Celebration Salitrillo 10 December 2016

Today the Community of Salitrillo celebrated the completion of its cistern project.

Started in September, Salitrillo built eight cisterns with the pilot cistern being built at the home of Señora Cecilia Luna Rosas.  The project team was comprised of seven women and two men.  

Salitrillo is located west of San Miguel de Allende a short distance from the old road to Guanajuato.

The project begun with the project team attending a three-day training program which consisted of learning about the importance of the project and clean water, how to build a cistern and how to properly maintain the system in the future to ensure continued pure water.  The training program was conducted by a team from CEDESA.  The format of the three-day training program is a recent addition to the project.

The community then went on to jointly construct their cisterns.

Today's program consisted of comments on the project by each of the project team members, Lee Carter (project manager for the Rotary Club of San Miguel de Allende Mid-Day Club) & by Chela Martinez (of CEDESA, the founding partner of these ongoing water projects - CEDESA is a non-profit organization which conducts the training and provides technical support for the project).  

Members of the project team each received a Certificate of Completion from CEDESA and Lee.  Following a beautiful song by those in attendance, the ribbon cutting ceremony was conducted by Chela, Lee and Fred Collins, (President-elect, Rotary Club SMA Mid-day).

Following the official ceremony, a great meal of mole chicken and rice.  Cake was enjoyed by all especially the children.

The communities of Alonso Yanez, Presa Allende, Begoña de Progreso and Boca de la Cañada, were represented, many members of COCIRA joined in for the festivities, along with Mayra & Hilda, CEDESA promotors from Coralejos, 7 San Miguel Midday Rotarians, 2 visitors to SMA & a member of the Rotary Club of Somerville Tennessee.

Submitted by John Wallace (Rotary Club of Somerville Tennessee)

Celebration Charco de Araujo October 29, 2016

Today we celebrated the completion of 14 cisterns & 3 tinacos in the community of Charco de Araujo. 

This community is near San Diego de La Union & is the first community we have worked with this far north for several years. The area of eastern Dolores Hidalgo, San Diego de La Union & San Luis de la Paz has some of the most contaminated water in the Aquifer. It is for this reason that Rotary San Miguel Midday took the decision to expand its geographical service area with this grant for 319 water harvesting cisterns.

The rural grassroots organization, UCCANG, is working as a partner with CEDESA & Rotary in these projects. UCCANG was founded approx. 35 years ago to work to resolve the issue of lack of potable water resources in the northern part of Guanajuato. They are well organized & managed by a board of directors from those communities. UCCANG helps us identify communities that are requesting cisterns & play a critical role in the project in addition to choosing beneficiary families. 

They have the responsibility of inspecting & verifying all cisterns are in 100% working condition before we have our community celebrations. They are also going to make a formal review six months later to follow up on maintenance issues & recommendations for cistern water disinfection. This is critical to the long term success of these projects.

Seven UCCANG communities attended today’s event. The program for the day included testimonials from the beneficiary families describing their experience in self-constructing their cisterns in work groups each consisting of 7 families. All of the communities in attendance performed songs or dances that remembered their cultural traditions. A wonderful meal, including carnitas (!), capped off the day.

In attendance were:

Chela, Ceci, Benigno and Meche from CEDESA, UCCANG directors & members of the local communities.  Nate, Fred, Beatriz, Gary, Wendy (who developed the project’s education program), Lee, & two guests from Rotary Midday, Carla Cadena (a Jovenes Adelante Scholar who is doing social service in helping administer the project), Edgarkis Crisostomo, (a Rotary Foundation Water & Sanitation Cadre volunteer from the Dominican Republic - who conducted extensive interviews with CEDESA representatives) came with us also.

After the event we all went to La Colorada, down the road, to see their progress in their project.

Submitted by: Lee Carter

Boca de la Cañada Inauguration 22 Oct 2016

Today we celebrated the completion of 21 cisterns in Boca de Canada. There were visitors from other COCIRA communities who wanted to share in the celebration: Presa Allende, Begona del Progresso, Salitrillo, Vivienda de Abajo, Corralejo, & Alonso Yanez. Mercedes Paramo & Abel Suartze were in attendance from CEDESA. Beatriz Salcedo, David Bossman, Catalina Rivera, Frank, & Lee Carter attended representing Rotary. All told there were about 70 persons in attendance. Following a program that included stories from the new cistern owners about the construction process; a poetry presentation by one of the community members, & a traditional dance performance by 12 of the beneficiaries, diplomas were awarded to all of those who successfully completed the education program.

The pilot cistern was built at the elementary school. The beneficiaries of the project agreed to teach an abbreviated form of the education program to some of the students of the school & they were awarded diplomas as well.


The community built two “models” of cisterns; the first demontrated a completed & connected cistern next to a home & the second demonstrated a cistern under construction. They also prepared a 4 ft x 8 ft picture board showing the people working in each stage of the cistern construction.

       

As always the program concluded with a delicious meal prepared by the community.

Report by Lee Carter

Eight Cisterns in Eight Weeks | Salitrillo Cistern Project

Wrapping Up   - 22nd Sept 2016

The cistern project in Salitrillo is well and truly underway. The Pilot cistern at the home of Señora Cecilia Luna Rosas is finished except for a curing period to set the concrete. 

Meanwhile the second cistern of eight which make up the first phase of the Salitrillo project is just about ready for its “gorro” or roof. At this point, the build team of seven women and two men are on their own except for weekly visits from Señor Abel, the technical advisor from CEDESA.

This year the Rotary San Miguel Midday Club working with the Rotary Action Group for Water and Sanitation (WASRAG) introduced an innovation in the cistern construction process: plastic wrap! 

As with any ferro-cement structure, cement must be allowed to cure slowly to prevent cracking and to attain its maximum structural strength. Normally ferro-cement structures are “watered”, sprayed down with water on a daily basis, for a period of days or weeks to make sure that the cement sets up slowly and remains crack-free. 

Needless to say this involves both careful attention to the watering schedule and the use of water which is then wasted. 

Hence, the use of plastic wrap. By wrapping the entire structure in a double layer of industrial sized plastic wrap (think kitchen plastic wrap on a grand scale), the cisterns wall and roof can undergo a slow curing period with much less care and feeding, and with virtually no wasted water.

Though it may seem modest, it’s important to place Salitrillo’s cistern project in perspective. The eight Salitrillo cisterns are among a total of 819 cisterns constructed since 2008. Each cistern collects 12,000 liters of rainwater when full. If you do the math, CEDESA and COCIRA, Project Beneficiaries and Rotary San Miguel Midday have created an amazing above ground reservoir capable of holding a whopping 9,828,000 liters of potable water storage. 

Think about that for a minute. 10 million liters is approximately 3 million gallons or roughly four Olympic sized swimming pools of water captured each year for the drinking and cooking needs of people living within the area of the Independencia aquifer.

When the current Global Grant is completed in the spring of 2017, a total of 1,092 cisterns will have been built representing an investment of over $10,000,000 pesos ($550,000 USD). Total rainwater collection capacity will top 13 million liters. And the geographic area serviced by the combined Rotary projects will include the communities surrounding San Miguel de Allende, San Diego de la Union, Dolores Hidalgo and San Luis de la Paz.

Guest post by Roger Brudno.

Ready for a Top Hat: Salitrillo Cistern Project

Day Three - 16th September 2016

It’s been two days since my last visit and I can’t believe the progress the build team has made. Not only has the concrete base of the cistern been set, but the walls of the cistern are up, and the metal work for the “gorro” or cap is laid out on the ground.

At this stage, you can see just how massive the finished cistern will be. Four workers are busy inside the cylinder applying the next-to-last coat of concrete. 

Cement is applied first in one direction (horizontal), then after a short period for layer-one cement to set up, a second layer is overlaid in the opposite direction (vertical). 

The bidirectional application makes for tough and water-tight walls. I am amazed to learn that, when full, the walls flex. Okay, the walls don’t actually bulge, but the ferro-cement expands dynamically under the weight of the water.

The “masa” or concrete mud for the gorro is mixed at a ratio of four parts cement to one-part sand, and significantly stiffer than the walls because the wet mix is applied directly to the metal mesh without the aid of plywood backing.

The gorro is equipped with an access door to permit maintenance on the interior of the cistern. 

And the exterior of the cistern is fitted with a clever, but commonsense water level gauge. A clear plastic hose will be connected between the water spigot at the bottom of the cistern and a narrow diameter pipe protruding from the top of the cistern. As the interior water level is drawn down, there is a corresponding drop in the water level in the transparent hose.

Recommended cistern maintenance consists of two primary elements: 1) yearly brushing of interior walls, and 2) if the catchment roof surface is of any material other than concrete or tin, then it must be repainted annually. 

Next stop, the final finish work.

Guest post by Roger Brudno.

Launched! Salitrillo Cistern Project

Day One - 13th September 2016

When Lee Carter and I arrive, the Salitrillo cistern build team had already laid out a base layer of chicken wire. As a first-time visitor to a cistern pilot, I’m excited to learn the basics of ferro-cement cistern construction.

Once completed, the cistern will hold 12,000 liters, harvesting enough water during one rainy season to serve all of the potable water needs, both drinking and cooking, for a family of 6-8 for a year.

It turns out that the metal structural elements of the cistern walls form a kind of layer cake—a layer of chicken wire folded over a layer of heavy-gauge iron mesh, then covered with a second layer of chicken wire all woven neatly together. Or rather, a layer cake that rolls up into a cylinder to create the walls of the cistern which are then set on a concrete base and lined with a temporary barrier of bendy plywood designed to support the application of an exterior coat of concrete until it dries.

Members of the community are hard at work weaving the chicken wire together under the watchful eye of Señor Abel, a technical expert from CEDESA in charge of teaching community members the basics of cistern construction. 

What stands out for me right away is the ratio of women to men in the work group: most of the team consists of women. And it’s obvious, that the team is already a well-oiled machine. Tasks are carried out with little discussion and a light-hearted atmosphere prevails.

This Salitrillo Pilot is cistern number 48 out of 319 cisterns funded by the Rotary Club’s recent Global Grant (GG1524911) and implemented in collaboration with CEDESA and COCIRA. 

It’s the first cistern for this little community of just 52 families. A total of eight cisterns are planned for Salitrillo. Once the core group is trained, they will cooperate to assist their neighbors with subsequent cisterns. Señor Abel from CEDESA will then make weekly visits to monitor progress and ensure quality-control.

Guest post by Roger Brudno.

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

Second Train the Trainer workshop @ Cedesa

May 4:

We had our second Train the Trainer workshop today beginning at 10 am at CEDESA. 

In attendance : were visiting Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Simi Sunrise,  Nick Frankle, DGE of 5240,  Alejandro Guerra and Lee Carter of San Miguel Midday & 14 CEDESA promotors.

Our intent was to test some of the teaching aids we are planning. The meeting started out slow with each person tossing in a few comments as we studied the Water Cycle. Not before long, however, all were on their feet, eagerly participating and adding ideas of how to teach the information. 

It was a big success and very rewarding to see the enthusiasm of the promotors. 

CEDESA provided a delicious lunch and we concluded at 2:45 pm.

We plan to be teaching in the communities of Boca de la Cañada and Charco de Araujo in the middle of May. 

Meche Teaching the Water Cycle

How and Who is Draining our Aquifer? 

Visiting Rotarians from D5240 with 14 CEDESA Promotors

Ceci - how is water contaminated?
What are the different types of contamination?

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

Global Grant Project Update August 2015

We have been very busy since our last post in July. 

In early August, there was a meeting of COCIRA in the community of Boca de Canada. It is a stunningly beautiful place in San Miguel. 

COCIRA has really become a strong organization and there is now a council of Directors who are anxious to move the group forward in many areas in addition to water harvesting. There are 12 Directors, a representative from 12 different communities. They are taking on the task of inspecting and evaluating all of the cisterns that have been constructed since 2009 when Laura Stewart began this long and enjoyable journey.

Boca de Canada is a new community with water problems. They have been attending COCIRA and other community meetings for several months now. New communities coming for the first time were Tlaxcalilla (no water whatsoever), Saltrillo (contaminated water and wanting dry toilets) and Begona de Progreso (contaminated water). Now they have the information necessary to go back to their communities and discuss the possibility of joining COCIRA and seeking various resources that come from being part of COCIRA and having a relationship with CEDESA. In addition to Rotary funded water projects, backyard vegetable gardens, health clinics using medicinal plants, apicultura (beekeeping) and dry toilets are among the many things that can be accomplished on a community level when the inhabitants come to gather to work in teams for the betterment of all.

Mago attended this meeting as the CEDESA representative as Chela has been sidelined with a knee problem. Mayra, Carolina and Hilaria came as promoters in sub-regions that have been set up to better serve the San Miguel municipality. Lee attended as Rotary’s representative.

Dates were established during the meeting to do “inspection and evaluation” of the Presa Allende project and to finish up the final inspections at Alonso Yanez and Lindero. The closing ceremony for Presa Allende was set for 22^nd of August.

In August Mago traveled to Ex-Hacienda de Pena Blanca to finalize the organization and teams for this second phase project. There are 19 families participating and we are also supplying two 1,100 liter tinacos to capture rainwater at the houses of two much older persons who are not able to do the work necessary to construct the 12,000 ferro-cement cisterns. Benigno, the master cistern builder from CEDESA, will be the technical representative on this project and Abel is being trained to become the cistern technician for the San Miguel area.

Hierro Comercial delivered the materials for the pilot cistern in Ex-Hacienda de Pena Blanca for  two cisterns in San Lorenzo on August 22^nd and construction began on August 24^th. Lee delivered the plywood and took the "nipples" back to Eric’s so the heavy wire reinforcing could be welded onto the galvanized parts that penetrate the cistern walls. Alejandro arranged with the department of social development of the municipality to make water truck deliveries each week of the project as there is no water in XHPB to even mix the cement.

As planned above, on August 22nd we had our closing celebration in Presa Allende with more than 80 persons in attendance. Ivar, Alejandro and Lee went from Rotary. Chela’s knee is improving and she attended with Meche and another CEDESA visitor. 

On Aug 25^th Alejandro and Lee went back to San Lorenzo and XHPB to deliver the reinforced "nipples" for the pilot cistern. This was a great opportunity to talk at length with Benigno about the construction process and the techniques and decisions the technical rep. needs to make in regards to how and where cisterns are located.

On Aug 27, Holly and Lee went to CEDESA HQ in Dolores Hidalgo to review with Chela the new education program that will be added to our next grant. Welcome back Holly! The eight modules were reviewed and we had time to talk about how this can be implemented by having promoter and then later COCIRA and UCCANG workshops to build enthusiasm for the program. Holly will be working hard with Rotary to develop the modules and copious auxiliary materials to distribute in the communities where we will be working.

On Aug 28th all of the new Presa Allende cisterns were inspected by a team of COCIRA representatives, Alejandro, Beatriz and Lee of Rotary and Meche of Cedesa . The new inspection program appears to be a very valuable activity as it gives us an opportunity to meet individually with every new cistern owner to reinforce the importance of maintenance activities and disinfection of the collected water. We are finding new ways to improve the projects overall and where to avoid problems.

  

On Aug 31, Alejandro, Beatriz and Lee went to see the progress in San Lorenzo where we were served a delicious breakfast of atole and gorditas. Abel from CEDESA went along with us and I was impressed that he is very thoughtful and dedicated to the success of the two current cistern projects. From San Lorenzo we went on to XHPB to check on the completed pilot cistern and to see where the next cisterns would be located. Because this community has so few construction workers (too far from San Miguel) we also needed to purchase some basic tools to lend to the project.

On Sept 1, Lee traveled back to XHPB to deliver the remainder of the tools needed and also the reinforced "nipples" needed for that week’s construction. This is the first project that we have undertaken since Saul left CEDESA (to develop his personal business). It has really been a little difficult because Saul used to take care of so many little details (taking and returning "nipples", for instance). He also had the "luxury" of having a CEDESA truck to be able to accomplish the many errands. CEDESA does not have a truck that can be used by Abel at this time. It has fallen on Rotary’s shoulders to do all of this detail work. Whereas I am happy to have a chance to work on and learn about every little detail, it is not practical that we do this for all future projects. Lee has been discussing with Chela (CEDESA) and our project partners for the next project of obtaining some additional grant money so that a truck can be available to the CEDESA workers in the San Miguel region. Saul used to be the promoter, coordinator, technician and all-around boy Friday for these projects. Moving forth and having different persons filling the different roles is requiring that we establish clear communication systems and cooperation to be able to operate efficiently. This mini-project is proceeding reasonably well - we are on a steep learning curve.

It was a busy month and I have not even reported it all!

Submitted by Lee Carter, Rotary San Miguel Midday, September 7, 2015.

Planning Next Grant and a visit to Ojo de Zarco

July 1, 2015

Today I met with Chela Martinez, Director of CEDESA and Cece, coordinator of CEDESA promotors. We discussed in depth future plans for water harvesting within the Independence Aquifer.

Particularly we were able to lay out plans for who will be the promotor for various micro-regions of COCIRA and UNCANG. We will be submitting a new Rotary Foundation Global Grant request in August that includes a robust education program, “water days” in the communities, and the construction of the next 250 to 300 cisterns. I am pleased how the additional education program can be integrated into our community development and organization process.

COCIRA, the regional water council of communities in the San Miguel area, and UNCANG, the regional water council in the northern part of the aquifer, will be taking on the responsibility of evaluating and inspecting all cisterns between the end of the construction period and the final celebration. They will administer a survey that will give us specific information to be used to improve future projects and to achieve that critical last 5% in assuring that we finish each mini-project with 100% of the water harvesting systems fully functional. 

We also discussed leaving a small inventory of cistern parts and repair materials in communities that stay involved with COCIRA and UNCANG so that small problems can be immediately attended to before they develop into bigger problems.

The COCIRA/UNCANG groups will also returning to visit each of the 725 cisterns we have constructed since 2009. This is an intermediate term program that will take 12 to 18 months to complete. We want to assure continual monitoring and maintenance as to have the maximum number of functional water harvesting systems possible.

I look forward to receiving the surveys so that we can guide beneficiaries to do the best maintenance possible and maximize the quality of their drinking and cooking water. This work will lead to even better success in our new projects.

After lunch, Chela and I went to our third community organizational meeting in Ojo de Zarco and Purisima de Ojo de Zarco. Eighty-five percent (85%) of the community turned out for this meeting.

There were 54 families stating their interest in joining together for a project. We explained the process of what they must do to become eligible for the Rotary/CEDESA resources. They learned of the water harvesting program from some families in Los Torres where there have been four phases of cistern projects resulting in almost 100 cisterns in that community. It was agreed that the next step would be all potential families willing to do the work to earn cistern resources would meet in Los Torres on July 22 to see the cisterns at work and talk with past participants about the work necessary to have a successful project. It is a great pleasure to travel to these communities with Chela who now has 43 years of experience in community development work.

Submitted by Lee Carter, Rotary San Miguel Miday

Closing Ceremony Vivienda de Abajo

Yesterday we celebrated the completion of 10 cisterns in Vivienda de Abajo. Nine cisterns were in family homes and one was at the secondary school. This is the last cistern that we plan to build in a public space until we have a program in place to ensure maintenance and proper use. The development process for building a “public” cistern that must be maintained by a group or committee is very different than the process of building privately owned cisterns.

Attending were 15 families from Vivienda that are still participating in COCIRA. These persons are involved in other CEDESA promoted projects such as backyard gardening, health clinics & home health training, and bee keeping. Overall there were about 40 persons in attendance and a wonderful lunch (especially wonderful green mole) was served. 

New members to COCIRA seeking Rotary resources were in attendance from Nombre de Dios, San Lorenzo, Boca de Canada and Ex-Hacienda de Pena Blanca.

Chela, Mayra, Saul and Mago were representing CEDESA. Lee Carter was there from Rotary San Miguel Midday. As this was Saul’s last official day as a CEDESA promotor, he cut the inaugural ribbon.

It is interesting to see how some projects go better than others, but I still am not sure how to predict a project’s outcome. This project is one of the best we have had during this grant. All of the cisterns are well constructed, connected and in good service. On the other hand, we still need to go back and do remedial work on about one-half of the cisterns in Banda. I will be talking with CEDESA about sending a technical representative to Banda in the next several weeks to finish up that project so that we finish there with 100% of the collection systems functional and collecting the summer rains. We have determined that having a good and responsible albanil (experienced construction worker) as a part of the work group is very important.

Submitted by Lee Carter, Rotary San Miguel Midday