Rotary District 6840 has generously awarded a grant of $5000 to support the San Miguel de Allende Midday Club’s rainwater harvesting project in the region of the Independence Aquifer, Guanajuato, Mexico. The aquifer has been declining at a precipitous rate, and the remaining ground water is being contaminated by excess fluoride and arsenic leeching out of the volcanic bedrock, exceeding WHO standards. Consumption results in a variety of irreversible serious illnesses, including diminished IQ levels, dental and skeletal fluorosis, kidney failure, and cancer. Rotary San Miguel Midday has sought a Global Grant for education, construction materials, and training for construction of 282 water harvesting systems.
The 12,000-liter family rainwater harvesting systems are self-constructed by work teams to provide themselves with safe, potable drinking water on a year-round basis. This provides “ownership” among the recipients, and the labor they supply reduces the cost per cistern by one-half of what it would cost to pay outside contractors to build them. The cisterns are filled during the annual summer rainfall, so dwindling ground water is no longer an issue. A single cistern can serve a family of up to 8 members. The families continue to maintain the water collection systems once the project is completed, and with minimal, low-cost maintenance, the cisterns will last families for multiple generations.
The water harvesting program was begun in December 2008 by Rotarian Laura Stewart. To date, 1,100 cisterns have been constructed in 50 villages. There have been 23 international Rotary partners and eleven international district partners participating in previous projects. Over 6700 people have substantially benefitted. Our District’s contribution will bring $10k to the project with a TRF match, enabling 19 more families to receive materials to construct their cisterns.
San Miguel Midday has been recognized in the Rotary Leader magazine for the way they plan and manage these projects; the magazine cover is a photo from one of the water projects, and the recognition is on page 5. The link is: http://www.rotaryleader-en.org/rotaryleader-en/en201803?pg=5#pg5.
Berkeley and several Rotary Clubs have been doing this great international service project since 2003 (please see the links below). It has been a TRF-sanctioned, and partially TRF-funded project, and they expect TRF to finalize their current Global Grant in the next few weeks. The continuing project has made a huge difference in the lives of many children and families of this rather remote area of Nayarit state in southwestern Mexico.
Susan Simon and I are participating in this project due to the fact that the Rotary Berkeley Club gave up this Mexico project for 3 years to come to New Orleans to help put Warren Easton back together to help get it open and then continued to come back to improve it after it opened.
Needless to say, we in New Orleans are sincerely grateful and owe a debt of gratitude to the Rotarians led by Berkeley for the work they did and the leadership they gave during our time of need after Katrina. They reached out from California and found us. The two years they came here, in 2006 and 2007, interrupted their annual projects in Mexico. Our gain was a needy Mexican community’s loss. This is a chance to pay back a little of what they did for us.
The deadline to register for this project is April 6th. Please heavily consider joining us.
The neutral ground is located on Poydras Street between Tchoupitoulas Street and South Peters Street. The new signs make it easy to see where you need to go. Two or three Rotarians are scheduled each week, but you can get creative and have others help if you wish. If you cannot work during the scheduled week, try to switch off with someone else. During your week, the deal is to pick up trash or broken limbs you find on the neutral ground. You can bring your own garbage bag and gloves. The trash pick up takes less than 15 minutes but be careful on the busy street. After you are finished, just throw the garbage bag into one of the public trash containers on Poydras Street.
Week of 03/26/18, Demetrius Porche, Fred Preis
Week of 04/02/18, Francis Quinn, Barbara Rath
During the year, we will arrange to do more gardening work on the neutral ground and go to lunch afterward.
REMEMBER that in addition to keeping up this stretch of Poydras Street, this is a great way to get to know your fellow Rotarians. Also, if you cannot perform your assigned task think about getting a group of younger folks to handle it for you. They can be Interactors, high schoolers looking for community service hours or just folks looking for a way to get involved.
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