Monitoring

As always, monitoring is one of the most important steps in our filter project. This month we dedicated our time to monitoring in 10 of the 14 communities under the Carroll Creek Matching Grant.
Tacaulapa, Tencoa
Ceibita Sur, Ceibita Sur
Santa Ana, Ceguaca
Tierra colorada, Arada
Zorca Arriba, Arada
Zorca Abajo, Arada
Buenos Aires, Concepción Sur
El ocotillo, Arada
El Carmen, Atima
Berlin, Atima
Family with filter in Buenos Aires, Concepcion Sur. The woman second from the left is the head of the family and is hillarious. She attended all of the filter workshops and remembered everything about the filter and asked about Chris Green and David Putt from Canada.

Although we have focused on monitoring this month it doesn’t mean that we have forgotten about installing new filters under the Maine Matching Grant. A number of factors make initiation of filter installation in new communities quite difficult; including the coffee harvest, the rain and Christmas. First, as many of you know, Santa Barbara is a large coffee producing department, and many of the communities that we work with are primarily coffee producers. We are currently in the peak of the coffee harvest, which means that virtually everyone is participating in the harvest and if we tried to hold a community meeting we would probably find ourselves in an empty schoolroom. Second, the rain makes some of the roads to communities impassable by the large truck we use to deliver filters, so new deliveries are stalled. Third, Santa Barbara is in feria right now and Christmas is approaching which means that people are more focused on the holidays and traveling to be with family than hearing about new filters. We plan to reinitiate filter installation in new communities under the Maine Matching Grant in February 2008.

Deparisiting

Initiation of deparasting continues to be a slow process, although we are making progress. In order to demonstrate that there is in fact a need for deparasiting in the communities where we install filters (although we know that there is through experience) we ran lab tests of feces samples of seven beneficiaries of filters from Jimilie.

We found that each individual had between 1-4 different parasites, the three youngest sampled had the most. According to the World Health Organization, the prevalence and intensity of worm infections peak in children aged ~6-15. This is also the age at which parasites can affect the body most, causing malnutrition, anaemia, stunted growth, and can retard both physical and cognitive development.

We have also made progress working with Dr. Alvaro Perez, a Santa Barbara Rotary Club member to determine which medications we need to buy. The next step is to find the best source for the parasite treatments and get started.

If you would like results from the tests please contact Agua Pura Santa Barbara at aguapurasb@gmail.com for a copy.

CAWST Workshops

CAWST (Center for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology) is an NGO based out of Canada that supports filter projects with technical information and trainings all over the world. The Agua Pura team was lucky enough to attend a filter workshop facilitated by Andrea Roach. Andrea Roach joined CAWST in 2005 to provide training and consulting services for the Central American region as well as Mexico and Brazil. Andrea is a Professional Engineer and brings to CAWST water and sanitation experience in El Salvador, where she lived for two years, as well as five years of experience in the petroleum industry. She holds a Chemical Engineering Degree from the University of British Columbia and is a qualified CAWST trainer including technical training in Biosand Filtration and other treatment technologies.

The workshop was sponsored by a church from the states that has adopted four communities in south east Santa Barbara (don´t worry, no interference with our project, only support) where they will be introducing filters. It was especially important for Sergio, Mauricio and Allison to attend the workshop, as they have never received outside formal training. Overall, we were able to hone our understanding of the filters and share our experiences with the other attendees.

From left: Andrea Roach, Alliosn O´Donnell, Nineth Mungia

Following the workshop Nineth went to Tegucigalpa to attend the Taller Centro Americano de Implementadores de Filtros Bioarena (Central American Workshop of Biosand Filter Implementers) held by CAWST and International Aid.

Monitoring

Although monitoring is one of the most important aspects of the filter project it has been our tendency to overlook monitoring in favor of installing more filters. However, this month we were able to do monitoring in five different communities under the Carroll Creek Matching Grant including La Espanola, San Isidro, Tacaulapa, Ceibita Sur and Buena Vista. We had the help of four students from La Independencia, a local technical institute, helping us as part of their practicum so things went a lot faster.

We found mixed results among the communities. San Isidro, for example, is a neighborhood about five minutes away from downtown Santa Barbara, however it is right near the garbage dump and the people are very poor and live without electricity. Out of 15 houses that have filters only 7 are functioning. Among the 8 that are not working, 2 no longer want the filters and 6 want us to reinstall the filters. Similarly, only about 60% of the filters are functioning in Ceibita Sur, so we need to reinstall the rest. Tacaulapa, on the other hand, is doing quite well with the majority of the filters functioning as they should. Although it is disappointing to find filters in disuse it shows us how important monitoring is to make sure there are no problems and to correct them as quickly as possible. Or in the unfortunate circumstance that a family no longer wants their filter it is better to remove it so another family can benefit from its use.

Buena Vista, Atima

Buena Vista is a community that we discovered through a Rotary medical brigade from Minnesota. When they were here last February they went to Buena Vista to do medical work and saw a great need there, considering the community has no electricity or running water. They suggested that Agua Pura install filters there so we did. Unfortunately the community is more than 3 hours away from Santa Barbara so we hadn’t yet been back to do monitoring. A team from the Minnesota Rotary Club was on its way down to Santa Barbara in late October to investigate a water project in Buena Vista with the help of Katie, a Water & Sanitation Peace Corps volunteer. So we took advantage of the fact that Katie needed to go there to do surveying and went to do monitoring. One of the problems we encountered is that many of the filter owners are not able to put water in the filter everyday (which is necessary to maintain the filter in good use) since they do not have running water and thus have to walk up to 1 km to get water. The Minnesota Rotary group is hoping to fund a water system there through a Matching Grant, which should fix this problem. There were also some filters where the water was passing through the filter too quickly due to the fact that the people were performing filter maintenance (mixing up the sand) too frequently. So we reminded them that they only need to do filter maintenance when the filter is full of water and only drips of water come out. We plan to return to Buena Vista within a few weeks to hold another capacitation to remind the community of proper filter use as well as work with Katie, the engineer, to gather data for the water system.

The view from Buena Vista

Buenos Aires, San Nicolas

Buenos Aires is a new community for us to work in. As usual we started by meeting with the community leaders who seemed supportive. Next we planned to hold a socialization with the entire community to introduce Agua Pura and the filter project. As you can from the picture below taken during the socialization we didn’t have our regular turn out.

Socializacion Buenos Aires

Only about 13 or 14 people showed up, many from the same family, out of a community of 70 houses. A number of factors could have influenced the low attendance, including the weather and bad filter publicity. First, it was raining, which always puts a damper on any meeting. Second, a filter owner from Descansadero, San Nicolas had gone to Buenos Aires and told people that the filters didn’t work. What had happened is that he had installed his filter as well as his fathers’ filter himself without Agua Pura staff or Community Agents and inevitably installed it improperly. As a result the filters didn’t work for him or his father and he blamed Agua Pura. This is the first time we have ever had anybody try to install their own filter and then criticize the filter project. Hopefully it is an isolated incident and nothing like this will happen again. We will make sure to re-emphasize the importance of having trained personnel only install filters and if a filter is installed improperly it should be corrected immediately.
As always, community support is necessary for a filter project to function properly in a community. Thus we put the few that attended the socialization in charge of talking to their community to see if they were in fact interested in having filters and create a list of those interested. When we went back they had already created a list of those interested, so we are going to plan another socialization and we expect a much better turn out this time.

Las Flores, San Nicolas

Although we finished delivering and installing filters in Las Flores in record time there were still a few loose ends to tie up. We returned to change a few filters with leaks and deliver the remaining water bottles.

This is the only way we can deliver filters in a reasonable amount of time without breaking our backs…community teamwork!

Family Profiles

With each community we work in we try to take pictures of the whole process to have a record of what we did. While the Rotary Club members from Maine were here they suggested that we begin doing “family profiles” of a few families from each community where we install filters. In each community there are always a few individuals or families that catch our attention. Whether it be their community leadership role, their participation as a Community Agent, unsolicited kindness or just a little wackiness, there are always those who we remember most from the communities we work with.


This is Miguel Angel Rodríguez (nickname: beard) with his wife Brenda and their son Miguel. Miguel was born in San Nicolas, Santa Barbara. He received his teaching degree in San Pedro Sula where he became the director of the I.N.T.A.E. Institute. He then returned to San Nicolas, where he met Brenda, and they moved to Descansadero. He currently owns a coffee farm and is the President of the Water Board in Descansadero. His family has served as an amazing support to Agua Pura throughout our work there. Miguel has given us unconditional support in the filter project, Brenda has made a wonderful host (she probably cooked about 30 ears of corn for the Maine Rotary group) and their son is very entertaining (he found a fast friend in George).

Hurricane Felix

As many of you already know hurricane Felix passed through Honduras and other Central American countries in early September. Thank you for all of your e-mails to make sure the Agua Pura crew was doing alright. Luckily Santa Barbara was not hit too hard and no major damage was caused. It rained for about a day and a half, which is of course is a lot of rain, but nothing disastrous. The rivers rose substantially in Santa Barbara but not enough to do any damage.

This is what the river usually looks like...

This is what the river looked like after it stopped raining...

Hurricane Felix did affect Agua Pura in a few ways. First, it caused us to loose about two work days because of the rain, the truck just can’t make it to the remote villages because the roads get washed out. Second, it caused the water level of the Ulua River (where we get our sand from) to rise, so we had to find a new location on the banks of the river that wasn’t as affected by the flooding. Luckily, we found a new location and the new mix of sand seems to be working fine.

Las Flores, San Nicolas

We started and finished the training and installation process in Las Flores, San Nicolas in record time. We were able to hold all our community meetings, train community agents, deliver and install 92 filters in less than one month. Without a doubt the efforts of the community to make sure that all the filters were delivered to each individual house and ready to be installed as well as the help of the amazing community agents helped move the process along wonderfully

Santa Ana, Ceguaca

We held three meetings in Santa Ana this month: a socialization, capacitation and community agents training. We handled these meetings a little differently, however because the goal was to remind the community of the importance of using the filters properly. The community agents training was modified in that we only taught the community agents how to do monitoring because the installation had already been done. Although it has been a long process, Santa Ana is on its way to having fully functional filters once again.

Maine Rotary Club Visit

This month we had the privilege of a visit from members of three Rotary Clubs from Maine, including Freeport, Portland and Brunswick. A group of six Rotarians and the lovely, intelligent (and most importantly Spanish speaking) daughter of one of the said Rotarians joined us for a week in Santa Barbara.

Saturday: The Agua Pura crew, a few local Rotary Club members, and Abundio, the wonderful driver for the week, all met the group at San Pedro at the airport. We loaded their 15 suitcases and the 7 of them into three cars and headed back to Santa Barbara without any glitches (except that it started to rain on the way back and the bags were in the pack of the pick up so we had to stop and buy a tarp).


Sunday: We all woke up early on Sunday and headed to Descansadero, San Nicolas, to hold a capacitation (hygiene and filter use training). We had a great turnout from the community; they were all waiting for us at the entrance of the school when we arrived. Miguel (aka barba, which means beard), a retired teacher and community leader, started off the morning by giving a little background about his community and thanking the Rotary Club for all they have done to make these projects possible. One thing that he mentioned is that the single room we were sitting in served as the school for grades 1-6, which were taught by one single teacher. Then we started the meeting off with a dinamica, like an ice breaker, which Hondurans love. Here is George Crocket in a “human knot” trying to work his way out of it.

Nineth continued with a basic hygiene charla, recapping what we had talked about in the socialization, the first community meeting, and then moved on to talk about the filter use.

We finished by handing out prizes of soap, toothbrushes, dish towels and the coveted bucket with a spout on it. To encourage the community to participate we handed out many of the prizes to those who could answer questions about hygiene and the filters (they wanted to participate).

After the meeting ended the community treated us to tamales (corn meal with meat inside boiled in a banana leaf) and the Rotary Club treated them to all sorts of toys to play with.


That night we had a meeting and dinner with the local Rotary Club to receive an introduction to Santa Barbara and meet the junta directive of the Santa Barbara Rotary Club.

From left: Elizabeth, George, Dick, Andrea, Tom, Les, Marge

Monday & Tuesday: The Rotary Club members from Maine spent time in El Nispero, a neighboring community of Santa Barbara, with Erin, another Peace Corps volunteer, visiting the schools to donate shoes and school supplies. Meanwhile the Agua Pura team delivered filters to Descansadero to prepare for the Friday installations.

The delivery truck from the filter workshop

Wednesday: The Rotary Club members from Maine took a trip to Copan Ruinas to check out Honduras’ Mayan Ruins.

Thursday: We went to Jimilile to do monitoring. Which means we went to each house with a filter to make sure it was working properly and to talk to the family about how the filter had impacted their health. Every family that we talked to reported improved health, many of them experiencing no diarrhea whatsoever since initiation of filter use. This aspect of our work was very important for the Rotary Club from Maine to see because it showed them what an important impact the filter project has on the people’s lives.

Jimilile

Thursday afternoon we went to the filter workshop to watch the filter making process, including pouring the cement into the filter molds and watching the sand be washed and tested.
Sergio at the filter workshop, working with the filter molds.

A few of the Rotary members left the workshop early to meet with Douglas Diaz, the previous Santa Barbara Rotary Club treasurer, and Rene Vazquez, the previous president, to review the project accounting and make sure everything was in line. Luckily Nineth’s organizational skills paid off and everything was as it should be. Thursday night we had a second meeting with the water committee from the Santa Barbara Rotary Club, members of the Maine Rotary Clubs, the Agua Pura team and Maria Inestroza, the Agua Pura National Director. Despite the language barriers we were all able to communicate well, clarify operational issues and make some important decisions that will improve our future functioning.

From left: Vasquez, Douglas Diaz, Maria Inestroza, Hector Madrid

Friday: We went to Descansadero (the village we visited in the beginning of the week for the capacitation) to install filters. The first filter we installed made us thankful that we weren’t the ones to deliver it because it was at the bottom of a huge hill. After installing the first filter together we broke up into teams and installed about 15 filters (in total we will install 45 filters in Descansadero).

Dick is measuring the flow rate of a newly installed filter.

We finished up the day by eating tons of fresh corn on the cob prepared by the gracious wife of Miguel.

Friday night we attended the Santa Barbara Rotary Club meeting, which incidentally coincided with a visit from the District Governor. Each Rotary Club from Maine, was presented with a Santa Barbara Rotary Club banner as a token of appreciation. Earlier in the week it was discovered that Hector Madrid, the current president, and his wife Doris belonged to a local folkloric dance group and at the insistence of the Rotary Club members from Maine they were convinced to perform at the end of the meeting. So we finished the meeting with a wonderful cultural show followed by a catered dinner.

Allison & Nineth all dressed up for the Rotary meeting

Saturday: Saturday we packed up the cars and headed back to the airport to say goodbye and finish off an exhausting but memorable week. Overall, the trip was important because it allowed many people that have all been working towards the same goal to finally meet each other in person and get a feel for what is really happening on each end. We can’t wait to see you again next year!

Special thanks to the Rotary Clubs of Freeport, Portland and Brunswick, Maine for sending great representatives. Special thanks to George Crocket for all your planning. Special thanks to Elizabeth Crocket for your Spanish skills. Special thanks to Abundio for not crashing the SUV. Special thanks to the Santa Barbara Rotary Club for being wonderful hosts throughout the week.

The new Truck!

Mauricio and Sergio with the new truck.

After almost a month and a half without a truck in Santa Barbara we finally found a good one and Maria Inestroza and Hector Pavon drove it up from Tegucigalpa. Now that we have the new truck we are back to work in the communities.

Health Promoters

August 3rd Auga Pura para el Mundo held interviews to fill the two Health Promoter positions. The interviews were conducted by Hector Madrid, the president of the Santa Barbara Rotary Club, Maria Inestroza, the national director of APPM, Hector Pavon, the new national administrator for APPM, Nineth Mungia, the site manager for APPM Santa Barbara, and Allison O’Donnell, the Peace Corps volunteer who works with Agua Pura. In total we received 11 applications and held 7 interviews. In the end we were pleased to hire Sergio Arevalo and Mauricio Enamorado.

Mauricio Antonio Enamorado Trochez

I was born and raised in Santa Barbara and I completed my studies here as well. Upon finishing primary education I elected to continue studying Social Promotion in a three year program; the first two years included social practicums and the third included a professional practicum in another community. I began work as a Social Promoter and continued studying during the weekends to earn my title in Social Education.
I am a person that has always liked to learn new things in my life and from my work. My vocation has always been to work in a team, with groups of people of varying ages.
My work experience includes numerous community organizations ranging from the National Population Census, weighing programs carried out by the World Nutrition Program, the Coffee Fund and the National Program for Local Development.
I have also had experience working with children’s programs at various levels. I was involved with children’s enrichment programs at a local cultural center in Santa Barbara and worked as a supervisor for Youth Without Borders, an NGO that does HIV/AIDS prevention education among youth.
Working with Agua Pura allows us to educate the people we work with in hygiene and health and encourage them to incorporate the use of the filter into their lives as a solution to contaminated water. With monitoring and water testing we can observe both attitude changes as well as real improvements in family health.


Sergio Rubén Arévalo Casaña.
Sergio with an agente comunitario.
Sergio installing a filter.

I was born in San Pedro Sula and raised in Santa Barbara. I completed my primary education at Marcos Garcia de Santa Barbara, my secondary education at Instituto Departemental la Independencia and received my title in Social Promotion.
I have had substantial management experience working in the field of Social Promotion including work with Infant and Women Development, Mini Pharmacies (for people without access to health centers), agricultural development, reforestation programs and water projects. Overall I have acquired experience in organizing, socializing, planning and working with a team. Therefore I am ready to share my previous knowledge with the Agua Pura project and share in the responsibilities of the job.

Mauricio and Sergio have jumped right in and are already learning how things work at Agua Pura. Sergio has tons of experience working in the campo and is already familiar with most of the communities we are working with, so his presence eases our entry into each new community. Mauricio’s experience working as a health educator with Youth Without Borders brings creative education ideas to be used during our health and hygiene presentations.

Santa Barbara Rotary Club Meetings

In order to maintain good communication between the Santa Barbara Rotary Club and Agua Pura, Nineth Mungia will be attending one Rotary meeting a month to give the entire club an update on our most recent activities. As usual, we continue to have monthly meetings with the water filter committee to discuss more detailed issues.

San Nicolas

San Nicolas is a neighboring municipality of Santa Barbara where we will be working in four communities including Las Flores, Buenos Aires, Descansadero and Cruz Grande. When we first begin our work in a new community we start by meeting with the local leaders and introducing them to Agua Pura and all that the filter project entails. Thus far we have met with community leaders from Buenos Aires and Descansadero. The next step is to hold a community meeting called a socialization in order to introduce the filter project to the entire community and start to talk about hygiene, health and clean water.
Once we have met with both community leaders and the community and the filter project seems well accepted we start to train Community Agents; community members who will help us install filters and aid with monitoring. Members of Descansadero, Las Flores and IHCAFE (Honduran Institute of Coffee) joined us for a two day training to become Community Agents. This marks our second training and we are already figuring out what works and what doesn’t. For example, we held our first training in the Agua Pura office in Santa Barbara, but decided to hold this second one in the communities, which proved to work better. We were also joined by Parrish Berquist, a Peace Corps Volunteer from San Nicolas, the more local support we can get the better.

Parrish (on the right) and Sergio (in the middle.


We usually start of the training with a dinamica (like an ice breaker) to build confianza.

Next we introduce the project and the important role that Agentes Comunitarios play. Then we move onto basic hygiene, health and water information.
Nineth giving a hygiene charla (charlar=to chat)

The second day we teach them how to install filters and how to do monitoring.

Nineth (in red shirt) doing an installation demonstration.
Measuring the sand level.
Agente Comunitario measuring the choro (flow) of water (don´t worry, the water clears up quickly).

Agentes Comunitarios installing practice filters.

We finished of the training with cake and diplomas.

Camisetas

The Agua Pura team is looking very professional in our new embroidered polo shirts!

El equipo de APPM Santa Bárbara luce muy profesional en sus nuevas camisetas con el logotipo de APPM (próximamente lucirá también el Logo Rotario).

Chris, Nineth and Allison in front of the Agua Pura office

Chris, Nineth y Aly enfrente de la oficina de APPM Santa Bárbara.

Zorca and Ocotillo

View from Ocotillo

We finally finished up installing the last few filters in Zorca and Ocotillo and changing the filters with leaks.

Finalmente hemos terminado de instalar filtros en Zorca y Ocotillo, Arada; y realizamos los cambios de filtros con fuga.

Filter in Zorca

Adan has two wonderful assistants

Woman cleaning her filter in Ocotillo before we install it

The Truck

Chris & Nineth with the old truck at the workshop

We had to say a sad goodbye to our wonderful truck that has safely delivered us to all reaches of the Santa Barbara hills. The truck was actually on loan to Agua Pura Santa Barbara from another project and it came time to give it back. The Agua Pura team made the trip to Tegucigalpa for the weekend to both drop of the truck and meet with Maria Inestroza, the national director. We also said goodbye to Andrea & Bernardo, a Peace Corps couple finishing off their two years of service in Santa Barbara. During their two years in Santa Barbara, Andrea and Bernardo worked with Agua Pura both helping with Book-Keeping and Filter Installations.

Obviously not having a truck makes installing filters a little more difficult so Nineth & Maria are currently looking for a new truck that will meet all of our needs (ie. needs to be able to get us in and out of some tough places). When the perfect truck is found, it will be purchased under the new Maine matching grant.
Hopefully we´ll get a great new truck and we´ll never have this happen!

Tuvimos que decir adiós a nuestro increíble carro de trabajo, que nos llevaba con seguridad a todas las comunidades en las diferentes montañas de Santa Bárbara, el carro era un préstamo de otro proyecto de APPM (Danli) y al fin llego el plazo de devolución. El equipo de APPM Santa Bárbara hizo el viaje a Tegucigalpa el primer fin de semana del mes de julio para reunirnos con Maria Inestroza, la Directora Nacional de APPM y así devolver el carro. También aprovechamos el viaje para despedir a la pareja de voluntarios de Cuerpo de Paz, que finalizaron sus dos años de servicio prestado en Santa Bárbara. Durante esos dos años de servicio Andrea Y Bernardo, trabajaron en los diferentes proyectos realizados por Rotarios y en su último año apoyaron en gran manera el de Filtros Bioarena.
Obviamente no tener un vehiculo de trabajo a hecho muy difícil la labor de instalar filtros, es por eso que Maria y Nineth están buscando un nuevo carro que cumpla con todas nuestras necesidades y poder volver a funcionar como lo hemos acostumbrado. El nuevo carro será comprado bajo el presupuesto del Matching Grant de Maine.

El Balsamo, Ilama

Although we do not have a truck we still have the trailbike which allows two members of the Agua Pura team to start monitoring the communities where we have installed filters.

Aunque no tenemos carro de trabajo en este momento, tenemos una motocicleta que nos permite la movilización de dos miembros de nuestro equipo, y así pudimos dar inicio al componente de monitoreo en las comunidades que hemos instalados filtros.
El monitoreo es un componente clave en nuestro trabajo porque involucra el retorno a cada casa con filtro, para sentarnos y hablar personalmente con cada una de las familias. Y así podemos conocer sus pensamientos acerca del filtro, de su contribución a la salud de su familia, si tiene alguna consulta o comentario y crear una relación más sólida en el desarrollo del proyecto.

Chris & Nineth using the moto to do monitoring

Monitoring is a key component of our work because it involves going back to each and every house with a filter to sit down and talk with each family. We are able to hear their feedback and how they like the filters, how the filter has contributed to the health of their family, as well as any questions or concerns they may have. Often, the water that comes from the filter is more persuasive than our Capacitation sessions, and Monitoring is a chance for other families without a filter to express interest. It is a way to reconnect with the community and let them know that Agua Pura is still available if they need help.

Nineth and Chris took three days do the first round of monitoring in El Balsamo. 40 minutes from Santa Barbara by trailbike, El Balsamo has only forty houses with filters but they were well spread out - across valleys and rivers, way up on hills or hidden behind them in dense green. The filters were well maintained, with many reports of improved health. Nineth was accompanied by Tonio, a pleasant father of two and filter owner so as to find the most distant and hidden houses, and was paid a days wage for his help, which was without expectations.

Chris checked up on a filter at the home of a woman of a hundred and two years. Perhaps the clean and smooth water that comes out of the filter will help her push the limits of her impressive age!

El Balsamo, along with Santa Ana mark the beginnings of more monitoring after a long blitz of installation in Arada - which includes Tierra Colorada, Zorca and Ocotillo.

Another part of monitoring involves gathering information about the ages of each family member in order to plan accordingly for the de-parasiting component.

Christopher y Nineth realizaron monitoreo durante tres días en la comunidad de El Bálsamo, Ilama; comunidad que queda a 1 hora de camino en motocicleta de Santa Bárbara. Esta comunidad solo cuanta con 40 casas con filtro, pero son muy dispersas a través de valles, montañas, puentes hamaca y ríos. Fue muy satisfactorio encontrar los filtros en buen estado y uso, con testimonios de mejoría en la salud de las familias beneficiadas; para realizar este monitoreo contamos con el apoyo de un miembro de la comunidad: Toño; un hombre alegre, padre de familia responsable y beneficiario del filtro bioarena, quien sirvió de gran ayuda para la ubicación de las casas, dispersas y escondidas, labor que duro todo el día y que reconocimos con el pago de Lps. 100.00. Chris, monitoreo otra área de la comunidad donde conoció una señora de 102 años! la cual esta muy feliz con su filtro y asegura que le servirá de mucho para seguir con una vida mas larga porque será mas sana.

Las comunidades de El Balsamo y Santa Ana, marcan el inicio del componente de monitoreo; después de instalar muchos filtros en 11 comunidades, los últimos en Arada, que incluye Tierra Colorada, Jimilile, Zorca y Ocotillo.
Parte del monitoreo involucra el censo de las edades en las familias beneficiadas, para la planificación del componente de desparacitacion.



Nineth crossing a bridge to get to a house with a filter (how did they ever get the filter across that bridge?)
Nineth talking with a woman about her filter

De-parasiting

We met with Dr. Marta Elizabeth Mancia, the Coordinator of the Provision of Services for the Secretary of Health, to coordinate our de-parasiting project. We hope to work with the Health Centers in each community where we install filters to help us organize delivery of the medication as well as gain trust in the community.

Nos reunimos con la Dra. Marta Mancia, Coordinadora de Provisión de Servicios de La Secretaria de Salud Publica del Hospital Santa Bárbara Integrado; para coordinar nuestro componente de desparacitacion de manera responsable. Esperamos poder trabajar en coordinación de los Centros de Salud en cada comunidad para facilitar la entrega de medicamentos y contar con el respaldo profesional en dicha área dentro de la comunidad.

Santa Ana, Ceguaca

We have also started another sort of monitoring in Santa Ana. Santa Ana is a beautiful community in the hills just outside of Santa Barbara where 107 filters were installed over a year ago. At the time, Agua Pura did not exist in Santa Barbara and the filters were installed by members of the Santa Barbara Rotary Club and Plan Honduras. Although we had no part in delivering and installing these filters we still think it is important to see the work through to completion. Our experience in Santa Ana has only reinforced our conviction that monitoring and follow through are indispensable during the first months following installation. We consider abandoned or out-of-use filters to be bad publicity for the filters, and so we are glad to be tying up loose strings in Santa Ana.
Tocaulapa, Tencoa and El Diviso, San Francisco de Ojuera are two additional communities that received filters before the current Agua Pura team was around. Under the Carrol Creek Matching Grant we plan to install the filters that were never installed, repair those that need it and hold additional community meeting to re-inspire the communities to take responsibility for their filters.

También hemos dado inicio a otro tipo de monitoreo en la comunidad de Santa Ana. Santa Ana es una comunidad muy agradable que crece en pequeñas colinas en las afueras de Santa Bárbara, en donde se instalo 107 filtros, esta comunidad forma parte de 3 comunidades en las que se instalaron filtros hace poco mas de un año, como ejecución de proyecto piloto del Club Rotario de Santa Bárbara; en ese momento APPM no existía en Santa Bárbara, los filtros fueron instalados por miembros del Club Rotario local y el fabricante de filtros. Aunque nosotros no participamos en el proceso de estas comunidades, creemos al igual que el Club Rotario Local, en la necesidad de dar continuidad e implementar las diferentes fases que hacemos en las otras comunidades donde instalamos filtros. Consideramos que los filtros abandonados o en mal uso crean mala publicidad al proyecto. Próximamente estaremos dando continuidad a esta comunidad.

Tacaulapa, Tencoa y El Diviso, San Fco. De Ojuera: también forman parte de este pequeño proyecto piloto, al igual que Santa Ana. Como acuerdo con el Club responsable de MG de Carrol Creek tomaremos los gastos de reactivación de estas tres comunidades bajo el presupuesto de este Matching Grant, y tomar la responsabilidad sobre ellas.



Filters waiting to be installed in Santa Ana

IHCAFE

The Honduran Institute for Café is an organization that coordinates coffee production in all parts of Honduras. Coffee production is a vital part of the economy in Santa Barbara and many of the communities that we work with are coffee producers. We met with them in order to discuss how we can work together to improve the functioning of Agua Pura in Santa Barbara. One key aspect of a successful filter project is to gain the trust of the community we are working with. In the future we hope to partner with IHCAFE to make community contacts and build confidence since IHCAFE already has a strong relationship with farmers from every municipality of S.B.
IHCAFE office in Santa Barbara

El Instituto Hondureño del Café, es una organización que coordina la producción del café a nivel nacional. La producción de café es parte fundamental en la economía en Santa Bárbara. La mayoría de las comunidades en las que trabajamos son productoras de café.
Tuvimos una reunión con el equipo de trabajo de IHCAFE para determinar la manera de iniciar una relación interinstitucional y obtener un aprovechamiento funcional en las comunidades beneficiadas con el proyecto de filtros bioarena. Un aspecto muy importante para alcanzar el éxito dentro de un proyecto comunitario es ganarse la confianza en la comunidad en que estemos trabajando. En el futuro esperamos trabajar con los productores de café a través del IHCAFE, pues esta institución cuenta con muchos años de presencia en las comunidades y seria un gran aliado para facilitar una relación solidad y de confianza para nuestro proyecto.

Health Promoter

Adam explaining how to use the filter

Adan Acosta has worked with Agua Pura for over 5 years. He began painting filters in Danli and then moved to Santa Barbara as Health Promoter for Agua Pura Santa Barbara. Unfortunately he resigned his position this month for personal reasons. We are currently accepting applications for a new Health Promoter. Nineth, Maria, Hector, new president of the Santa Barbara Rotary Club, and Allison will hold interviews Friday, August 3rd. We are actually thinking of hiring two Health Promoters at this time to bring our team to four people, a minimum number to be able to accomplish our goals.

Adán Acosta, ha trabajado por más de 4 años con APPM, inicio pintando filtros en el proyecto de Danli y se mudo a Santa Bárbara para trabajar como Promotor de Salud; desafortunadamente renuncio a su cargo este mes por razones personales. Hemos estado aceptando aplicaciones por un nuevo Promotor. Maria, Héctor, Aly y Nineth, estarán realizando las entrevistas el día viernes 03 de Agosto de 2007 en las oficinas de APPM Santa Bárbara, estamos pensando en contratar 2 promotores en este momento para tener un equipo integrado por cuatro personas, requerimiento mínimo para cumplir nuestras metas.

Adan measuring the flow rate of a filter just installed