipal Mayor office, since Carmen was one of the promoters of the project then she began to be part of the water committee, exercising the position as Secretary. 

Once the project was completed, which consisted in addition to having a community source, having access to drinking water (each house using pipes and faucets) they no longer had to carry water from those farms to their homes. With all this achievement, the next step was to manage their water in addition to being drinkable, safe for human consumption, looking for a way to treat where the CAPS (Potable Water and Sanitation committee) took several steps until they managed to find out of a organization called Self - Help International, which provided this type of support, including training in technical and intellectual knowledge. That was when Carmen took on the task of being part of the activities and training that the organization promoted with regard to water purification, the management of water service collection rates, management and maintenance of the chlorinator installed by the organization, among others skills. 

In one of the advisory and technical monitoring visits by the official of the Clean Water Program, Carmen shared part of her experience and reasons why she was working in the CAPS board of directors and she began her story by detailing: We met about 10 people from the community and organized a provisional water committee, then we managed the water project before the Mayor's Office, then we presented it in a community assembly and the population supported it, later we obtained the legal constitution of the CAPS board (Potable Water and Sanitation Committee) by the Mayor's Office and before the National Water Authority (ANA) meaning that at the national level we are recognized as a legitimate directive to manage the water resource of our community. 

We have a yearly assembly meeting, and there was a time that some people questioned the administration of the money because we have it in our hands instead of the bank, we explained them that it was more complicated to have the money at the bank because the only one in the region is located in San Carlos, which is more or less 35 miles from here, and to do any transaction someone has to be traveling to do it over there so what we proposed as CAPS committee was that the money would be guard by at least two people and they won´t touch the money unless it was for something necessary for the CAPS, because we know that this money is from the community to maintain the water system, and at the end all of the assembly members agreed, because they have seen that if we have kept our word, perhaps in the future we will have to make a Bank account because the community is growing and so are the responsibilities. 

At the beginning we met more frequently, now we use the telephone more for any communication, 3 CAPS members are permanently active as the president, the treasurer and the secretary, that is me (Carmen). 

Like I said before I was motivated to work with this Project when I saw the need that all the residents had to have water suitable for human consumption, the need was felt by all the women of the community, seeing the women, and girls carrying water in buckets to their homes was terrible, because this work is carried out only by women and children. So as secretary I have had the opportunity of learn most of the CAPS procedures to keep alive such as: The purchase of chlorine tablets to purify the water and on many occasions I have had to go to the Self-Help International office to bring them to our community, I make the receipts that are the support of any management (expenditure or income when the clients pay for the water service), organize the activities to wash the filters and pipes, I generally do this with the other CAPS members and ask the rest of the assembly for support and although there are a few people who support, at least I always have some people who, just like me, care about the well-being of the population, and sometimes I also participate in training, having the opportunity to share my experience with other people. 

That function has been delegated to me, because I already had contacts with  entities, the Mayor's Office, also because I do not refuse to take action, many times even a simple phone call sometimes it is complicated but I'm always available to help, imagine, Carmen continued saying, I even held the position of collector the payments for the water service for 5 years, and while I was doing that activity I was able to encouraged a girl to do it instead of me, but she couldn't stand for long time because of the long walk distance to get house by house collecting the money, so I always continue to do it and currently I am training the plumber to take that responsibility, I hope it works because I also have another responsibilities as keep the register and control of the CAPS income, I have copies of the payment receipts for the water consumption rate, I do all this with great pleasure and always taking into account the functions of my position in the CAPS, so I take the initiative so as not to fall into lethargy, I like to be responsible with what I am assigned, or I assign myself. 

I am concerned about the chlorination of the water, because if an epidemic occurs, they will claim that we are in charge of the water, so I am always aware of avoiding anything that could affect us and of course it is under our responsibility and conditions, I am not perfect, but I like to do well the things that have been entrusted to me, I like to comply. I organize and plan my time well since as I said before I am a housewife, single and I have to take care of my house, farm, business and obligations in my church in addition to this position that I accepted as secretary in the CAPS of my community, even so I try to do everything responsibly for the health of the community population and the CAPS committee recognizes my work and many people in the community as well.

As long as there is no one to replace me, I will be on the board and I will be supporting them in everything I can. This committee is for life, even if we don't want to, because it is very difficult to understand the responsibility and exercise the duties of the water committee. 

For my part, I want to thank Self-Help International for all their support with their Clean Water Program because we have learned a lot as CAPS members. personally, I now feel more confident talking to anyone else about how to manage and work CAPS because I have been in ours since it started from scratch and that is where you learn more because you are able to sees all the processes that are needed to be a consolidated CAPS and recognized by others, thank you very much.