A Day at CEDESA & Nombre de Dios

May 19, 2016

Today I went to CEDESA to pick up Chela & Abel to go one “last time” to Nombre de Dios. Our plan was to talk with them one more time about doing a water cistern project with them – or not. 

There are only 6 families there (about 44 people total) & it is the most isolated community  we have ever worked in. The families are all currently hauling water from a 30 meter deep noria (hand dug well) about a ten minute walk away.

     

The water appears horribly polluted with both bacteria & mineral contaminants. Fluorosis is readily observed in the younger members of the community. This was my fifth visit with them to talk about the project since May of 2015. I have gone previously with Chela once, with Abel once, with Matt Morrison of Mission for Life once & with Meche (CEDESA) once. On my last visit with Abel, we did not feel they were showing enough commitment for the “auto-construction” of the cisterns to justify the investment risk of delivering about $2,600 dollars of materials out there. 

This trip was to be our last visit to make a final decision. Chela, with all of her 40+ years of experience in community development & motivating people, was needed.

We had a great meeting. Chela was magical. Finally each person made a commitment to do the work & demonstrated  they really wanted to undertake the project. This is a big step forward for them. Mission for Life is committed to returning & working in this community in their self-development process. Future plans are to get them involved in beekeeping, backyard gardening, a medicinal plant workshop to name a few options to keep them working after the cistern project comes to an end. Mission for Life is committed to keep this process going.

Nombre de Dios is equally isolated from both San Miguel de Allende & Dolores so they cannot participate actively in either COCIRA or UCCANG. They were able to attend one COCIRA meeting in Juan Gonzalez to ask for resources & to see the cistern program in action. 

A requirement in our latest grant (GG1524911) is that all beneficiaries are active in one of the two organizations. For that reason, we have pieced together resources from several other sources to be able to do this project: Rotary District 4160 has contributed $1000, the Gordon Logan memorial fund is contributing approx $800, GG1424619 funds left for operations will contribute approx $400 & the Antioch Church (Gordon’s old church) is likely to also help finance the project. Rotary San Miguel Midday will contribute the balance.

Each beneficiary family will contribute $300 pesos per week during the project to hire a construction worker (albanil) to help with the more difficult parts of the work. Rotary will pay transportation for the worker & an assistant to come from Ex-Hacienda de Pena Blanca until all five family cisterns are constructed. The married men of this community all  live in Leon Monday to Friday to work & earn an income. They will help on weekends. We will pay for the assistant construction worker through our youth program. We will also provide a small plastic cistern (tinaco) for two older persons living there that cannot effectively participate in the construction due to their age. The pilot will be built during the week of May 30 to June 3. I am very pleased to see this project finally take place & am optimistic that it will be their first step in learning how to change their lives by working as a team.

Lots of bees – lots of potential honey!

                 

This is Josefina’s house. She drew the short straw and we will be building the pilot cistern here.
Lee Carter - Rotary San Miguel Midday.