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.

Closing Celebration Alonso Yanez and Lindero July 23, 2015

Today Beatriz Sauceda and I traveled to Alonso Yanez and Lindero to attend the final celebration for this 38 cistern project. We also took a young woman named Karen with us who is photo journalist. She also makes short

documentaries and is interested in documenting some of our work here in San Miguel.

We arrived to a very large crowd of over 70 adults and many many children. We had visiting delegations from Boca de la Canada, Presa Allende, Cienega de Juana Ruiz, and Coralejos. When we arrived the food was already spread out in several locations and people were having their "almuerzo" - late breakfast.

Mayra and Carolina were attending the event in the role of CEDESA promoters. Chela unfortunately could not come because she is having problems with her knee. We had a brief program where the community groups introduced themselves and I said a few words about the cistern program and what a pleasure it was to work in a sucha a beautiful community and with people who were willing to work so hard to bring "agua de calidad" (quality water) to their families. 

You may remember that these communities have 4.95 mg/litre of fluoride in their water - a gravely serious situation (WHO maximum recommended level is 1.5mg/l) It was nice to see that they really "get it" about the dangers of the fluoride and there is already an even larger group forming for a future rainwater harvesting project. 

We also discussed the importance of staying involved with COCIRA and CEDESA to take advantage of other programs such as back yard gardening, health clinics and bee keeping. Beatriz spoke elegantly about the power of women in changing their lives, and their family's lives, through their organizing and working in teams. It is the women who take on the cistern building work and they are approx 95% of the participants in our projects.

After an introduction of the visitors from other communities, project participants from both Alonso Yanez and Lindero spoke about the process and work that went into the cistern project. The municipal delegate spoke briefly about the importance of this project and the issue of high fluoride levels in their community. He encouraged everyone to become more conscious of the dangers of the well water, especially for children, and the importance of gestating a next phase of cisterns in their community.

After our meeting, a huge meal was spread out including moles, green and red pozole, huaraches, quesadillas and more. Delicious! Normally we do not know how many children attend our events but today was different. An ice cream truck was passing by and Beatriz flagged it down announcing that she intended to buy an ice cream cone for each child there. There were eighty ice cream cones served!

It is days like these that remind us all of why we love working in rainwater harvesting so much!

Submitted by Lee Carter
Rotary San Miguel Midday

Planning Meeting: Vivienda

February 25, 2014

Attending: Saul (CEDESA), Lee (Rotary) and 11 families from Vivienda

We met today to finalize our Phase II project in Vivienda. Two work teams have been established who will build a pilot cistern at the Secondary School followed by 10 individual family cisterns. Lee will finalize orders with Hierro Comercial for materials and he will deliver the plywood to the project on Saturday morning. Saul will coordinate with Jesus Rico for sand and gravel delivery. 

Veronica R agreed to take overall responsibility for local coordination of the project and Laura Yolanda R will be team leader for Group 1. Maria R  will lead Group 2. An eleventh family was asking for materials to self-build their own cistern but they were not willing to be part of the group work teams. The members voted that to be eligible to receive materials and assistance from Rotary, that working in the teams was an obligation. This is essential to having a successful project and to promote the concept of community development that we hold dear to our hearts.

We reviewed the reason that cisterns are essential (fluoride contamination) and also discussed the important of additional sanitation procedures that should be followed to have the “purest” possible water for their families. We planned out the schedule for this project and made an exhaustive list of tools that would need to be provided during the construction phase. The pilot cistern will be constructed from March 2 to March 6, 2015. 

See photo from the planning meeting: Organizing and Procedure for Construction of Cisterns. What is needed? #1 on the list is food. Then training, group organization, a construction assistant for each group, materials, the will to work!, tools, and predefined rules and responsibilities within each group.

Next week five persons from the Lotus Foundation will be visiting San Miguel to see the water harvesting projects in action. The work groups at Vivienda agreed to work on Tuesday in the afternoon to be able to give our visitors a chance to see a pilot cistern being constructed first hand.

Submitted by: Lee Carter

Global Grant Update La Banda/Montecillo de Nieto: & Alonso Yanez and Presa Allende: January 27, 2015

La Banda/Montecillo de Nieto: The pilot cistern at the elementary school in La Banda is now complete and the communities of La Banda and Montecillo de Nieto are ready to split into three teams and complete 17 more family cisterns. Hierro Comercial is delivering all the materials today and the other components, gravel, sand, plywood, were delivered last week. It will take about six weeks to complete and we hope to have a grand celebration in the first week or March which is also when we will begin a 12 cistern project in Vivienda.

Alonso Yanez and Presa Allende: I continue to go bi-weekly to the communities of Alonso Yanez and Presa Allende to collect water samples from their wells. CATIS and Rotary are doing a simple study to determine how and if fluoride levels rise over the dry season as the wells are drawn down by the extra water being extracted. We have been doing this since the end of the rainy season and plan to continue until the end of the dry season. Talks with the “pozoleros” (persons that take care of community wells in the communities) have told us that the months of April and May are when the extraction is at its greatest. Alonso Yanez is consistently testing at close to 5 mg/liter for fluoride which is the highest we have seen within our municipality (water levels above 1.5mg/litre may have long-term undesirable effects**read more about fluoride here).

We will be building about 46 cisterns in Alonso Yanez and the adjacent community, Lindero, in April 2015.

Submitted by Lee Carter, Rotary San Miguel Midday