A Day at CEDESA

May 19, 2016

Yesterday, after going to Nombre de Dios with Chela and Abel, we returned to CEDESA for additional planning of our new global grant (GG1524911) for 319 more water harvesting cisterns in San Miguel, Dolores Hidalgo, San Diego de la Union & San Luis de la Paz. 

Present were Chela, Abel, Meche, Benigno, and Ceci.

We reviewed first the progress on the new education program & the principal objectives of that program. Meche has been working hard with Wendy Coulson to develop the program & didactic materials to go with that. We all agreed that in a nutshell our goals are to have people fully understand

1.       the reason for cisterns is lack of an improved water source or having water that is terribly contaminated with fluoride and arsenic.

2.      the cistern water is free from those poisons & they should never drink water from wells.

3.        they can improve their water & health even more by integrating disinfection steps to improve the cistern water & avoid any potential biological contamination &

4.       have people learn how to self-construct their water harvesting system & maintain it to get maximum benefit from it.

Those are our primary objectives for this project &grant. However we also will be using this opportunity to continue to develop the communities' capacity to work together to analyze their problems & seek solutions (resources). 

We'd like to build on this opportunity so that they can take advantage of other opportunities such as backyard gardens, natural medicine, beekeeping, & other eco-technologies such as gray water filtering & the eco-cina stoves. We'd like the cistern projects to continue to be the first step in the long process of community empowerment.

The education program is ready now to “beta test” in the first communities. We are going to start in Boca de la Cañada (San Miguel) in two weeks & then in Las Claveles (Dolores) after that. 

We will present the didactic materials in the “final draft” format & then make adjustments before going to press & printing enough materials to carry us through the project.

Everyone in the communities are enthusiastic & champing at the bit to get started. They all want to work through the summer rainy season in order to be able to harvest at least a little rain before the dry weather returns in the fall. 

CEDESA is going to work up a draft schedule next week so we can plan out each mini-project. They are talking about doing as many as four different communities per month. Yikes, that is going to be a lot of work for all of us!

As we worked through potential pitfalls & bottlenecks in this ambitious program, we realized that we would need another technician in addition to Benigno & Abel to be able to do the site visits in each community during the construction process. 

A great solution was devised that will also allow us to continue to develop our youth program in the process. We will select a young person in each community where we are working to become an expert in construction & maintenance of the systems. This person will do the project monitoring throughout the construction process & will be report & consult with Abel &/or Benigno as the mini-project proceeds. Instead of having a once a week visit from the technician, we will have someone there overseeing the construction on a daily basis as each group builds cisterns at each home. 

Once the project is complete we will be leaving behind “a community expert” who can continue to monitor cisterns & even assist in repairs as needed. We already have a budget for an albanil for the pilot week. Since each group is now obligated to provide an albanil throughout the mini-project including the pilot cistern week, those funds can be used as a stipend for developing our new community expert. CEDESA will be responsible for handling the payment process.

We also reviewed the financial resources available in the grant so that we could come up with a simplified billing plan. When we combine our organization budget with our education teaching budget, we have 2,400 pesos for Pre-Pilot expenses. For the Pilot stage of the project we have $4,750 in funds available. And for post-project monitoring & evaluation we have 900 pesos available. 

We budgeted for 11 mini-projects as we were developing the project but as the number of cisterns grew the number of mini-projects is likely to be 15 to 18 … thank heavens for our contingency budget!

CEDESA is to be responsible for tracking certain costs/expenses each month & reporting them to Rotary for reimbursement. They need to record all KM driven in CEDESA vehicles in executing the projects to be reimbursed @ 3.5 pesos / KM. They also need to keep all tickets from using public transportation so that can be reimbursed as well up to a total of $9000 for the project. We will also be providing an $800 peso phone allowance per month to be split up between the various promotors & technicians.

Equipment: We need to get the new vehicle as soon as possible. Rotary has $5,000 dollars to contribute to that. CEDESA has 30,000 pesos set aside as well. We are going to purchase one “very good” vehicle that will last many years into the future for project monitoring. We are going to invest about 10,000 pesos of that money in upgrading an existing vehicle. Even with two new vehicles in play, transportation will still be a headache for CEDESA. 

The electrode in the fluoride testing laboratory has failed & we are looking into replacing that. Initial quotations that Meche got are expensive … about US$1,500. We had not counted on needing this within the time frame of this grant. We will probably reduce our “tools” budget to get this back on-line &I will try to see if we can find outside resources to help cover this unexpected expense.

We are working to be able to get the communities on the edges of San Diego de la Union & San Luis de la Paz involved in this grant. To do so, the two “subgroups” will have to work under UCCANG. 

UCCANG is responsible for carrying out several functions … community selection, receiving solicitudes & for providing monitoring and evaluation for six months after the construction phase. Integrating them into UCCANG does not seem to be a problem. The two subgroups are SECOPA (Servicios Comunitarios de Pozos Ademada – San Diego Union) and CUVA (Comunidades Unidas Para La Vida y Agua – San Jose Iturbide).

Recently a well in the San Jose Iturbide area, in the community of La Cantera, was discovered to have radioactivity in the water. There has been a high rate of documented child leukemia in that town as well. Dr. Ortega of UNAM is studying the problem to determine if this is an isolated instance of industrial contamination or if it is going to be as a result of the ever-challenging problems we are facing in the aquifer. There are 120 affected families & the government is, of course, denying that there is a problem.

Submitted by: Lee Carter

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.

ENCUENTRO CULTURAL CHARCO DE ARUAJO

MAY 7, 2016

About 250 campesinos gathered today in Charco de Aruajo to celebrate the culture of the Cuenca de Independencia & talk about the “defense of the territory” & other problems facing the rural inhabitants of our region. 

Over 20 communities were represented from San Miguel, Dolores, San Diego de la Union & San Luis de la Paz. All are members of either UCCANG or COCIRA – grassroots campesino organizations working together to protect their land, their rights & their water.

Fifty-seven members of the San Miguel based COCIRA arrived by bus that was generously supplemented by a special donation of the Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise. 8 promotors & Chela from CEDESA were in attendance. All the rest were members of UCCANG.

We began at 10am with an indigenous ceremony that recognized the four winds & the four elements of life. After that a panel of three persons, Chela (CEDESA), Araceli (UCCANG) & Jesusa from San Miguel  spoke about the importance of protecting the “territory”, using native seeds in the planting of corn, fighting to have agua “limpia” & the other outside influences that are degrading the life in the rural areas. 

Four work tables (discussion groups) were set up to discuss: Water & Health, Defense of the Territory, Saving the native planting & over 60 varieties of corn & saving the flora & fauna of the campo. Each group was instructed to devise specific activities that could be taken immediately to save the cultural roots of the communities.

Several persons offered entertainment in the form of songs, poems & special “felicidades” to the mothers in honor of Mother’s Day. Many wonderful story boards were on display showing the history of UCCANG, CEDESA, the Northern Guanajuato Beekeepers Association

As always a wonderful lunch was served by members of the community.

New Grant Funded for 319 more cisterns

In May of 2016 a new water harvesting grant was funded to construct 319 more rainwater harvesting cisterns in the Independence Aquifer. 

The grant is supported by 25 different groups including 12 Rotary clubs, 10 Rotary Districts, The Rotary Foundation, the San Miguel Community Foundation, The Lotus Foundation and Fondation Coup de Coeur. 

As always, we are working hand in hand with Centro de Desarrollo Agropecuario (CEDESA) and the two grassroots rural community development organizations COCIRA (Consejo Ciudadano Rural de Agua - San Miguel de Allende) and UCCANG (Union de Comunidades Campesinas del Norte de Guanajuato - Dolores Hidalgo, San Diego Union and San Luis de la Paz). 

CEDESA supplies the expertise in organizing and technical matters, the Beneficiaries provide the labor and Rotary supplies the materials and project administration.

We are adding a new education program for the project beneficiaries. The CEDESA promotors will be our teachers. They already know immense amounts of information about water and our problems here in the region. Many completed the dimplomada given by Dr. Marcos Adrian Ortega of UNAM in 2009. 

Our goal is to help them impart this information in a structured way that will create the best learning environment possible. Wendy Coulson, a specialist in curriculum development, is helping us with the program.

And So It Begins...GG1524911 Progress Report – April 10, 2016

We are full forces ahead in getting our new Global Grant for US$199,400 for the next 319 water harvesting systems in the Independence Aquifer. 

The first step in this grant is to develop a comprehensive education program to teach beneficiaries about water & water safety. The program also includes cistern construction & maintenance.

We have contracted with Wendy Coulson, a professional curriculum writer & an experienced teacher in the Waldorf method to help us develop the program but more importantly the teaching methods to use in making this program as effective as possible. Wendy is also a Rotary Peace Scholar.

Alejandro Guerra & Lee Carter have been working with Wendy for several weeks in filling in the blanks for the program. CEDESA has been consulted constantly as they will be the “teacher” &their buy-in & enthusiasm is critical for the success of the program.

On Wednesday, April 6^th, Alejandro, Wendy & I traveled to CEDESA headquarters to present our final “draft”. At this point the didactic method is written down on paper & we wanted to hear from CEDESA & UCCANG about how to proceed. In addition to that, we wanted to discuss the didactic materials that we will develop along with this. Present from CEDESA were Chela Martinez, Director, Meche Paramo, coordinator for COCIRA,  Cecilia Vazquez, Coordinator for UCCANG, & Abel Seratze, Cedesa technician for cistern construction. Araceli Rojas, President of UCCANG also joined us.

It was a long day in project planning as well as presentation of the education program. We arrived at 9:00 am & finished at 5:00 pm. I felt very anxious that CEDESA be truly excited about the education program. Upon leaving we all felt that we were right on track & we had very valuable input from CEDESA throughout the day. Wendy is following up with Meche about various details next week. Once everyone’s input is incorporated in our plan, we will have our next project planning meeting on Friday, April 22 at CEDESA. We will be finalizing the education plan & also planning out the details of the grant including the communities where we will start, billing and administrative issues, & so forth.

This project will be a lot of work but it will be a lot of fun as well. I have seen both Meche & Abel since that meeting &I have been communicating with Ceci also. All three have independently said how excited they are with the new education program. I think we are doing well.

Lee Carter

Rotary San Miguel Midday

Year End Update – December 28, 2015

The last part of 2015 has been busy with many activities. 

Since we last posted we have completed the 19 cisterns in Ex-Hacienda de Pena Blanca and 2 in San Lorenzo. Alejandro and I traveled there many times during the construction phase taking with us the new CEDESA technician; Abel. 

Abel is doing a great job & by going with him we were able to demonstrate many of the details in cistern construction. In the course of this project, we made some good modifications to how we install the hatch. 

Alejandro & I went to the final celebration which was a wonderful event with folkloric dances &, as always, a lot of good food.

As well, we have spent a lot of time in Vivienda in the last 2 months working on 5 cisterns needing repair. This has been a good experience & was needed to get us started on the new Repair & Maintenance booklet that we will produce & hand out to new families in 2016. 

Robert Ash of MAPEI went with us one day & his expertise in cement construction & waterproofing was invaluable. We took Abel with us to learn more about this part of the cistern projects.

We have been doing a lot of cistern inspections to build a database of the cisterns constructed … 751 now! … & to learn more about how cisterns hold up over time. The answer to that question is; very well. 

Did you know that a leaking faucet dripping one drop every second will result in the loss of 50,000 liters of water a year? That is equivalent to more than four full cisterns of precious rainwater! 

Overall, our observation is that families take very good care of their cisterns. They should because they worked very hard to build them.

Since August I have been to 2 COCIRA meetings incl. a “grand encuentro” where we had representatives come down from UCCANG to join us. I have been to 2 UCCANG meetings in Dolores Hidalgo. 

UCCANG are an impressive group of campesinos. This organization was started 35 years ago & our local COCIRA organization was founded using them as there model.

We have had a wonderful year in water harvesting. We have built 108 cisterns in 7 communities. We are nearing the end of our current grant & we have now made an application with the Rotary Foundation for another 314 cisterns! 

There are 10 Rotary Clubs, 8 Rotary Districts & 3 foundations participating in our next grant. Lotus foundation continues to be a major supporter of our work & they have generously donated US$10,000 to the next project. San Miguel Community Foundation has once again stepped up & donated another US$7000 to our next water harvesting project. It is especially rewarding when Rotary Clubs & Rotary Friends continue to come back & involve themselves in multiple projects with us.

Thank you everyone for your support & encouragement. 

Particular thanks to Alejandro & Beatriz, my compadres in the water harvesting team, & thank you Laura Stewart for always being there to help me, advise me, & calm me. It’s not an easy job.

Best wishes for a new year with lots of rain! J

Lee Carter

Rotary San Miguel Midday