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Update on Rainbow World Fund’s water project in the Community of Las Limas, Jesús de Otoro, Department of Intibucá, Honduras


Program Status Update as of April 2008

  • All participating families signed a document to establish their participation in the project.
  • The community mobilized.
  • The community elected a committee to provide oversight of constuction activities.
  • The community received permission to use the water source and permission from landowners so that the mainline and distribution networks could travel to target households.
  • The community provided unskilled labor for the project.  One person per family agreed to work eight hours per day, six days per week until project completion.
  • Spring catchment, distribution tank and the main conduction line between them were completed.
  • Pipelines to households were completed.
  • Household taps are providing clean, safe water to community members.
  • Project was completed at the end of March 2008.

Project Backgroud and Description

The Department of Intibucá is one of the poorest in Honduras. Access to potable water is a challenge throughout the area. This project has provided a comprehensive water service system to the community of Las Limas, Otoro where most of the population is comprised of subsistence farmers. Twenty-one families (122 inhabitants) have directly benefited and the program will eventually have the capacity to serve 200 people.

Las Limas was in desperate need of a community-wide water service system because there was no access to potable water. Some families were forced to obtain water from nearby streams and wells that are contaminated with chemicals from coffee plantations. The majority of families also needed access to adequate sanitation.

RWF again partnered with WaterPartners International to provide solutions to these urgent needs. The goal of the project was to improve health conditions for Las Limas families. The project allowed construction of a conventional system for direct access to water in homes and the setup of household latrines for sanitation. The project also included a major and ongoing educational component focused on hygiene, water management, improving construction skills and environmental sustainability.

RWF provided half the cost of the project which totaled $20,131.  Other partners on this project included Catholic Relief Services, CEP (Comité Ejecutor del Proyecto) and the Central Committee ProWater and Integral Development of Intibucá (COCEPRADII).

WORKING TO INCREASE ACCESS TO SAFE

DRINKING WATER AROUND THE WORLD

RWF is also partnered with Global Partners Healing Waters and WaterPartners International to increase access to safe drinking water in communities throughtout the world.

RWF recently funded the repairs of several water projects in Guatemala. These projects were damaged by the flooding that followed Hurricane Stan. We worked with Global Partners Healing Waters to restore water to three villages.

In 2006 we funded a water project in Sosoal, Honduras (located in the Lempira Department in western Honduras). The new system is providing water for more than 470 people. The people of Sosoal provided some of the construction costs and all of the maintenance costs for the new water system, but they lacked the financial resources to do the job. With RWF's financial support, WaterPartners International and a Honduran partner organization worked with the people of Sosoal, a community that had demonstrated a commitment to improving their water supply. The project included a  mountain spring-fed gravity-flow system with taps outside each household, drainage for waste water, and latrines at each household. The people of Sosoal are subsistence farmers who plant maize, sorgum and beans for family consumption.

About our partner: WaterPartners International is an international, non-profit development organization committed to increased access to safe drinking water thereby insuring improved sanitation and health. Since 1990, WaterPartners International has been working to bring sustainable water supply and sanitation systems to people throughout the world. All of the projects that they have supported are still in operation. WPI is challenging the traditional approach to assisting people in developing countries. Their goals are to draw attention to the world's number one health problem - unsafe and inadequate water supplies - and to raise funds to help fight this immense problem one community at a time. It is hard to imagine that safe and adequate drinking water, something we have at the turn of the tap, is still only a dream for more than one billion people. WPI's approach is unique, focusing their expertise on identifying and fostering projects and organizations that yield sustainable results for countries in need.

WPI’s work is simple and effective. By partnering with local indigenous development organizations and communities, they are able to make the maximum positive impact. Local communities manage their own projects gaining the necessary experience and taking ownership to shape a long-term solution. Rainbow World Fund raised $19,357 to fund this project. The project took a year to implement from the time funds were recieved.

WATER

Safe water for drinking and hygiene is a basic necessity of life that most of us take for granted, yet for much of the world a safe supply of water does not exist.

Over 1.1 billion people do not have access to safe water and 2.4 billion do not have adequate sanitation facilities. Waterborne and sanitation-related diseases kill over 3 million people annually and disable countless millions, making the campaign for safe water and effective sanitation one of the leading health challenges of our time. Contaminated water, lack of wastewater treatment and raw sewage are major causes of disease in the developing world. It is estimated that 80 percent of all infectious disease is transmitted through water.

The two principal routes of disease transmission are by drinking contaminated water and having insufficient quantities of safe water for washing and personal hygiene. Waterborne diseases can be bacterial, viral or parasitic. They include cholera, typhoid, infectious hepatitis, poliomyelitis, schistosomiasis, trachoma, hookworm, ascariasis, drancunculiasis (guinea worm) and disease related to arsenic contamination. The results of these diseases are devastating. There are 4 billion cases of diarrhea each year, resulting in over 2.2 million deaths, mostly of children age five and under. Trachoma has blinded over 6 million, and 200 million people are infected with schistosomasis with 20 million suffering from active disease. Intestinal worms infect nearly 10 percent of the population of the developing world, resulting in malnutrition, anemia and stunted growth. The areas most affected are Africa, Asia and Latin America. Africa has the lowest safe water coverage of any region in the world. Over 350 million Africans do not have access to a safe water supply, and 500 million lack access to basic sanitation facilities.