2nd Meeting Villa de Guadalupe

Where: Church courtyard
When: Wed 13.4.11 11am - 1.25pm
Who: Saul, Chela, Holly (Cedesa), Laura, Enrique (Rotary), 9 promoters from Sapasma, Community of Villa de G. 43 adults (incl 9 men) + 3 kids.

Purpose: 1st planning meeting for the Water Cistern project, funded as part of the US$35k Sapasma grant. This project (along with the one in Cienega Juana Ruiz) will be considered a training program for Sapasma promoters to learn the Cedesa method & overall operations of the water projects. It will be to provide 27 family cisterns in Villa de Guadalupe + 1 pilot will be funded by the Bellingham Rotary Club direct grant.

Sapasma will be attending all planning meetings as well as training pilot & various individual family work sessions, to learn the process from beginning to end.

Before everyone assembled we had a brief discussion re the history of VdG, it started only in 1983, with people from La Palmita II receiving ejido land here. Because of lack of water it was very difficult & of the 40-50 people who settled originally only 7 families stayed, & others move away (some to SMA, 1 of these came back later).

Chela began – 1st we need to ask permission to take photos & video to record the process. We have explained previously the reason we take photos is for us to be able to explain the need & ideally source more funds for more projects in the communities in need. The community all agreed.

Next the roll was called, at the early part of the meeting 11 off the list of previous attendees were missing. Many arrived late.

Introductions around the circle:
Chela gave a little history of our collaboration, Enrique added that Sapasma were here to learn the process alongside all of us.
Chela explained the roll of all parties, Sapasma will provide funding, Rotary will co-ordinate (& administer funds – as it was discovered 1 wk later), Cedesa will provide training & co-ordination skills, & the community will participate, learn the process, & do the work to construct the cisterns… All this hopefully before the rains come!

Chela described a little about the region/Consejo – how the work has developed & how the communities are now collaborating.

The “region” of 18 communities is divided into micro regions…
Micro region 1 – Cinco Senores, Juan Gonzalez, San Lorenzo, Corralejo de Abajo, Palmita II, Cienega, La Tinaja & Villa de Guadalupe.

Micro region 2 – Capaderillo (40 cisterns) , La Aurora, Guerrero, Vivienda Urbana, Presita de Santa Rosa.

Micro region 3 – Tierra Blanca (42) , Los Torres (52), Cruz del Palmar (27), Vivienda de Arriba (17), Montecillo de Nieto (30),

& Palencia, nth of Dolores Hidalgo (21)

The region have prioritized the communities regarding order to receive cisterns, & Sapasma is responding by providing funding for 2 communities.

Objective To provide safe drinking water for generations to come, ie without fluoride or arsenic , because fluoride causes many problems, not just in the teeth, but all the major organs of the body.

We started these projects in Los Torres, we know they have high levels of fluoride, UNAM have done a study beginning in 1998 which discovered the fluoride contamination issue in this region, & have been working to communicate the drastic effects of fluoride.

The fluoride issue is part of a wider study undertaken on the area to understand the water situation in this region. They now know that the aquifer in this region services not just SMA but 6 other municipalities. The water we are drinking today is 1000’s of years old & is not recharging, but rather the aquifer is reducing at an average rate of 1mtr per year.

A diplomado was held at Cedesa in 2008/09 during which the information about the aquifer & water in general was shared with up to 80 communities with up to 120 attendees every 2nd Saturday for 10 mths. They looked at options for preventing contamination/providing safe water, they did many tests & discovered only really 2 options, 1. To distill the water using solar distillation, 2. To catch the rainwater. Cisterns are the least expensive, least maintenance & most productive option.

For this reason – we are here – now let’s begin planning this project!!

Chela asked who will co-ordinate & take records for this meeting? She explained this is part of the process of every meeting, ie to appoint someone to keep order & someone to record decisions, actions & attendance.

With a different co-ordinator each meeting, more people learn the process.
There were then votes for 2 proposed people, Poli & Martin.

Martin was selected.

Margarita was voted to take notes.

We also pass the list (take the roll) at all meetings, this is to see who has attended most consistently, it was with this information that the micro regions were able to determine the priority communities, so again today, we will take the roll… (for the 2nd time since many turned up late).

There are 23 here so we are missing 4 from the proposed recipients list.

Saul pointed out that it is important for everyone to know what they are getting themselves into with this project, it is not easy & now is the time to make the firm commitment.

Chela explained re the work groups they need to form, that it is important for these to be formed with good feeling & harmony, for them to work effectively & without issue. She asked “what happens if you are not in harmony or good relations?” they answered – we will not work well.

Points for today’s agenda were called for:
• Subterranean cisterns
• Work groups
• Date of pilot
• Place of pilot
• Pozo/Corralejo water sharing discussion

Subterranean Cisterns
Martin asked why we do not make cisterns below ground/subterranean?
There was much discussion about this, & the reasons were explained –
• the ground is very hard therefore difficult to excavate,
• the method of construction would have to be different in each case,
• so not easy to teach,
• the cistern would need a pump or buckets to be lowered to collect the water – the pump is expensive & the buckets introduce bacteria/dirt & require a lot of energy,
• with the above ground model we don’t require engineering expertise in each case,
• kids can fall into below ground cisterns

Work groups
After much discussion the following work groups were established. It was explained ideal to have min 2 abaniles in each group. C = co-ordinator, A = Abanile

Chela asked people to raise their hands if they were abaniles, 4 raised their hands so 1 was appointed to each group. Chela explained that if there are not enough abaniles the group can contribute to pay someone to assist them.

Other forms of assistance are to provide food & drink.
Saul mentioned the abaniles could work on the weekends with the women doing the rest of the work.

Absences were discussed, Chela asked if they are not attending today are they interested or not?
The crowd responded “not”.

One young woman was not able to make it but instead provided a very large container of drink & cups for everyone, she is definitely interested but could not attend, her mother in law was here & reported this. She has attended all previous meetings.

A new person was proposed, she was very active in previous meetings too, this person was proposed & accepted. Martin volunteered to give up his spot on the list since he has only recently moved here & does not have much space, this was good as we had more people wanting cisterns than we had $$ for & it made the numbers balance…There will be some people deferring to stage II (by choice).

Co-ordinators for each group were appointed, with their roles explained, & also a co-ordinator for the whole community Margarita/Adriana Ramirez Gonzalez was chosen since she was willing & had a phone…ph 415 119 4246

There was a call for doubts & questions but there were none.

Date & Place of Pilot
All voted for the kinder – 16 children attend the kinder.
Pilot to start on 2/5 (since JG/SL & 5S pilot is starting on the 25/4)
The established start time was 9am, with finish time depending on how fast they work.
Laura to order materials to arrive for the pilot on 29/4 in time for the pilot. Family materials to be ordered to arrive approx. 9/5/11.

Food is bought to the site, those not working can bring food to those who are…

There was more discussion about the forms of work, how they will work together, the timing of deliveries of materials so all can advance at the same rate, it’s easy for a change of mind to happen, ie when someone is finished theirs to drop out of the group, & we want to avoid that happening…
Working together is difficult & hard work bua as soon as you drink the 1st glass of water when the rains arrive you will see how worth it it all has been!

One young woman asked when the 2nd stage will begin as her house is not constructed yet, she (Eulelia) was appointed the task of keeping the list of the 2nd stage participants.

Discussion re the tools needed: ladders, wheelbarrows, shovels, sieves, grinder to make the hooks etc.

Planning meeting ended at 1.25pm


We adjourned for the usual delicious lunch – freshly made tortillas, red rice, beans, garbanzos, greens.

Pozo/Well discussion
Next was a meeting about the lack of water in VdG, ie the possibility of sharing the Corralejo Pozo, or having their own. This community has been without water forever. They have made several contributions to pozos, but all they have to show for it is piping & a large reservoir that has never had water in it. There has been ongoing (12 yrs) conflict with neighbouring community Corralejo, who did successfully achieve a pozo, & were initially supposed to have shared with VdG, but for errors on both sides this has not happened.

Martin led the discussion on this, he had a lot of official paperwork & was representing an organization (I didn’t catch the name) that works on legal issues…There were only 29 heads of households there so not an official assembly, ie not a majority, it was therefore suggested that the information be collated - including payments made to date, secret well, possibility of legalization of this, the representatives agreed to make a presentation to the Presidencia at the next Consejo meeting.

Next meeting date is date of 1st day of Pilot 2/5/11 at 9am at Kinder