Project Status at Visit: Complete – Successful | Project Implementer: Agua Para la Salud and Save the Children
Date of Visit: April 2010 | Report by: Jodi Moss | Photos by: Tristan Moss
Agua para la Salud, an internationally funded Guatemala not-for-profit organization working in partnership with Save the Children, recently installed a hand-washing station and five latrines at the school in the Guatemalan village of Xesupio. Previously, the school had only one faucet and two pit toilets for its 70 students.
Xesupio is a remote village in the Guatemalan highlands. The village can be reached only by foot along a two kilometer trail from a dirt road. The children at this school have few luxuries. According to Antonio Brito Perez (school director) and Elena de Paz (teacher), the school has an annual budget of only US$6 per student per year. Food and other materials often are a priority over hygiene and water.
The new facilities built by Agua para la Salud and Save the Children provide a cleaner environment for the students. They also provide the tools necessary to teach the children healthy hygiene habits.
Agua Para la Saud is a member of Blue Planet Network’s Peer Water Exchange, working to bring safe drinking water to those in need. Over the past 14 years, it has completed over 35 water systems and over 200 school-related water projects in Guatemala.