13th Exploratory Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project

Record of Meeting pg 1 of 1

13th Exploratory Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Committee

Where: Los Torres – Health Fair (organised by Judy & Bill in conjunction with Health Dept)

When: Saturday 15th November 8am – 4pm

Who: Bob & Sue Leonard, Laura (Rotary), Judy & Bill (Patronato Pro Ninos) The patronato board, volunteers & staff & Health Department staff, Casa Volunteers & the whole community of Los Torres (& I suspect neighbouring communities)

Project Purpose - SMA Rotary has tasked Bob & Laura with defining the “needs” & determining the best proposal, for a major water Project involving the writing of a competitive grant for approx. US$100K.

Rationale: As part of the process of defining the “need” we will meet with as many people as possible that are directly involved in the provision of, or are aware of the need for the provision of, safe drinking water solutions to marginal communities.

Visit Purpose:

To volunteer at the Health Fair, get to know the community better, see how this day was organised & what it achieved.

Summary of Visit

We met at the Fabrica Aurora carpark & carpooled. I met Mary Caruso (medical director for Patronato Pro Nino) & Maria Aguilar & Juan Camacho – 2 Casa volunteers.

The day was a focus on health, there were various components, first priority was for the kids of the community to have fun.

Medical staff saw each of the 150 children, recorded names & health statistics.

There were 3 different “talks” for the mothers to attend, on preventing accidents in the home, diet & nutrition, hygiene/handwashing, health in pregnancy, & dental health.

The women received diploma’s for attending the talks.

The children received a free colgate toothbrush for visiting the doctor

We collated & the issued goody bags for the mothers, included were – liquid soap, toothpaste, toothbrush, thermometer, brochures on the topics.

We served beans, rice, chicken, tortillas, fruit, juice & water to approx 500 men, women & children from the community (& neighbours).

Important points

The focus was on having fun
There were 2 clowns that provided a fantastic service 1. keeping the kids entertained whilst their mums were in the “talks” but most importantly 2. to organise the children to see the doctors.
150 children were happily led to see the doctor with minimum waiting time. They were given stickers with number on them, the clowns then called for the children in groups, ie all the kids with number 1 stickers, came up to “play” with the clowns then were taken in 2’s to visit the doctor. They were rewarded with a toothbrush – which seemed like a great novelty!
There were 3 bouncy castles & soccer games going on as well.
At the end of the day there were a lot of smiling faces, they had received a goody bag, their diploma’s, information, health checks & a huge nutritious meal. They even had leftovers to take home!
Everyone agreed it was a very successful day (except Judy fell & broke her wrist very badly & had to leave before the end)!

12th Exploratory Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Committee

Record of Meeting pg 1 of 2

12th Exploratory Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Committee

Where: CEDESA Dolores (approx 1 hr from SMA)

When: Friday 7th November 8am – 4pm

Who: Laura (Rotary), Judy & Bill (Patronato Pro Ninos) Maria Jesus, Maria de la Concepcion, Maria Leova (& son), Cecilia (& son), Hilaria, (Community leaders Los Torres), Chela & Tere Martinez, Holly Yasui, Benigno & partner, & 1 other woman (from CEDESA).

Project Purpose - SMA Rotary has tasked Bob & Laura with defining the “needs” & determining the best proposal, for a major water Project involving the writing of a competitive grant for approx. US$100K.

Rationale: As part of the process of defining the “need” we will meet with as many people as possible that are directly involved in the provision of, or are aware of the need for the provision of, safe drinking water solutions to marginal communities.

Visit Purpose:

For the women of Los Torres to be introduced to the people of CEDESA, what they do & what they can offer. Ultimately for the people of Los Torres to decide if they need assistance to “mobilise” the community & run the water project.

Summary of Visit

The Fishers & I each drove out to Los Torres (Holly waited at the highway for us), & collected the women & children, to drive them to CEDESA in Dolores (a nearby town).

We arrived at CEDESA & met with the CEDESA team, introductions all round. We sat in a semi circle & watched another DVD, this one on the topic of water & conservation.
The discussion was then about what CEDESA does & has done by way of assisting communities to take their own issues & solutions in their own hands. Chela impressed upon the women that they have the skills & ability to be responsible for their own wellbeing & that they need not be reliant on govt. & outside organisations but better work with them towards solving issues & improving the prospects of the community.
There was a lot of discussion (all in Spanish – with Holly translating for me if I missed something). The focus was water & what the women believed the issues were: Scarcity, contamination of fluoride (see important points below), Sapasma & proposed well, river that dries part way through the dry season, cost to buy water, sporadic delivery by municipal trucks.
We had a bite to eat & a cup of tea.

Chela then organised discussion on solutions, she said that each person/family needs to be responsible for their own health, access to water etc. That they need to discuss problems & solutions & work together to solve it, & that the answers were in their hands.

The problem of water can help organise the community!



Record of Meeting pg 2 of 2

12th Exploratory Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Committee

The women said they knew the issues but were unsure how to solve them & asked for help with this.
They decided an assembly was necessary & agreed that on 22nd November CEDESA would travel to Los Torres & help facilitate an assembly with the major discussion being on water issues & solutions.

We were given a tour of CEDESA viewing all of the sustainable technologies they have implemented & provide training on - dry toilets, grey water recycling, backyard gardens, water collection tanks, with discussion about the beehives & fields for crop production.

The women of Los Torres indicated they would be very interested in learning more about natural health methods, & backyard gardens (with the aim to improve the family economy) & also beekeeping.

We then drove them home to Los Torres.
Important points

In previous visits to Los Torres, we (Rotary) had been reluctant to raise the topic of fluoride contamination. The people in the community – although most were showing an obvious symptom of fluorosis – bad teeth – did not have an awareness of the issue. We were unsure how to “break the news”, considering we had no cure or solution to offer.

In the last 2 wks a dental health van- provided by Patronato Pro Ninos, in conjunction with the dept of health - has visited Los Torres & treated the children. During this time the subject of fluoride contamination has been raised & the community now has an awareness of this issue.

They are currently at a loss as to how to solve this, especially since the only source of water they can rely on, comes from contaminated wells.

Action

The Los Torres women will organise an assembly to be held at the school in Los Torres on 22nd Nov at 12midday. They will first publicise it at the forthcoming Health Fair (PPN & Health dept), on the 15th Nov & then will go door to door to explain the purpose & illicit support.
It was suggested they write the pertinent points on a piece of paper & use that as a reference when they talk to each household, in order to cover all points.

Thank you

11th exploratory meeting for water project

This report is in the form of an email from Judy Fisher who made the initial introduction to the Los Torres community for us, for which we are very grateful - who knew then, how it would develop!!

Hi Holly,

As I mentioned on our conversation by cell phone, the visit with Los Torres went very well today. The attendees at the meeting were the Delegado and 3 of the Group Leaders. We introduced the discussion with the topic of water because that is the theme that has been prevalent in our last meetings. They discussed what they perceive as their water issues and brought up the following:
1) No water well in the upper village; need to walk 2 hours 3 times a week for water
2) Wells in lower village sometime are dry in very dry season; and, these wells they understand are causing the dark teeth that the women have. The Patronato Dental Van has been at the village for the last week and the Dentist has been informing them of the problems of fluoride for the teeth.
3) 2 Tinacos from Patronato and large "botes" for the families in the upper community, but insufficient water trucks from the city to keep them filled
4) Contamination of private "botes"
5) Can't keep the level of cleanliness they wish to have in the home because of scarce water.

Next, we read to them the invitation from CEDESA and asked their opinion about going to a meeting to discuss water issues with other community leaders who have or have had water issues. They were in agreement that it would be beneficial to understand more since they are in the process of discussions with SAPASMA (drilling a well) and the Rotary Club (installing water catchments systems.)

Then, we showed them the DVD. At the conclusion, the Delegado said she was very interested in meeting with CEDSESA as she felt she could get help on other issues, not the least of which is cooperation from the Community for a variety of projects. We left the DVD and the Booklet for them to review again before next Friday and asked them to go over both to be prepared for the meeting.

I am attaching 2 files, one the census of Los Torres by family and the second a list of the contacts that I have for Los Torres--people in the community and contacts who are involved with helping the community.

For the meeting on Friday, November 4, we can expect 6 from Los Torres (the Delegado, the 4 Group Leaders and one 4 year old boy), from the Rotary 1 (Laura Stewart) and from PPN 2 (Bill and Judy Fisher). The community leaders did request that the meeting be limited to 10 am to 2 pm as it will take another hour to return to the community.

Laura and I discussed that she would send to you her outline of all of the facts on water in the Community so that CEDESA would have a though understanding before the meeting on Friday, Nov 7.

Should there be any further changes as to attendees, Laura and I will communicate to you very early next week.

Saludos,
Judy Fisher