Treasuring water resources
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Authors
Monica Cuba
Issue Date
2017-05
Type
Language
en
es
es
Keywords
Energy
Alternative Title
Abstract
Altamarani an indigenous community in the Bolivian Amazon. Last year people had to descend 30 meters down a hill to collect to water from the river. Now the community has water from a solar pump system that distributes the water to 14 families and the school, in which we have also installed toilets connected to a biodigestor. This project was implemented by Practical Action and Christian Aid to strengthen resilience in the basins of the Beni and Mamo rivers. It was financed by the Department of Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection of the European Union. Luz Mar Chao is only 25 but is already the treasurer of the water committee for Altamarani, a community perched above the Beni river. The surrounding land is being eroded by the recurring flooding of this river. Once a month, this young woman waits in what she calls her ‘office’ for her neighbours to come to pay for the water they have used. “There are people who don’t pay what they owe in a month, but then pay two or three months at once. But they're all paying, says Luz Mar, referring to the 11 families who benefit from the new solar pump which has been providing clean water for more than a year. Before we have to go to collect water from the river, and although it was so dirty we drank it because we had nothing else. Sometimes we used the generator to pump water but we had to go to the town to get diesel. "The water was pumped for two or three days and again we were without water. That was life!” She shrugs. Like others in her community she has to descend 20 metres down a steep slope to the river twice a day and return loaded with the vital liquid, and sometimes with their wet laundry washed in the river. Now they have water that comes directly from the taps in their houses, as a result of this community laying out a water distribution network, installing meters, sinks or taps. By January 2017 they had saved, more than 2000 (£220) Bolivianos from the water service payments "This money has not been touched because there was no need" said Luz Mar. She explained that this is money they will need when they have to change or repair something in the water system. Every month families pay between 10 and 15 (£1 - 1.50) bolivianos for the water they consume and this represents a monthly income of 200 (£22) for the organisation. After paying for the services of the two people who make up the water committee, they pay the money into the joint account that they have opened in a bank in Rurrenabaque: "Once a month, if the chairman of the Committee cannot, I go to town and make the deposit." "We are very happy with the water in our community. We know that we will have water when the floods come, because when the river rises you cannot leave the community. Before you couldn't go to buy fuel for the pump but now we're not going to have to leave the community because the pump is going to work." The solar water pumping system was the result of the participatory assessment of needs and capacities carried out by the community as a form of communal planning and risk management.