Clean Water for a Well Community - Colonia Segovia

We have completed our first implementation trip and are proud to announce that the five hundred residents of Colonia Segovia now have running water, right in their own backyards. This is due in no small part to the generosity of our donors, and the hard work of Chris Hickey, our local Peace Corps volunteer, Rhonda and TR Sweeney from Hope to Honduras, and most importantly the hard work and personal financial contributions of the residents of Colonia Segovia.

The residents heard news of our arrival, and when we stepped back into the community after a year of absence, we found over a hundred residents outside, hard at work digging the several kilometers of trenches needed for piping. Segovia was a whirlwind of activity, as we had less than one week to dig all of the trenches, lay all of the piping and control valves, construct the eighty household taps, and complete the finishing touches for the pump house and water tower. Luckily we had the help of many community members who quickly picked up all of the construction methods - families dug trenches into their properties, parents helped seal the junctions, children jumped in to help us tape and screw taps together, and men (one of whom only had one leg) scrambled up the water tower to seal the walls and connect the metal pipe drops. Most importantly, the community is now educated and organized to fund and perform any maintenance or repairs that the system will need in the future.

As the sun set on our final day, we performed the final pump and leak tests to excited murmurings of "Agua en la noche" that quickly turned to sheers and smiles as the valves opened, and everyone quickly ran to fill their buckets and pilas. Despite this exciting accomplishment, our work in Segovia is not complete. We have committed to five years of engagement with this community to ensure that the systems are sustainable and to track the impact of these civil improvements. Segovia continues to battle with sanitation issues, which are worsened by substantial annual flooding. We will be returning to the community in the near future to address these issues, and will continue to provide updates on our progress.