1st Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Cruz del Palmar potential water Project

Record of Event pg 1 of 5
1st Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Cruz del Palmar potential water Project

Where: Cruz del Palmar Community (40 mins from SMA)
When: Wed 10th Feb 11am
Who: Elena Padilla & Laura Stewart (Rotary), Holly Yasui & Chela Martinez (for Cedesa) + 39 adults (incl 8 men) & 15kids & 4 dogs

Purpose: Preliminary Assembly re potential future water project in this community

History: Cruz del Palmar backs onto Los Torres, the community we carried out the first water cistern project with. Los Torres & Cruz del Palmar are neighbours, & many children from Los Torres go to school in CdP.

Some of the people in Los Torres have friends & relatives in CdP.

CdP can see the white water cisterns in Los Torres, & were curious about them.

Some of the women from CdP visited their friends in Los Torres & were shown the cisterns in operation, & invited to drink the water.

As a result the women were interested to know more, & were invited to attend the next assembly in Los Torres. This was in Sept 2009. Since then several representatives of CdP have attended each monthly assembly in Los Torres.

A the end of the first assembly the women attended they asked how they could get cisterns in their community. The attendees of the meeting explained the process to their neighbours & next month they came back with a list of families who would like to be involved in the project, & they also bought with them representatives from another neighbouring community Vivienda de Arriba, who had already compiled a list of people in their communities interested in participating!

At the end of 2009 we were not in a position to promise funding, & so explained the process & that we could not promise anything but that they were welcome to continue attending the assemblies & we would work on a solution with them.

At the meeting in January we set a date for the first assembly in both CdP & Vivienda de Arriba, for 10th Feb. To meet with the community for the first time, & explain the concept & take it from there.

This is that meeting...


Journey to Cruz del Palmar
Although CdP backs onto Los Torres, you can not drive there easily that way, Chela, Holly, Elena & I all met in Cienegita (15minutes before CdP) & went in 1 car. This way we could make plans for the meeting on the way.

None of us was sure exactly how to get there, so we ended up going past & a long way out of our way & then returning, hence we made it to the meeting late, around 11.50.

When we arrived, all of the community was there waiting at “Yolanda’s house in front of the Telesecundaria” we all moved into the front yard of Yolanda’s house & organised seating, we made sure it was in a circular form, eyecontact is very important.

Record of Event pg 2of 5

Item 1 – Apologies for lateness
We thanked everyone for coming & explained what had happened & joked about driving almost to Gto before we realised we were in the wrong place.

Item 2 – Introductions & brief history
Chela asked us all for introductions, then gave a brief history of the diplomado (water studies course last year) & our relationship with Cedesa, & how we started working in Los Torres in Nov 2008.

She described the 3 regions affected by the greater watershed, ie 3 municipalities & how we are all linked by our sharing of the same watershed.

She asked the community how they came to know about the Los Torres project.
Teresa – went to Los Torres & saw the cisterns then went to a couple of assemblies in Los Torres.

Hilaria – is interested because of what Tere told her about the assemblies & the cisterns, & she told her about today’s assembly.


Item 3 – information exchange
Chela told the meeting – you need to talk with confidence, you don’t know us but you do know eachother, we are interested in collaborating.

Amada – has no cistern or tinaco & would like one.

Victoriano – interested in talking about the cisterns.

Chela asked if they were all here to talk about the cisterns or something else?
They all replied, “about the cisterns”

She engaged them with more questions about sources of water & water quality & also said, today she would co-ordinate the meeting but in future they would be co-ordinating their own.

Some facts stated
• Approx 240 houses (sometimes 2 or 3 families per house)
• 3 parts to community
• Upper part,
• no water they have to buy it (7 attending from this area), they just recently got electricity.
• One of the women captures water in big buckets, & uses it to wash & bathe.
• They only have trucked water
• No water source, not even contaminated water,
• Middle part
• Have water on tap from a community well, but not enough water in the dry season, they turn on the tap & nothing comes.
• (21 attending from this area)
• Lower part
• They have piped water but it is bad piping, small pump, not able to pump much or often.
• The water from the well has manganese contamination
• Often coloured, yellow or black
• There is a big buildup of “saro” blocking the pipes often
• Record of Event pg 3 of 5


• When you pour it in a bowl you can see the silt in the water

• They used to have family owned wells, but when Sapasma supplied a community well they blocked them up.
• The old wells were approx 17mtrs deep but there was only water in these wells in rainy season.
• A lot have latrines which have likely contaminated their old water source they believe.
• The community well is approx 100mtrs deep.
• Water was tested by Sapasma, but none of the water committee are attending today & no-one knows what the results were, they believe it was not safe to drink from manganese contamination.
• Almost all the attendees were born in CdP (except 2)
• All areas have to buy drinking water, no water is safe to drink

Item 4 – what can we do together?

Chela asked “is it a human right to be able to drink safe drinking water?” they all yelled yes!!

She explained they should be drinking about 2 litres per day & that the objective is for Community, Cedesa & Rotary to work together to provide a solution for clean water.

Community
It was agreed the community could get a copy of the water study, to see results of water quality test done by Sapasma.
Action: Victoriano agreed to get a copy

There is to be voting for delegado on Sunday, so may be a new delegado coming in.


Item 5 Explanation about the process
Chela asked who had seen the cisterns. 6 people had been to see them up close & taste the water. She explained they are made of ferro cement & better than plastic ones because they are cheaper, & last longer (more than 20 years) & are easy to maintain.

They hold 12,000 litres, & because they are above ground there is no need for energy to remove the water, you don’t have to haul or pump it out of the ground.

Fortunately the water in this area does not have industrial waste so there it is pure & good for drinking & cooking with.

Boiling water that is contaminated with minerals only makes it worse, as it condenses the minerals, boiling only works for killing bacteria, & there is a more efficient way to kill bacteria, using the sun, www.sodis.ch...

Yolande was asked to describe what she knew of the Los Torres Project,
“They did a demo at the school & with unity, force & community spirit they united to acheve the solution... They divided into groups & the 1st stage was training at the kinder & they worked in groups of 7 to build all their cisterns”



Record of Event pg 4 of 5

Chela spoke -
Rotary provides help with the materials.
Cedesa is interested in the integral development of the camposinos, you shouldn’t have to buy drinking water, it is a basic right, you can work on this & build your own cisterns, what you’re spending on water is better spent on other things. You should only have to buy it in emergencies...
Lack of money causes a lot of problems, what are they “stress” “People not drinking enough water” were some of the answers yelled out.

1ST you can solve your water issues & then you can work on other things like backyard production.

“What type of roof do we need to catch water off?” (Yolande)
Almost any roof is fine, & if we need to we can seal it with a natural sealant using cal & nopal...
“what about dirt going into the water”
You need to divert the first rain, ie make sure your roof is clean before you start catching the water, there was talk about keeping the cats off the roof, & we explained we would teach a simple method of water purification, (sodis) at a later date.

“there are more people interested that couldn’t come today, can they join the project?”
Yolande has a list of people & there are others here today that are not yet on the list.
There needs to be some reconciliation.

We can begin to work in stages, Stage 1...
Chela asked “is everyone here interested & feel free to say no, we are definitely not pushing?”
They all said yes.

Chela explained what ‘s expected, she talked a little about obligation & responsibility.
They need to attend meetings & be prepared to work.

She described how to construct a cistern, some specialist plastering at the end, but most of the work can be done by women & children, it’s not heavy work, The satisfaction is great when you have a cistern at your house with safe drinking water & you know you built it yourself!

Chela – Should we start a new list today?
Reply – some people on the list have a good reason for not being able to be here today, they should stay on the list.
Reply – maybe we should deal with the people who have the biggest need first.
18 people here today are not on the list.

Yolande said she didn’t advise people on the list of today’s meeting, it was Tere’s list & she expected she would do it. We checked off the list that Yolande had.
On the list was 50 people, present were 25, & then there are 18 people here who want to go on the list, therefore approx 68 families interested.

Chela explained the process, yes everyone is interested in solving the problem themselves, & we are all here at the first assembly but we need to begin showing motivation, Rotary needs to gather funding & this takes time, & if you are interested you will need to be involved for the whole process to resolve your issues.


Record of Event pg 5 of 5

“when will we know if we have the money or not?”
Good question, I described the process, but that the important thing was until we have the $$$ to prove the motivation.

Action. It was agreed a committee will put together the definitive list (Analaura & Yolande).

I reiterated there was a lot of work involved & not to put your name on the list unless you are prepared for that.

Chela said 1st phase lots of people interested
2nd phase, less when they realised they had to work (& these are the early adopters)
3rd phase more people want to join now they see the results the early adopters achieve!

We asked when it suited them to meet next, they responded, they will work around our schedule.

Telephone contact
Yolande – Land line 415 155 9482
Gerardo – 415 155 9438
AnaLaura 415 114 0929

We finished approx 2pm & Yolande insisted we stay for some lunch.
Tostadas, tortillas, beans & soya/onion dish! Very delicious.

We also spoke about the community political situation with the impending change of delegado, the current delegado does note ven live in CdP but lives in Celaya 1hr away.

Then we headed to Vivienda de Arriba – neighbouring community – for our 3pm meeting there.

I also asked for permission to take photos, so that we can record the events & to publicise it for funding purposes & so our partners feel part of the process.
They agreed.


Next Cruz del Palmar assembly was set for
2nd Wednesday of the month at 11am – in this case 10th March