Water for People's rural Honduras water purification program

¶ … Working for an organization known as Water for People has been one of the most rewarding experiences in life. The position of international communications representative has provided varied chances to interact at international level with authorities and communities. The program proposed herein is based on the rural population of Honduras and in particular in Tela village as the starting point that will also act as a pilot project under this wider program that is meant to cover majority of the Honduras rural areas.

The vision of Water for People is "a world where every person has access to reliable and safe drinking water and sanitation" and it is in line with this vision that the water for rural Honduras program comes in to be essential and applicable for the local people. The program is meant to introduce and efficient and cheap way of providing water to the villages in Honduras using the reverse osmosis technology to purify large volumes of water. The water purification plants will be located within the targeted villages and the local human resource will be used and people trained on how to run the plant effectively and also how to repair it.

The program aims at having the targeted rural population served with safe and adequate water for all the domestic use as well as the agricultural use. By the end of the program implementation phase, the Water for People looks forward to having at least one purification firm for every 50 families in the rural Honduras with a capacity of purifying 24,000 gallons per day. This is the largest volume that is available that uses reverse osmosis to purify water as indicated by Blue Spring Corporation, (2011). This will be adequate to serve the population efficiently.

Water situation in Honduras

Since the hurricane Mitch catastrophe in 1998, there have been serious repercussions one of them being the chronic water shortage dues to damaged water supply infrastructure. It was indeed categorized as the deadliest hurricane to have ever hit the region since the 1780 hurricane (National Climatic Data Center, 2009).

The USAID (2003) estimated the economic growth to be slightly exceeding the population growth and that it had little effect on the poverty reduction and to date an approximate of 2/3 or the Honduran households still live in abject poverty. Like many other third world countries, Honduras suffers great unemployment, high commercial interest rates, legal institutions that are weak, high illiteracy and corruption. All these culminate in poor social service, water supply being the direst. The failure to efficiently manage the water resources has given birth to the inadequate water supply, inefficient irrigation systems, poor quality of drinking water, lack of adequate energy generation, sewerage system stalling, annual floods, sewage related diseases and destruction of the marine habitats within and around Honduras.

Program objectives

Behavior objectives

Having noted that there is little or no rain harvesting in the rural Honduras, the program aims at sensitizing the people of Honduras towards embracing the rain water harvesting and hygienic storage of the same. This will subsidize the tapped water from the central water tank reserves which is the primary focus of the program.

Project justification before stakeholders

The intended water supply for the rural Honduras is aimed at using the revers osmosis system to purify water. This process will actively engage the locals who will not only benefit from the water, but also the knowledge of how to effectively operate and repair these water purifiers that will be located at central areas within the village. It is important that the program be allowed to be initiated since it will be focused on the poor, rural people of the Honduras. The rural population is also adversely affected by the underemployment crisis and hence cannot afford the amenities that the town folks who are better paid can afford like the piped water or buying clean water from water vendors. The underemployment goes to a staggering 75% hence the seriousness of the matter that extends to the water situation (U.S. Library of Congress, 2011). Most of the population here draw water directly from the rivers and use it as it is without caring about the safety. This predisposes them to waterborne diseases and other pandemics that are related to poor hygiene.

The program also needs to be supported to the implementation since there is the menace of having to buy water for the people who live far from the available water bodies. It is a common sight in Honduras for people to draw water from the rivers and sell it to the people off the water sources after transporting it on bicycles. This then makes is expensive for the people living in such areas to have access to water and even those who can afford, they still get untreated water and have to find means of purifying it.

Implementation plan

The commencement of the program will start off once the full amount for the first year shall have been acquired. This is to ensure that the program doesn't come to standstill having committed some amount yet not significant progress has been made. This will be followed by training of the volunteers by the specialists in the water purifying and the environmental specialists. The training is expected to take between 3 to 4 months. After this, there will be construction of the offices after dully notifying the relevant authorities. This will then be followed by intense ground work among the targeted population. There will be division of the areas in target groups of 300,000 rural people at a time.

Program platform

The water purification and rain harvesting program, being a socially motivated initiative will be channeled through the social avenues like the churches, mosques, schools, voluntary membership groups and organizations. There will be a sensitization drive that will be channeled through the relevant local government offices after which there will be organized meetings with the churches and the schools where the social agenda will be explained and made clear. There will be brochures given to the influential social leaders explaining the details of the program so that they can explain and present the program agenda and details to their respective groups.

The incentives

The incentives that will be availed in the whole process include tokens that will be extended to the locals who will volunteer in the construction of the purification plants. Since these plants will involve land acquisition, there is planned reimbursement of the people who allow the plants to be erected in their land so that they do not feel victimized by the projects.

Location of the program offices

During the entire program, there will be various offices that will be erected in various parts of the rural regions in Honduras. There will be at least one office in every 50 families that will be responsible for the overseeing the construction of the purification plant at the individual project levels. There will be one central office that will be based in capital city of Honduras. This will be the office that will be responsible for the coordination of all the other offices at the grassroots and soliciting for the resources, both monetary and technical for the program.

Communication for the program

Bearing the vast geographic area and the population that is to be covered, there are some means that have been chosen as the prime means of communicating during the implementation of the program. The main program communication tools are leaflets that will be passed on to the target groups through the regional representatives, newspaper columns explaining the major points or concerns of the program, hosting of radio programs and talk shows that will drive home the meaning and the finer details of the program, social networks like facebook, twitter that will enable members as well as non-members to give their ideas and get information from the program. There will also be a website dedicated to the program in the country in specific that will generate from time to time the updates and any relevant information that may be pertinent to the target population and any other interested parties.

Budget of the program

The program is deemed to be a bit costly bearing that it will be covering a large section and running for years in order to effectively cover the intended region. The first phase will require $250 million to help set up the initial offices, plus cars for the project and purchase of the materials that will be used in the construction of the various purification plants. Part of the money will also cater for the civil education among the rural folks from various regions about the program and the rain water harvesting techniques. In the subsequent 5 years, there is expected to be a lower budget since the materials shall have been bought and all will be needed is the operational funds hence and estimated $50 million will be sufficient per year.

Program Evaluation and monitoring

For the effective results, there will be two project managers that will be assigned to each purification plant whose main duty will be to ensure that the objectives of the program among the population is met and adequately implemented. They will be reporting to the central office in the capital city in a monthly basis giving details of the progress and setbacks. They will also be responsible for maintaining a log of the use of the resources allocated to their projects, which will be done on a daily basis and the log must be presented after every two weeks to the central office. These logs from various projects will then be accordingly recorded in the respective online files for each project in a condensed form. This is aimed at enhancing transparency in the use of allocated resources and also accountability.

Once the plants are established, there will be a once in three month's inspection that will be carried out to ensure that the plants are well maintained and working in proper condition. There will also be evaluation of the benefits of the project to the communities living around the projects and this will be contracted to the community development experts who will be able to professionally evaluate the economic and social progress of the beneficiaries of the program.

Possible challenges

The program is aimed at helping the locals but as usual there is expected resistance to it. As indicated there before, the land issue in Honduras is a thorny issue and the scarcity of land is bound to elicit controversy when it comes to allocation of land for the construction of the purification plant. This may as well illicit resistance from the civil society who may view the aim of the project as a malicious way of the foreigners to grab land from the locals.

The social and ethical authenticity and intention of the program is also bound to be questioned by many residents who are accustomed to their rivers and dams and only view the annual epidemics as acts of God that cannot be avoided but must be accommodated year in year out and any foreign interventions may not be welcomed smoothly.