The rural communities throughout San Luis de la Paz – a municipality located approximately an hour’s drive from San Miguel de Allende – suffer from some of the most severe water quality and scarcity conditions in our entire watershed. Many communities here only receive water 1-2 times per week, and the water they do receive is often severely contaminated. In fact, Caminos de Agua’s testing has registered staggering levels of fluoride and arsenic in this municipality: more than 18 times and 23 times above the set limits, respectively, which lead to a range of many serious health issues, including dental and skeletal fluorosis, chronic kidney disease, developmental challenges in children, skin lesions, and various types of cancer.
However, a beacon of hope has shone brightly in this region for more than 10 years in the form of a remarkable grassroots organization known as CUVAPAS (“United Communities for Water and Life” for its acronym in Spanish), who has been fighting these issues and helping bring solutions. At the helm of this transformative movement stands Luz Villafuerte, a close and long-time partner of Caminos de Agua. Luz's unwavering commitment to promoting community-led processes has left an indelible mark on northern Guanajuato and beyond.
In a world where top-down decisions often fail to align with local needs, grassroots organizations like CUVAPAS are crucial to creating lasting change. They not only help provide communities with accurate information, educational workshops, and technical trainings, but they also work to empower communities to shape their own destinies and become protagonists of their own change. In Luz's words,
"A grassroots organization [like CUVAPAS] has the responsibility to ensure that communities themselves take ownership of the process, actively participating in a continuous learning and leadership experience."
We first began partnering with Luz back in 2011 on our water quality monitoring program, as part of a larger community-driven coalition of actors, testing dozens of community wells in the region, which helped to unearth the astounding levels of arsenic and fluoride contamination in the region where CUVAPAS works. This data was ultimately presented in front of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, an international human rights ethical body, who in 2013 stated:
"Given the seriousness of the cases reported regarding overexploitation and contamination of surface and groundwater, and its impact on people and ecosystems, it is recommended that the Mexican government...declare [the entire Upper Río Laja Watershed region] an emergency zone due to the environmental and health risks."
From there, we looked together for solutions, and, over the years, CUVAPAS has conducted endless workshops and educational programs and, in collaboration with Caminos de Agua and others, has built hundreds of rainwater harvesting systems throughout the region – helping thousands of people get off consumption of contaminated drinking water.
Photo: a group of community members and staff from Caminos installing a Rainwater Harvesting System.
Luz and CUVAPAS also spearheaded action on another incredibly important issue for their region: proper sanitation, which is often overlooked as a major health and safety concern in a region like ours where water scarcity is a devastating reality. Fed up with having to literally flush their precious water down the toilet – or of not having a toilet at all – in 2020, with the launch of our joint, 3-year “Agua y Salud” (“Water & Health”) Project, Luz and CUVAPAS strongly advocated to include dry, composting toilets as an integral part of the program. Properly built composting toilets are hygienic and use no water at all – allowing families in water scarce regions to use their limited water for other needs without sacrificing their sanitation needs. Thanks to the efforts of CUVAPAS, many dozens of families are experiencing the dignity of their first bathroom and are in a new stage of greatly expanding this much-needed technology.
Gabriela from the community of San Cayetano, and a member of CUVAPAS, explains the importance of this program for her family:
“We didn’t have a toilet at all. I have three daughters, and we would have to go to dangerous places to do our basic needs. Now that we have [a dry toilet], I feel really fortunate. It’s such a blessing because I’m now finally able to give a dignified living situation to [my daughters]”.
Photo: A group of beneficiaries standing in front of their dry toilet.
The story of CUVAPAS is a testament to the power of unity and grassroots efforts, and it becomes clear how partners like Luz and CUVAPAS can so effectively extend the impact of our joint efforts. It underscores the potential for change when communities come together with shared ideals and a common goal. As CUVAPAS continues to grow and spread hope, it serves as a reminder that we can’t do any of this work alone. Coming together, forming broader communities and taking collective action is the key to a brighter, more sustainable future for us all.
But, we think Luz said it best:
“There are so many things that make us stronger together. Caminos de Agua is in San Miguel, and we (CUVAPAS) are in San Luis de la Paz, but we all belong to the same watershed. By being united, we make the [water crisis] visible, which allows us to propose solutions to government and authorities, solutions that are affordable, practical, and real; Solutions that actually reach people – because buying bottled water that costs 42 pesos each; That’s not a solution.”
