|
Community Needs:
The community of La Majada has 275 houses, of which 150 do not have water piping. Total population is 1,375. The rest of the houses have piping, but no water supply due to issues with water source. The residents of the village of La Majada currently live in unsanitary conditions, spending time and money on the hauling of water. This project will bring clean water to the residents of La Majada.
Specific needs to be addressed are:
- In Latin America, nearly half the population living in rural areas is without access to improved sanitation services and approximately 20 percent is still without drinking water.
- Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every ten hours. (World Health Organization - 2012)
- Carrying heavy water containers long distances to their homes is usually the job of the family's women. They spend on average 3 hours every day at this task.
- The residents of La Majada need better access to a better source of water.
Grant Objectives:
- Construction water distribution system to 150 houses in La Majada
- Construction of water catchment tank
- Water source will be a well, which was dug in 2005, which supplied water from water table aquifer; the capacity was shown to have average flow of 67.33 gallons per minute. The well was never put into use due to political and finance issues with government at the time.
- Training in ongoing project maintenance and governess, sanitation and conservation of the environment
Background:
The inhabitants of the village La Majada, for some years have been affected by a shortage of water, since the level of its water sources has diminished greatly, and waters of the Shutaque River have been contaminated to high degree.
Geographical aspects:
The general topography of the community is broken with small valleys. The center of the community, where the schools are located (pre-school and primary) church, health center and sports center, is located at latitude 14° 42' 54"; and longitude 89° 30' 35". (Google Map: 14.715, -89.509722)
Community Participation:
The Municipality of San Jacinto will contribute the labor, both for tank construction and project management.
Community members will contribute labor to the project. In past projects, the community members have had dug all the trenches for the distribution piping to the houses.
Host
Rotarios Chiquimula de la Sierra are an outstanding host club, helping complete numerous projects in the past year. This project was developed by them, at the request of the local community. Having local ownership and support is key to project success.
Sustainability:
A Community Development Council (COCODE) already exists in the community and it is involved in the project and will continue involvement into the future. As soon as the project is concluded, it will be maintained by the Municipality of San Jacinto with the partnership of the members of the water committee of the community.
Project Partners
- Community Development Council (COCODE)
- Municipality of San Jacinto
- Community members of La Majada
- Rotarios Chiquimula de la Sierra
- Water for the Americas
We visited this project site in Guatemala and met with municipality (Mayor and his project manager) A hydro-geologist, Keith Thompson, from Greeley visited also and reviewed the project plans with the municipality.
update 6/21/17 - Well testing is now completed, and well has adequate flow rates for village.
| 
;)
;)
;){kind=small}
