Now more than ever
Imagine turning on your water faucet to find that nothing is coming out. Your water supply suddenly dried up, and there just isn’t a drop more. Or imagine turning on your faucet and the water comes out, seemingly just as it always has. It tastes and looks the same, but you later find out that it is laden with arsenic and fluoride, many times above World Health Organization recommendations for human consumption.
These risks are exactly what is happening to an increasing number of communities in the Upper Río Laja Watershed in the semi-arid highlands of the State of Guanajuato in Mexico. While the severity of risk may vary, over 680,000 people, including the entire population of San Miguel de Allende, are finding that their health is being increasingly threatened every year. Arsenic and fluoride are linked to increasing cases of dental fluorosis (the browning of teeth), skeletal fluorosis – a chronic disease that greatly weakens the bones, learning disabilities and cognitive development issues in children, kidney disease, and several types of cancer.
For almost ten years, Caminos de Agua has dedicated itself to the mission of improving human health and community well-being through adequate and affordable access to clean water. Over that time, we have developed important new technologies and improved existing ones. We have developed programs to monitor the water situation and to educate communities, large and small, about their water quality and scarcity issues. And, we have worked in partnership with local communities to implement clean water solutions designed for their specific needs.
We are at a critical moment, right now
While we have many achievements to be proud of, at this moment, we are at an important point of inflection. We know what has to be done to beat back this crisis and have proven that we know how to do it effectively, but it is getting worse faster than we can do our work. However, a recent development at Caminos de Agua is having a major impact on that. After an extensive selection process and a lot of hard work we were recently awarded a generous grant by the Gonzalo Río Arronte Foundation.
Under this grant, Caminos de Agua is coordinating and implementing, along with six partner organizations, a massive 3-year project to provide water education, water monitoring, technical training, safe clean water and sanitation to more than 600 families across 30 of the most at-risk rural villages in the Alto Río Laja watershed region. We will be building 330 rainwater harvesting systems, 30 composting toilets and installing 630 ceramic filters (that ensure that stored rainwater will be free of biological contamination). Along with the support from the Gonzalo Río Arronte Foundation, additional funds are being provided by the Municipal Government of San Miguel de Allende, Caminos de Agua and partner organizations, and the communities themselves who will be providing all of the labor for this ambitious project.
This grant will be transformational. It will prevent the serious risk of horrible illnesses and economic devastation for more than 3,150 people directly as well as impacting more than 15,000 additional people indirectly. But in order to meet the terms of the grant, Caminos de Agua must raise the money to develop and execute all of the water monitoring, workshops, technical training, visits, evaluations, follow-up and supervision, as well as the logistics, administration and coordination of the overall project.
Make us part of your year end giving
Caminos de Agua has never taken on a project of this magnitude before. In order to meet our commitment, we need more help from our supporters than ever before.
We truly appreciate your generosity in the past. We never would have gotten as far as we have without you. But now we need you more than ever before. As we all know, an extraordinary portion of this year's charitable giving will take place this month. Please make Caminos de Agua a priority as you do your planning.
Interested in donating this year? Please click the button below.