Public Water Faucets Are Today’s Fountains
These recently renovated colonial-styled public water faucets can be found in and around many of the villages of La Antigua Guatemala. Like I said yesterday, the presence of these chorros as the water faucets are called in Guatemala, is a sure sign that there are still houses in the villages without piped water service.
The woman in yesterday’s picture hauling the water on her head filled her bucket precisely from one of these grifos, which is by the way the proper Spanish word for faucet.
Stephanie requested that we include information on water projects (NGO or otherwise) that could use support. Interesting enough, Revue Magazine, included a profile of Wells of Hope a few months ago as part of the People and Projects series. I thank Stephanie for the suggestion and I will try to find other similar projects to highlight during the water series.
Here’s some information I grabbed from the Wells of Hope web site:
Wells of hope is determined to make a difference! Overcoming many roadblocks, hurdles and frustrations, the Wells of Hope Group has successfully transported it’s own drilling equipment to Jalapa, one of the poorest regions of Guatemala, Central America.
In this mountainous terrain, the women are enslaved to walking anywhere from two to ten kilometres per day in search of precious, life-giving water.
They fulfill this backbreaking task by carrying on their heads twenty litre buckets of dirty, bacteria infested water over steep, mountainous terrain, to their mud-brick, one room home This contaminated water, the only source of water available to these poor, mountain communities, ends the lives of many a child before he or she sees it’s third birthday. Wells of Hope has successfully drilled many deep-water wells in these water-starved communities, ranging in depth from six hundred to one thousand two hundred feet. (continue reading at Wells of Hope)
I will write to Wells of Hope to find out how much does it cost to drill a well, for instance?
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