Guatemala Initiatives

INTEGRATED COMMUNITY AND SCHOOL PROGRAMMING

(School Water Sanitation and Hygiene Education plus Community Impact—SWASH+)

Water For People–Guatemala is rethinking the way conventional school programming is implemented here. Traditionally, schools have been the weakest link in programs: teachers are often underpaid and overworked; those who have received hygiene education training often leave for better schools; and school administrations have limited or nonexistent funding. School-focused programs often become graveyards for broken pumps and dirty, unused latrines.

To address this, Water For People–Guatemala treats schools as part of the wider community, along with local parent associations, governments, and development organizations. Each school intervention is combined with water and sanitation solutions and hygiene education in the associated community, ensuring that hygiene practices taught in schools are reinforced at home. Responsibility for the financing and maintenance of the school water and sanitation system is placed on the community and local government, thus taking the burden off the often overwhelmed and underfunded schools.

WATERSHED MANAGEMENT

Within the last decade, it has become clear that water management, rather than a lack of water resources, is the greatest obstacle to sustainable water access in the developing world. In the Salinas Watershed, the importance of resource management is becoming more apparent. Poverty drives rapid deforestation as people clear more land for fuel; food insecurity leads people to plant more crops and use more water to compensate for poor yields. The resulting environmental degradation shows up as widespread untreated sewage, disappearing plant and animal life, and outbreaks of waterborne diseases.

Water For People–Guatemala is working with the Quiché Water and Sanitation Network (RASKICHE) to coordinate a collaborative diagnosis of water and sanitation conditions in the department. This diagnosis will help align local efforts to protect the watershed. Water For People–Guatemala has also carried the message of watershed protection into its community and school programs, holding training sessions on the water cycle, water pollution, the containment and disposal of human waste, and water source protection. Residents also learn to plant trees around their water sources as well as fence them in, to protect those sources from being accessed and contaminated by animals.