Everyone has a story to tell

Before starting the story of our community, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Chedorlaomer Villa I am 34 years old, and  live in The Maelstrom, small town of Pance, Cali, Colombia.  I work as plumber and I am responsible for carrying out maintenance at the drinking water plant (PTAP) and the wastewater treatment plant (PTARD). We are a privileged community in that today we have drinking water and a system of to process wastewater, perhaps the oldest such system in the municipality.

Back to the history, our district, “La Vorágine”,  was founded by Mr. Nicolas Felipe Mejía in the year of 1943 and is one of the 13 districts forming the small town of Pance, where the crystal and cold water of the river attract many foreign and Colombian tourists at weekends or in the holiday season.

Vereda La Vorágine

This district was originally called La Vega (the fertile lowland).  The district’s economy was based around two coal mines.  At one time only a dusty bridle path  linked La Vorágine with Cali. It was only in the 1950s that the highway was built.  Since the 1960s when tourism started to rise, La Voragina has been a tourist destination.

Construction of the aqueduct

With the increase in tourism, the need to seek other sources to supply the community with water increased and the water from the river was of very poor quality.  In 1980 the Municipal Public Department of Health (SSPM) started a project to improve this situation.

Changing Socio cultural practices related to Sanitation in India

As far back as 1997, remote villages in Uttarakhnad (Himalayan mountain region)women were unwilling to get married into the households where some privacy for sanitation was not available.
Same communities reported that having migrant sons in service in other towns, the families would be reluctant to travel to the village to visit or stay for any length of time if there was no toilet facility- when we travelled to understand the initiatives related to infrastructure and development in the region, we found man of these toilets locked or used for storage of grass- to keep the grass dry.

Notes from Story telling session during the Opening of the water house. 30.9.09

I got interested in stories because stories explain logical reflection from people’s actions that seemed illogical to me as un outsider and explain what their underlying reasons are.

 Women in a village in Morogoro, Tanzania, used two wells. They maintained one well and not the other Why? Because the maintained one was a drinking wells and the “not maintained” well was a well for clothes washing and bathing.

Our Successful Partnerships, Success Story and Successful Projects

Three years ago, Life and Water Development Group Cameroon and its US partners, Hope College chapter of Engineers Without Borders USA started a water project in the community of Nkuv, Cameroon. A locality out of Kumbo in the North West Region of Cameroon.

Laying the pipe into the pipeline

The project history started as follows: Mr. Peter Njodzeka, the founder of LWDG-Cameroon submitted a project application to the EWB USA and Hope College Chapter was awarded the project, and from that moment the EWB USA linked their chapter Hope College with Peter Njodzeka to discuss the possibilities and understanding the project. Hope College traveled to Nkuv, Cameroon for their first time in March 2006 for an assessment trip, and returned in May 2006 for a tentative implementation. We tried drilling wells using hand drilling equipment, which was a fiasco, we could not find water and could only find rocks and dry sand. This first trial, which was a failure, Hope College did not surrender, they returned in December the same year and constructed three biosand filters trial, which some people in the community were using to filter their water directly carried from streams, and after six months, the health survey team from Hope College had a good results from the families using filtered water, and we increased the number to 15 filters, during this time, we were trying other ways out searching for water sources in the mountains, we finally found a spring, but after testing, the results were not good for consumption because of cows that are all year round in these hills.

Household Water Treatment: Scaling up is premature say researchers.

Dear Sir,

As a non-profit educator and consultant in the field of water and sanitation for the poor for the last 7 years, I am moved to respond to your headline article of March 18 regarding household water treatment. This is because for every researcher that says promotion of household water treatment (HWT) is premature, I can point to thousands of poor mothers who have benefited from HWT programs who say ” My children are well now. What more do I need in this world? “ And I believe that the voices of these mothers should count as much or more than the researchers.