Transform lives with clean water in Honduras

This month the Water Board in El Pital is gearing up to welcome their new engineer partners, Duke Engineers for International Development (DEID) for their first visit. The Water Board with the guidance of DEID will be constructing trash receptacles throughout the community and systems to filter household waste water. The goal of these micro-projects is to help reduce contamination and standing water throughout the community. Additionally, DEID and the Water Board will be finalizing the plans for the water distribution project which will bring drinkable water to approximately 1000 people.

The El Pital water initiative is a multi-faceted effort to bring clean drinkable water to its residents, while also reducing water contamination and increasing forest conservation/reforestation efforts for the regional watershed and its surroundings.

Pablino, Vice President of the Water Board, reported that in a recent Water Board planning meeting the group discussed the challenges they face engaging the larger community given the lengthy timeline of the project, “People in our community are not used to planning for the future; they are accustomed to live day to day. For that reason, it can be hard for folks to justify investing in a project that they may not see the results of for many years."

“But we (Water Board) continue to stay involved, no matter how long it takes, because we understand the importance of planning, and we want to do this project correctly and well so that it will last for many years in the future. We learned our lesson the hard way with the potable water project that the community built back in the early 1990’s. There was no planning, no thinking about the future, and we got it done too quickly. It was not very long before the system could no longer support the growth of the community, and property owners surrounding the water source began cutting and burning trees causing the water source to be contaminated and less abundant.”