Record of Meeting pg 1 of 3
15th Exploratory Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Committee
Where: Los Torres Community – front yard of a private house across from School
When: Saturday 22nd November 2008 12pm – 2.15pm
Who: Chela, Benigno & Holly – CEDESA, Bill Fisher (Patronato Pro Nino), Laura (Rotary), approx 50 women & 8 men (including the leaders Ma, Hilaria, Maria Leova, Maria Concepcion, Jose Miguel) from the Community (innumerable kids!).
General Project Purpose - SMA Rotary tasked Bob & Laura with defining the “needs” & determining the best proposal, for a major water Project involving the writing of a competitive grant for approx. US$100K.
Rationale: As part of the process of defining the “need” we will meet with as many people as possible that are directly involved in the provision of, or are aware of the need for the provision of, safe drinking water solutions to marginal communities.
Specific Project determined: We are now working on the Los Torres project
to fund individual water collection systems for each household in Los Torres. We have verbal funding agreed of US$60K combined, from our North American Rotary Partner clubs.
Assembly Purpose:
This assembly was called by the Leaders of the community of Los Torres so the community could discuss (& be made aware of) the issues they all face regarding water. Scarcity, fluoride contamination, municipal water deliveries, included.
The women “leaders” of LT visited CEDESA on the 7th November (see previous report). During the meeting they asked Chela to help facilitate this assembly.
Summary of the assembly
We arrived approx 11.30 & (as always) were immediately invited to a table brimming with tortillas, rice, beans etc.
The meeting was scheduled for 12. At about 12.30 some women & children started to arrive & mill about.
Around 12.50 Chela started the assembly. She improvised a white board from a table upended with large sheets of paper taped to it.
1st - the crowd was asked introduce themselves individually, ie say their name. People were a bit shy but all eventually said their names
Chela introduced CEDESA & its purpose & moved straight into discussions about fluoride contamination & who knew about it. Around 50% answered they had no idea, some knew it caused teeth problems, 1 woman told of her children crying at night with pain in their bones (& 3 others echoed her), they asked if that could be a symptom. (action – Laura to research this question)
Chela asked people to join in & forced interaction – the crowd was involved.
Record of Meeting pg 2 of 3
15th Exploratory Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Committee
Chela made the following points:
It’s important that you get organised, become informed & find solutions
Fluoride is common here, it’s poisoning you, you need to think about your kids
You future is in your own hands
Do you want a future of life or death?
(to which someone jokingly responded “at least we’ll all die together”)
Your teeth are “manchado” (stained)
Little by little you are getting sick?
How many of you eat “instant lunches”? (some – not many)
How many of you drink coke? (a lot – but interestingly it’s probably less harmful than the water they’re drinking!)
Eating naturally is better
She spoke about the difference between a meeting & an assembly. With their input she defined the 2. She asked for a count of heads. Approx 50 women & 8 men, & since the community has 91 families, (approx 33 families were not represented) she declared the assembly to have a majority & therefore that they were able to make decisions on behalf of the community.
Purpose of an assembly:
Make decisions
Resolve problems
Make agreement
Analyse problems (our problems & those from caused by others)
In this case the problem is water, it is a problem for everyone, men, women & children.
She asked them - (& the crowd answered – with prompting) -
are we (Rotary & CEDESA) affected by your problems – “no – this problem affects you!”
who will help solve this problem? – “you need to look at what you can do for yourselves, work on the problems & solutions”
one of the men was invited to talk about the situation he said “we have to work together to solve the problems”
Can you wait to solve this? “no – it’s urgent”
Do you want to be sick? “no”
You need to collaborate & solve this immediately & for the future, the future of your kids is in your hands.
They all agreed they need to be part of the solution & not expect 1 person to solve it for them
Are the people in San Miguel drinking contaminated water? “no”
Do you know about the level of fluoride contamination in your water? “no”
Bacteria & fluoride are both in the water, bacteria is easier to control
It’s important to have healthy water for your body & your life
Record of Meeting pg 3 of 3
15th Exploratory Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Committee
One woman spoke up & said “ they told us not to drink the water from the pozos, only drink from the water in the tanks that the trucks bring (some add chlorine drops, some boil the water), but they always run out. Some families don’t have water containers by the school for filling & when they get to the tanks they are usually empty.
Chela suggested they visit Sapasma & ask them to bring more water because there are many families here that are without.
She worked on Demand - calculations
Currently the delivery of less than 1 truck of water per wk is insufficient.
She asked how much water each family used.
3 different women with different sized families spoke up & they used quite different amounts per person.
They settled on an average of 5 ltrs per day per person for drinking & cooking (nb this is much higher than average use – our family for eg only uses around 3 ltrs max per day for this, although we drink other liquids than water)
Delegado said 450 people in the community (we have stats that say 434)
450 x 5 litres per day (or 35 litres per wk) = 16,000 litres per wk needed.
They have 2 tinacos of 5000 ltrs (& 2 of 1500 ltrs at the school) so close to the capacity they need.
They agreed they would visit SAPASMA & ask for more deliveries.
Note/comments:
We (Rotary & PPN) have already been to Sapasma on behalf of LT (& to the presidencia), we were told the resources to provide & deliver the water were not there.
The community is approx 45 minutes by truck from the main highway – which is 20 minutes from SMA. The trucks do deliveries to other communities on the way & so often can only deliver a partial truckload. There is also a shortage of trucks, & in the rainy season it is sometimes impossible to get through.
LT to Control their own water supply is a better solution.
The rain is there (in the season) why not catch it?
The information re the fluoride contamination was a “sledge hammer”, we (Rotary) had been reluctant to bring them the news of this. Chela did not hesitate.
I had to leave the meeting at this point. After I left a small group was appointed to visit Sapasma & ask for more water.
The next assembly date was set for Thursday 4th December 12pm
(Rotary & CEDESA will meet at 10am – at the “el cortijo” beside the highway turnoff, to discuss the project & it’s direction & the agenda for the next assembly, for a co-ordinated approach)
