Full Water & Sanitation Coverage in Rural Honduras

Water For People-Honduras continues to facilitate water programming to progress toward full coverage in the municipalities of San Antonio de Cortés and El Negrito. A highlight of this programming is the recently completed 17 Communities Water System in San Antonio, which is designed to bring drinking water to more than 4,000 people in 17 communities. Hondurans residing within these communities have begun to pay for their water service. Water users pay their local community water committee, who then pay into a central water committee that represents the entire system. These funds will be utilized to maintain the principal conduction line and secondary pipeline branches.

Another important part of the sustainability of the 17 Communities Water System is the protection of the micro-watershed that provides water to these communities. To support the protection of this area, community members have included a percentage in their tariff designated to developing activities to protect the micro-watershed. The communities are also working with an NGO, Corazon Para Honduras, to obtain a grant that will be utilized to purchase a portion of the land in the micro-watershed.

Excitingly, in September, water committees in San Antonio began to repay the 240 micro-loans that had been issued for sanitation construction during the prior nine months. To date, the water committees have deposited $3,500 into a savings account at Caja Rural Union y Exito (a local financial institution).

Recently, the water committees, schools, local authorities, and other community organizations in the Honduran municipalities of San Antonio de Cortés and El Negrito celebrated World Water Day . In support of the Day and in demonstration of their concern about the use of the local water resources – including the prohibition of mining projects in water producing zones, a ban on planting African Palm trees in water recharge zones, and the creation of a deforestation ban in the municipality’s main town – more than 10,000 people in El Negrito marched for almost two hours on one of the most heavily used Honduran highways. As a large supporter of local water resource management, the municipal government plans to present these concerns to the National Congress of Honduras.

Looking forward, Water For People continues to build a relationship with the Association of Municipalities of CRA, which serves as an association of local governments, in order to create local institutional capacity intended to provide ongoing technical support to the district of Chinda. In Honduras, Water for People will also begin to focus on creating models for water and sanitation services specifically in rural dispersed areas . The goal of this will be to create guidelines for water and sanitation interventions in rural areas that encompass the most dispersed populations, based on the systemization of existing experiences and lessons learned from piloting alternative technologies. This will provide Water For People with the opportunity to investigate and share solutions, which will not only impact Honduras, but other Latin American countries, as well.