Update re Global Grant 25437 Calgary Water Cistern Project (with Direct grant combined)

4 Communities led the first phase – La Tinaja, 3 Esquinas, Cruz del Palmar & Guerrero. Following is the update of these communities:-

La Tinaja 22 (21 family + 1 pilot) cisterns, pilot began on 23^rd Jan. Cisterns are almost all completed & they will announce their inauguration on the 29^th March.

3 Esquinas 24 (23 family + 1 pilot) cisterns, pilot began on 30^th Jan. Cisterns are completed, they are yet to announce their inauguration date.

Cruz del Palmar 41 (39 family + 2 pilots) cisterns, pilot began on 30^th Jan. Cisterns are completed, Inauguration to be on 29^th March.

Guerrero 20 (19 family + 1 pilot) cisterns. pilot began on 6^th Feb. Interruptions on 7^th March re land dispute, but almost completed as at 17.3.12.

The next phase includes communities of Corralejo, Vivienda de Arriba & Tierra Blanca.

Corralejo 15 (13 family + 1 pilot+ 1 community proj) cisterns, they began their pilot on 12^th March. This was a difficult pilot as most of the men are absent from this community in the USA, Filiberto & Saul (our tech assistants) admitted to having to work extremely hard with the women in this community, since there were no men to help out.

Vivienda de Arriba(10) & Tierra Blanca(9) are beginning work on their cisterns on the weekend of 17^th March. They will proceed without a pilot training session, as this is phase II in each of these communities & the previous cistern recipients have volunteered to work with these participants.

Once funds are received from Port Lavaca & converted to Pesos, we will have a firm number of the next cistern/materials to be available & will begin on this final phase.

Global Grant Approved!!! #25437

On 21st October 2010 Norman Myden from Chinook Rotary Club emailed me to see what we could get going re a water project - I told him he'd come to the right place, & we immediately set to work... In December we applied to the Alberta's Govt Community Initiatives Program (CIP) for funding which we hoped to match with Rotary Club & District & the Foundation to achieve a large grant of US$65,300.....

Well, I am very happy to announce that a year later on Oct 25th we received a very happy email from Ashley at The Rotary Foundation informing us our application had been successful & we are to receive the funding!!

District 5360 (located in Canada and includes all of the Rotary clubs in Alberta from Ponoka south and also clubs in the south-west region of Saskatchewan) is providing US$10,000, Chinook RC is providing $10,000 + Alberta Govt $20,000, SMA Midday is providing US$200 (& lots of blood, sweat & tears!) & this is all being matched by The Rotary Foundation with US$25,100.

For a grand total of US$65,300 & a planned cistern count of 108 cisterns in 4 communities decided by the Consejo (citizen's council) of 18 communities.

We are working through the small details now, opening bank accounts, transferring $$ & are expecting to be able to begin the project early December!!

The communities will be
Guerrero
La Tinaja
Cruz del Palmar
& 3 Esquinas (near Palencia)