[D9640general] [eFlash_Rotary] Digest Number 723

[Garry & Anne Krischock]

 Messages In This Digest (1 Message) 
  1. 1389: April's Project brings clean water to Guatemalans From: Sunil K Zachariah 
Message 
  1. 1389: April's Project brings clean water to Guatemalans 
 Wed Oct 24, 2007 5:44 pm (PST) 
April's Project brings clean water to Guatemalans
By Dan Nixon 

Water poses a paradox to those living in the western highlands of Guatemala. From May to November, heavy rains wash out the unpaved roads that wind between villages at elevations of 10,000 feet or more. Yet during this wet season, residents can obtain water only by walking miles to fill buckets from sparse wells or by using barrels to collect runoff from rooftops.

On a good day, the 38-mile trip northeast from the city of San Marcos 
to the village of San Isidro takes five hours, says April Veness, 
associate professor of geography at the University of Delaware in the 
United States and recipient of a Rotary Grant for University 
Teachers. She's made the commute four times, helping with a Rotary 
Foundation Matching Grant project to install a clean water system in 
San Isidro.

"The people are subsistence farmers, and the houses are scattered 
over a large area," Veness says, explaining that the effort required 
laying miles of pipeline from springs to the village. It "was a huge 
and expensive challenge," she says.

Veness got involved with the project after traveling to Guatemala to 
teach at the Centro Universitario de San Marcos from August 2006 to 
April 2007. To her, it seemed natural to combine teaching and 
research with efforts to better the lives of people in her host 
country.

During her time in Guatemala, Veness and three of her former students 
at the University of Delaware, including 2002-03 Rotary Foundation 
Ambassadorial Scholar Jennifer Koppenhaver, helped forge a network 
between District 7630 (Delaware; Maryland, USA) and the Rotary Club 
of San Marcos, Catholic Diocese of San Marcos, and San Isidro 
community.

"Nearly all of the hundreds of e-mail, telephone, and face-to-face 
communications between Rotarians in District 7630 and San Marcos 
during the Matching Grant application process and water project 
construction were filtered through me," she says. "It was not that I 
asked to be the spokesperson, but the communication difficulties 
posed by differences in language, business practices, and social 
expectations all demanded that someone keep the channels of 
communication open, flowing, and focused on a common objective."

In July, Veness went back to San Isidro to help inaugurate the new 
water system.

"The positive impact of that service project is clearly evident in 
the happy faces of the San Isidro community that, at long last, got 
clean water and latrines," she says. At the ceremony, Veness was 
moved to learn that the effort had been named April's Project in her 
honor.

She's now helping the San Marcos club and Builders Beyond Borders, a 
nonprofit organization based in Connecticut, USA, form a partnership 
to construct a school for the deaf in San Marcos in 2008.

"My role with Rotary as promoter, translator, facilitator, and mentor 
has certainly improved my skills as a public speaker, Spanish 
speaker, project administrator, and teacher," Veness says. "It also 
embedded in me a rich web of support and fellowship that will be 
important to me for years to come." 

Source:Rotary International News 
Courtesy: eFlash_Rotary
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