Beyond Education, Building Regional Consciousness

Photo: Participants in the Water Learning Communities working together at the San Cayetano Community Center in San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato.

Nurturing Hope, Resilience, and Deeper Understanding through Water Education

At the heart of our impact is our educational programming – a robust foundation that goes well beyond workshops and lectures. Our dedicated team of community organizers and educators tirelessly spearheads initiatives that not only seek to impart information on our shared water crisis, as well as technical expertise to build solutions, but also foster a profound sense of community engagement and solidarity. 

A shining example of this is illustrated over the last three years in our “Agua y Salud” (or "Water & Health") Project – a deeply collaborative venture that brought together numerous organizational partners, grassroots and community groups, government, and dozens of community leaders across more than 70 different rural villages in our watershed. Through the implementation of this project, which included the building of more than 700 rainwater harvesting systems, construction of ecological dry toilets, meticulous water quality analyses, and installation of water filters, we’ve made incredible strides as a collaborative to ensure clean and accessible water for more than 1,000 families in this project alone (more on this project in general later in this series). 

Both the heart and soul of the “Agua y Salud” Project can be seen in the The Water Learning Community Program – an educational and learning space led jointly by Inana A.C., our main organizational partner, and Caminos de Agua. Over the course of the three year project, we held 12 Water Learning Community sessions, each two days in length, bringing together more than 60 community leaders from throughout our watershed, as well as partner organizations and experts from around the country, all united by a shared passion for safeguarding water resources and revitalizing traditional practices. 

“We are people who know how to help, support, accompany, and sustain… We motivate, coordinate, drive, encourage, and deliver… We are responsible… We would like to ensure that the places that still [provide for] us will continue to provide for new generations.”

Photo: Participants in theWater Learning Communities coming together in celebration with a massive group hug.

These Water Learning Community sessions served as a comprehensive training and capacity building program as well as a center for reflection and mutual learning for emerging community leaders, grassroots initiatives, and diverse organizations throughout the Upper Rio Laja watershed region, and beyond. These sessions also allowed for an interchange of ideas and experiences from communities across the watershed who share similar challenges but are often disconnected from one another. By bringing these diverse actors together, we started assembling a larger “watershed consciousness” where a community from one municipality can realize the impact their actions can have in another community, located dozens, or even hundreds, of kilometers away. By focusing on this watershed-wide model, together, we are helping create a unity throughout the region that can strengthen community knowledge and participation to help better protect our shared water resources, as well as collectively confront other future challenges – moving the focus from the individual community mindset, disconnected from larger issues, to a unified regional ethos. 

“The watershed is in danger, this place we grew up in, [it’s] our identity, our body… If the watershed is sick, then I am sick... The watershed is also the future. It means seeing our territory as a dignified place to live.”

Beyond the local sphere, visitors from various regions also participated as a mutual learning experience. Insights from different territories serve as mirrors, reflecting and inspiring innovative solutions for local challenges. The resilience, unity, and forward-thinking strategies observed in these sessions offer a blueprint for sustainable living and community empowerment.

“What they tell us about what is happening in their territories tells us something about what is happening here.”

Snapshot: Water Learning Community participants gather under the sheltering branches of a Mezquite tree after a long day of working together on a joint land restoration project. 

The spirit of the Water Learning Communities goes well beyond workshops or meetings; it represents inclusivity, knowledge sharing, and a commitment to collective learning – which transforms into collective action. It’s a space where every voice carries weight. Documenting the experiences through diverse mediums has also helped us preserve the heritage of the watershed,  connects to its narratives on a higher plane, and helps prepare us for the actions we have, and will continue, to take to ensure clean water access for the 700,000+ residents in our watershed.

To learn more about our Water Learning Community Program, and download materials like the collective books we have created, stickers, videos, and audio testimonials, visit the micro-website created specifically for this program (currently only available in Spanish): https://www.inana-ac.org/caa