"Reforesting Today to Ensure our Environmental Future in our Community"

I have talked a lot on this blog about water and sanitation, even hygiene to some extent. However, I have been remiss in not highlighting our very important reforestation program. We are working with one of our great board members to morph our reforestation program to a watershed protection program. We already have a lot of the components of this in place, but some changes will be coming. For example, the staff (and I) have been learning that all reforestation is helpful, but there are areas where planting a tree can be more impactful - such as higher in the watershed where the streams tend to spring up, along stream or creek banks, etc. We are learning to work smarter.

In English: "Reforesting Today to Ensure our Environmental Future in our Community"

Part of our work in the reforestation program has always been to try to change attitudes and practices amongst the people we work with. Burning the fields to prepare them for planting is a common practice in Nicaragua. Unfortunately, it is not a very environmentally friendly practice. This new sticker that the staff created is being distributed in our communities as part of our recognition that we need to do even more in environmental education - helping people to recognize the connection between those trees and their water in the watershed. We hope to revamp our education program along with the reforestation program to get more people on board with "Reforesting Today to Ensure our Environmental Future in our Community."

Handwash-a-thon on Global Handwashing Day

On October 15th, Global Handwashing Day, El Porvenir held handwash-a-thons in many schools. 22 were planned, although it looks like at least 30 were carried out. Here are a few shots:

Handwashing in a school in Terrabona

Teacher showing the kids how to wash their hands.

Kids gather to wash their hands in the handwash-a-thon

Two girls show off their mural that they helped make for GHW Day

Many schools had cultural events, like this school in Ciudad Darío

The children line up at this school to wash their hands.

Other children watch as a young girl learns to wash her hands.

Blog Action Day/Global Handwashing Day/Clean Water, Sanitation and Hygiene

New well photo by Jon Polka

Happy Global Handwashing Day!

Although the Blog action day is about clean water, often a topic on people's minds, I think 2 related topics are equally important: sanitation and hygiene.

For an organization that works in clean water, like El Porvenir, it becomes imperative to include sanitation, often through latrines and other facilities to ensure that the clean water installed stays clean. Check out Rose George's excellent book on Sanitation.

Also, on Global Handwashing Day, it seems appropriate to talk to the hygiene piece. Even with the infrastructure in place, if the families aren't washing their hands after using the latrines, the health impact is not as great as we'd like to see it.

I am traveling today, so these are my brief thoughts to contribute to the Blog Action Day.

El Porvenir's 20th anniversary celebration in Nicaragua

Yesterday was El Porvenir's official 20th birthday as an organization. The staff in Nicaragua planned a big event in Cuidad Darío, El Porvenir's starting point all those years ago. I was away in the USA until just the night before at a board meeting, visiting supporters and attending the 20th anniversary event in San Francisco. (The event in San Francisco was very successful, by the way.)

So I was very impressed with all the work that the staff put into the celebration. Here some shots of the exposition stands they set up outside the hall.

Staff put a rope pump on a barrel, just like our US friends do

They even built a miniature slow sand filter

And a model showing a healthy and an unhealthy watershed

However, most pleasing for all of us was the arrival of El Porvenir's founder, Carole Harper.

Carole Harper speaks about EP's key to success, community participation

Overall, it was a fun event. We had musicians from each of our municipalities, from communities we have worked in. Who knew there was so much talent in our areas?

These talented musicians had everyone clapping and dancing.

El Porvenir attends WFP Country Coordinator meeting in Guatemala

In August, El Porvenir (well, Rob) was able to attend a very productive Country Coordinator meeting with WFP in Guatemala. We had a chance to visit a few projects and see how they are doing things, as well as sit down and discuss different topics such as Integrated Watershed Resource Management (IWRM) (or Watershed Protection, if you will), long term monitoring and evaluation, a methodology of Projects Implemented by the Community, and sustainable Sanitation. It was a packed and tiring week, but well worth it.

IWRM was perhaps the area where we have the most to offer to share, and I did do a presentation on our work in Nicaragua that was well received. Here are a few photos from that week.

Tank with hand-washing station beside the school latrines

It wasn't all fun and games, but there was some with Steve Sugden.

Exchange session with WFP staff from Denver, India, Rwanda, England and Guatemala.

Field Supervision in Sauce

I had the opportunity to visit El Sauce and some current projects last week. It's always a pleasure to be in El Sauce as we have a high quality team there. They have won the best team award internally for the last 2 years running.


Here is a happy family with a double pit latrine. You can't see the second pit, it's just off to the right.












Ana Cecilia shows us the new well at Agua Fria in action. Very good quality work on this one.
















A nice stove. Actually stoves are probably were we need to do more work to improve quality, but this one was nice! No smoke is visible (just steam from the pots) and still pretty clean even a year after construction.









And a well in Armenia...

Inaugurating Project with the Red Cross, Camoapa

On Tuesday, Rob attended a project inauguration in La Embajada, Camoapa with the Nicaraguan and Canadian Red Cross, municipal representatives, church representatives and local community members. La Embajada is quite a distance from the town of Camoapa, about 1.5 hours driving. Luckily the road has recently been repaired. They say it used to take up to 4 hours!

The high school kids did a few dance numbers for us which was cute, as shown above.

Although that was nice, it really was all about the 50 latrines that the community built. Here is Flor below from the Red Cross, cutting a ribbon with the latrine owner.

This project was financed by the municipality of Camoapa, the Red Cross and El Porvenir (through donations from several private donors).