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).

EP Presentation at Bay Ridge Church, NY

As advertised, El Porvenir made a presentation at Bay Ridge United Church during the coffee hour. The church made a generous donation of $500 to El Porvenir afterwards. Here is a shot of some of board of the church with Rob Bell, Executive Director. Thanks to Bob A for organizing the event.

EP Presentation in Ottawa

El Porvenir made it's first Ottawa presentation this month. Hopefully the first of many... Here is a shot of some of the attendees with Rob Bell, Executive Director. Thanks to Tom M for organizing the event.

Success Story - Las Vueltas

Dona Arcadia de la comunidad de las Vueltas, es una madre soltera que tiene 3 hijas adolescentes. Antes, ellas debian ir a traer agua hasta la quebrada, esto era peligroso porque el camino es solo y la distancia muy larga.

En la actualidad Dona Arcadia y sus hijas tienen agua en su casa a traves de una puesto domiciliar.

"Ahora ya no me preocupo por lo que les pueda pasar algo a mis chavalas en el camino y sobretodo el agua es mejor: - Dona Arcadia

In the community of Las Vueltas is a single mother named Arcadia who has three young daughters. Before EP's project, they would journey to get their water from a river gorge. It was dangerous because it was a very long isolated path to the river.

Now, after working with EP, the family has water in their house.

"Now, our water is better and I don't have to worry that something could happen to my daughters on that journey to get water" - Arcadia