SHI: Safe Drinking Water for 20,000 Rural Families

Obdulia has lived in the La Vainilla community in Chontales, Nicaragua her entire life. She has an 11-year-old daughter and a 15 year-old-son, and she manages the household while her husband is away in Costa Rica looking for work.

Obdulia is one of 270 people in La Vainilla with safe drinking water thanks to the CTI-8 chlorinator that Self-Help International’s Clean Water Program Officer, Orlando, helped install in the community.

Living Without Clean Water for a Long Time

La Vainilla has had a gravity aqueduct for over 20 years, but it wasn’t very good. The water came out dirty, so individuals in the community would strain it and add a few drops of bleach. The Water and Sanitation Committee (CAPS) before Obdulia’s tenure as treasurer didn’t chlorinate the main water source. Obdulia has been the CAPS treasurer of her community for seven months and since the new CAPS members took over, they’ve been adding commercial bleach to the water basin before the water is distributed into the houses.

La Vainilla doesn’t have a great source of water. In the summer, the water is scarce; in the winter, the water source can mix with the animal pastures. There aren’t many trees in the area to protect the water due to the livestock grazing. An engineer from San Pedro City Hall, Humberto, learned about La Vainilla’s water problem and told the CAPS about Self-Help International and its clean water program.

“We decided that chlorination would be good for our community because we’d have water to drink and better hygiene,” Obdulia said.

Self-Help’s Clean Water Program Officer, Orlando, went to Obdulia’s home and showed the CAPS members the chlorinator system and explained how the chlorine tablets work to remove contaminants in the water.

“We always used to doubt if  the water was okay to drink, and we didn’t even know that the water was contaminated until Orlando came to do the water contamination test for us,” Obdulia said.

The water sample for the test was taken at the water basin where the community members get their water.

“I watched the change in the water in the little bag that Orlando left at my house, and I inspected it every 12 hours. When we saw the change in color, we immediately told everyone who used that water not to drink it until we’d installed the chlorinator,” Obdulia said. “We showed the little bag of contaminated water to different community members so that they would see the kind of water we were drinking!”

Time for a Change

Once the La Vainilla CAPS and Self-Help installed the chlorinator, there was a change in the community when the CAPS explained that the chlorinator was working. The community began drinking the water again with confidence, and people told the CAPS that they could taste the chlorine in the water (which helped community members know that the chlorinator was working).

“As the water committee of La Vainilla, we made the decision to install the chlorinator,” Obdulia said. “We explained to the community that they’d have to continue maintaining it and get chlorine tablets every month to keep the water sanitized.”

“Today, we drink chlorinated water. We drink it confidently, and all of our community drinks it with plenty of security,” Obdulia said. “The community says they’re drinking quality water. They see that the water comes out clear and chlorinated. This is why we CAPS members say that we have improved the water quality in our community even though we’ve only been managing the CAPS for a little while.”

Thanks to the determination of La Vainilla’s CAPS members and Self-Help’s clean water program, La Vainilla has joined countless other Nicaraguan communities that now have access to safe drinking water. With clean water, more people are living healthier, more productive lives.

Boca de Sábalos is the main community of the El Castillo municipality in Rio San Juan, and it’s located 48 km (29 mi) from Self-Help International’s training center in Quinta Lidia.  Boca de Sábalos is divided by a river going through the town, which splits the town into western and eastern sides. In June 2018, Self-Help’s clean water program and the Boca de Sábalos community were able to install a CTI-8 chlorinator in a gravity aqueduct on the western side of the river.  This chlorinator was able to treat the drinking water used by 400 people in 84 households.

Orlando, Self-Help’s Clean Water Program Officer, met with Eugenia, a member of the Boca de Sábalos community.  Eugenia didn’t grow up in Boca de Sábalos; she’s originally from Chinandega in western Nicaragua, and she came to Río San Juan with her parents when she was 14 years old.  Eugenia has lived in Boca de Sábalos for 23 years, and she currently lives on the western side of the river.

When Orlando met with Eugenia, she talked about how having clean water has impacted her life and her community:

“Life has changed for us in this community. I’m very fortunate to have good quality water now, and this is thanks to the chlorinator that Self-Help International helped us install in our community water tank.

"I’m a business owner. I have a small grocery store, and that’s how I make money to take care of myself and my family. Because I have clean water, I can sell my drinks - a mixture of natural juice and water - with confidence because the water will not cause health problems for other people. It wasn’t always like this because our water used to be contaminated.

"There are four people in my household including me, so we sometimes use a lot of water. When we used to need water, we had to go collect it from somewhere else.  The water was usually dirty and smelly, and we had to boil it before we could drink it.

"At one point, we started receiving water from an aqueduct on the eastern side of the river, but it wasn’t chlorinated and it was difficult to set up PVC pipes going across the river to carry the water.  Eventually, we stopped receiving water from the eastern side of the river.

"Two years ago, all of us on the western side of the river and the mayor's office pledged money to build a concrete tank to store the surface water we collected on our side of the river.  For awhile, we used this water for drinking water.

"That water had problems, too. It wasn’t good, it had sediment in it, and it was a yellowish color. In order for my family and me to be able to drink the water, I used to strain it into plastic bottles and put it out in the sun all day. Because we didn’t have a community chlorination system, many households looked for their own ways to treat the water to make it drinkable.  In many cases, people drank it raw from the water source without any type of treatment.

"I remember that many people suffered from vomiting and diarrhea. One of my neighbors, Ana, had chronic stomach aches and diarrhea. Ana said she thought her problems were caused by a virus, but I didn’t think it was a virus - I thought it was because of the water. I explained to her that her health problems were caused by the dirty water she was drinking because she did not use any method to purify or treat her water.

"There was another time when some sort of parasite came out of the water. It looked like a worm, and we took it to the health center. After the doctors saw the worm, they told us to boil or chlorinate our water before drinking it. I followed their recommendations for my family and myself.

"When Orlando took a sample of my community’s water from the water tank and tested it, the water tested positive for contamination. Vicente, the president of our Water and Sanitation Committee (CAPS), scheduled an emergency community meeting to show us the results.

"The bag with the tested water was black, which is the color it turns during the test if it’s contaminated. I was shocked when I saw it. I got scared and said, ‘This is the water that we’re drinking!’

"In that same community meeting, we decided to collect money to buy a CTI-8 chlorinator and chlorine tablets to treat the drinking water for the western side of Boca de Sábalos. We agreed that the chlorination system would benefit everyone in the community and that it was an important way to maintain our health. Then and there, we all agreed to pay for and maintain a CTI-8 chlorinator so that we could have drinking water safe for human consumption.

"Now, my community can drink the water and feel more confident and secure. The chlorine tablets kill bacteria that contaminate the water, so we don’t end up going to the health center with diarrhea and vomiting and frequently as we used to. The money we spend to maintain the water system and buy the chlorine tablets every month is worth it because we now have safe water in our homes.

"A month ago, the CAPS leaders held a meeting with the rest of the community to explain the importance of continuing to chlorinate the water, and we all agreed to continue maintaining the water system. When we use the tap water in our homes, we can smell the chlorine in the water and that makes us feel confident to keep drinking our water. Our children in look healthier and happier, and they’re able to go to school and have fun playing because they’re not getting sick from the water.

"I just want to express my honest appreciation to Orlando and Self-Help International for all the assistance you have provided to improve the quality of our drinking water. We feel more assured knowing we have quality water in our community.”

This interview with Eugenia was conducted eight months after a CTI-8 chlorinator was installed on the western side of the Boca de Sábalos community.

World Water Day is March 22, 2019!  Help more communities like Boca de Sábalos access clean water for this year's World Water Day!