Safe Drinking Water for 40 schools in Bolivia

Dear supporters,

As we have been reporting, the project to provide 40 schools in Tiquipaya (Bolivia) with safe drinking water and improved hygiene conditions is advancing well. Apart from the dozens of trainings and support workshops to teachers and school kids, we also are receiving support from local autorities - most importantly, the Municipal Government and the Ministry of Education at district level. The support of the these institutions makes sure that the project will be continued, even after formal activities in the field will finish by the end of 2013.

One lesson learnt during the first phase of the project was to consider the importance of locally available materials. For example, water can be made safe for drinking by using common plastic bottles. This method, called SODIS (for Solar Water Disinfection) is very effective and we reported on this in previous reports. After several months of intensive use, these bottles are too scratched to be fully effective - but they still can be put to good use: as a water container in our hand washing stations (see picture).

Another example of locally available products is soap. Soap, even though available in most communities in Bolivia, is hardly ever present at schools because this type of small cash expenses is not considered in the municipal budget and schools do not have funds available for this. Therefore, our idea was to train a group of teachers and kids on how to produce soap with locally available materials. The idea was well received, and two schools arleady started making their own soap. The excess production is sold to surrounding families and the income generated by these sales can be used to keep buying the ingredients needed for soap production. In this way, soap will be available at all times in the future, independently from external support. This is the level we want to achieve with all our interventions, and we hope to continue progressing in this direction. For at some point in the future, all schools in Bolivia (and elsewhere) will have the basic services available which are needed for learning and growing in a healthy environment.

If you want to keep supporting this project, please consider making a donation. And please let us know what you think about this project and our way of reporting on it.

Thank you and best regards from the project team,

Matthias Saladin