Physical Health Mexico Project #9428

Fight childhood disease with safe drinking water

by Agua Pura Para El Pueblo

Project Report | May 1, 2016
Pablo - a young Mexican boy I know.

By Tom Carter | Executive Director

Pablo

Hola Friends and Supporters!
Can I tell you a story about Pablo, a young Mexican boy I know? Pablo lives with his family at a garbage dump outside of Mexico City where they work as scavengers recycling plastic and cardboard. Their home is a shack made of sticks and plastic tarps they took from the dump.
I met Pablo 9 years ago when Agua Pura helped Pablo’s family build a composting latrine for them to use, the first private toilet they ever had. We also built a latrine for the small volunteer school near their community. Over the years we have revisited many times to work with other projects and to help maintain the schools latrine. Each time we came we saw Pablo and his community grow, and saw the school become larger and serve more students. Finally, after 9 years of use the latrine at the school was outgrown and broken down and needed to be replaced. The students had no bathroom and some were reluctant to come to school.
With your support and encouragement, Agua Pura raised the money to build a new, bigger and better latrine for Pablo’s school so that he and his fellow students could have a clean, safe bathroom to use. It has separate rooms for boys and girls and running water to wash hands and it’s big enough for the whole community to use when they have events.
I’ve just returned from helping build the new latrine, it was a wonderful community effort. Pablo’s family and many others worked hard to get the project completed in time for a big community event, a mini-olympics for children throughout the area. It was hot, heavy, dirty work, but I was so proud to see the families all together building something for their future. I’m including a bunch of pictures showing the construction. The first picture is of Pablo 2 years old in front of the schools old latrine and now age 11 helping to build new one. Agua Pura will continue to support Pablo and his family and all the families in his community to have clean drinking water and sanitation, “one family at a time - una familia a la vez”.
Your support is what makes our projects a success. Can you consider making an extra contribution to help us continue our work, perhaps even as a recurring donor? Because we are so small every donation has a big impact on our plans.

Thank you so much for your help,

Tom Carter

p.s. Here's a link to our exciting next project on GlobalGiving, it's really going to have a big impact throughout Latin America: WAPI's in Honduras

Families helping build the new school latrine

Pouring the floors of the latrines

Our latrine done in time for the Mini-Olympics

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Mar 2, 2016
Recycling and Composting in Haiti

By Tom Carter | Executive Director

Our Success

Dear Friends-

Today I want to share a success story from a young student that you support through your donations to Agua Pura. Hovard is a young man in Cap-Haitien, Haiti who was able to come to the US to study environmental technologies at a local Community College. While here we helped him learn about water and sanitation issues and other things he could do to help his community and his country.
There is no garbage collection in Haiti, resulting in water contamination and a breeding ground for disease. Howard has started a garbage recycling and composting program with his neighbors. He has enlisted his friends to start collecting food waste to be composted into garden soil, and his plan is to sell this nutrient rich soil to farmers and others to improve and enrich soils and increase crops. This is the small scale, local programs that we believe are the most important and successful and we are helping Hovard with his project.
Here’s Hovard’s story:

Growing up in a third world country, there are many challenges. I was blessed with the opportunity to study in America, where I was part of an environmental study program and I decided to create and implement a plan for composting back home, in Haiti.
Haiti lacks the infrastructure that many first world countries take for granted.Haiti has a massive problem with trash. It is everywhere and on hot days -- which there are many;
the smell is dense in the air. However, Haiti also has gorgeous beaches, beautiful waterfalls, lovely mountains, it is a wonderful place to visit, but the abundant rubbish issue can deter travelers from visiting my country. I believe that once the garbage issue is managed, people will be more willing to travel to Haiti.
My composting initiative, to start, will educate the people in my community. Waste reduction is one of the benefits, however the end result of composting is creating mineral rich soil. This soil can be used for families to grow nutrient rich food. It will also reduce the waste that lines the streets in Haiti and there will be a less trash that is burned, polluting the air.
Currently the trash on the streets is burned. The burning of waste, while efficient, greatly contributes to air pollution. It also is bad for people's health, the smoke can cause lung cancer, asthma, burning eyes, ozone reduction. Because of the worldwide issues with air pollution and the ozone layer reduction, I feel that my composting project, while only in my small country, will contribute to lessening of pollution worldwide.
If my project is successful in Haiti, I plan to expand to other third world countries. It is a small start but there is much potential for expansion. As the project grows and more people are composting, the overall air pollution and waste issues will decrease.

Agua Pura is proud of Hovard and our other students and we continue to support them and their projects. If you wish to help him with his composting project you can donate to our Agua Pura program and indicate that your donation is for him.

Burning garbage

Collecting Food Waste

Making Compost

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Dec 4, 2015
Report From Honduras

By Thomas Carter | Executive Director

A new family latrine

Dear Supporters- One of the most satisfying things for me about Agua Pura is to interact with young people throughout Latin America, and help them as they work to improve the lives of families in their communities. I want to share with you a story from Honduras written by one of the students we are supporting. As you read Raquel’s story, please consider supporting her and other young men and women like her this holiday season. A donation to Agua Pura Para El Pueblo in Raquel’s honor will go to funding programs like hers throughout Latin America. The enthusiasm of our students to tackle challenges is truly inspiring, and I’ll share more of their stories with you in the future.

Remember, we at Agua Pura are all volunteers and 100% of your donation goes to the programs we support. Also, can you consider becoming a recurring monthly donor? Every dollar goes a long way and even a small monthly contribution makes a big difference in our work. Thanks so Much!

Here’s Raquel’s story:

My name is Raquel G. I come from the community of La Teja, a small, rural community located in the Southeast part of Honduras, near the border with El Salvador. Approximately 100 people, or 20 families, live in the community. La Teja does not have running water, and until now did not have any sanitation services. In August 2012, I won a scholarship to study Environmental Technology at Mt. Hood Community College, Gresham, Oregon, in the USA for two years. One of the
requirements of the program was to develop a project that could be applied to my community, and I chose the idea of building composting toilets to alleviate the problems of water pollution caused by the lack of sanitation. During my two years of study, I attended the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGIU) conference in 2014, where I won a grant
funded by The Resolution Project.

Thanks to the grant and the hard work of the programs that have supported me including Agua Pura Para El Pueblo, I have been able to successfully implement my project in my community.
The project’s goal was to build 16 latrines for individual family use so that each home would be equipped with a composting toilet. The community members contributed local materials such as: sand, wood, ash, etc. and the rest of materials were purchased with funds from The Resolution Project grant.

A composting toilet was also built at the school as a prototype to show the community members. Through our project, 13 latrines were constructed at individual family homes, and two additional latrines were constructed for the
community’s use at the local school and church. People in La Teja have been very supportive of the project and are Thrilled to have a sanitation system in their community. Currently I am working with Agua Pura Para El Pueblo to provide Water Purification Indicators for my community so that they can have safe drinking water.
I am also expanding my project in another community called La Flor, Santa Ana, la Paz, Honduras; and La Teja is the perfect example to follow.
Sincerely,
Raquel G.

Thank you again for your generous support in the past! We appreciate every donation and hope that you will continue to support us going forward. You can read the stories of some of our other students on our website Agua Pura Para El Pueblo. Also, please contact me directly if you have more questions, tom@aguapuraparaelpueblo.org and finally,my offer still stands: if you would like a Water Pasteurization Indicator for your own use please let me know. They’re great for camping and emergencies!

Thank you!

Tom Carter

everyone participated

a lot of work

latrine parts

Links:

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