It's More Than Just Water
Photo: Matthièu (first on the right), Research and Development Coordinator at Caminos, engages with community members of Alonso Yañez during a training session, imparting knowledge on their recently installed Groundwater Treatment System.
Our Beginnings: Building A Collective Effort Around the Human Right to Water
Photo: A glimpse of participants at the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, an international human rights body that addressed numerous abuses in Mexico during our formative years.
In 2013, after an extensive two year process, a coalition of actors including Caminos de Agua, numerous grassroots organizations, concerned citizens, representatives from rural communities, and international observers, presented a case in front of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal – an international human rights body that oversaw many abuses in Mexico in our early years of operation. The human right to water was enshrined in the Mexican constitution in 2012, and the focus of this case was to present how the water scarcity and contamination issues in the broader San Miguel de Allende Municipality, and our greater watershed region, was negatively affecting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in many different ways, violating that basic right.
One of the initial steps in building the case was to extensively sample and test hundreds of wells and sites across the watershed to assess arsenic and fluoride levels and the risks to both human health and local economies. At Caminos, we created numerous relationships with hydrogeologists and both Mexican and international universities to do this critical work. We also hired an attorney to build the case who worked closely with numerous grassroots initiatives and other organizations to gather witness testimonies. Our collective findings were presented on a fateful day in September, 2013, where more than 1,000 people, mainly from dozens of rural communities throughout our region, descended on San Miguel to show that they too were impacted by these issues. The Tribunal ultimately declared:
"Given the seriousness of the cases reported regarding overexploitation and contamination of surface and groundwater, and its impact on people and ecosystems, it is recommended that the Mexican government...declare [the entire Upper Río Laja Watershed region] an emergency zone due to the environmental and health risks."
That was the spark that initiated our work and began building the vast network that would be needed to actually address the crisis. Over the years, Caminos de Agua has worked closely with these and many other communities, grassroots organizations, other NGOS, citizens, religious groups, government, foundations, and leading researchers and academics to comprehend the vast scope and complexity of our water crisis and, most importantly, design, propose, and help implement solutions.
Expanding Our Community to Achieve Greater Impact
Photo: Participants of our collaborative initiative "Water Learning Communities" come together for a heartwarming group hug as they conclude another session.
More than 10 years later, and thanks to a renewed and expanded collaboration with the Gonzalo Río Arronte Foundation, we are now significantly enlarging this growing network of actors to embark on our most ambitious and impactful initiative to date. Caminos de Agua, alongside our core partner INANA A.C., recently launched an incredibly aspiring three-year project, which brings together actors from all facets of society to increase our reach, expand into new frontiers, and help more people at-risk in our region access clean water than ever before. We are partnering with 8 grassroots roots organizations and coalitions, new research partners to expand our scope and understanding, other NGOs to launch broader strategies, and government at both the local and state levels.
Today, we’re excited to introduce to you the strategies we’re implementing over the next three years to make a much deeper impact on our water crisis, as well as the community of partnerships we’re building to bring this USD $2.3 million initiative to fruition:
Working alongside long-time grassroots collaborators CUVAPAS, SECOPA, and the San Cayetano Community Center, and in partnership with the Municipal Government of San Diego de la Unión, we’ll be building upwards of 700 rainwater harvesting systems, and installing 1,000+ water filters, in over 70 rural communities – providing a lifetime of clean water to thousands.
We’re not stopping there with rainwater. We’ve already launched a new initiative with the NGOs Salvemos al Río Laja and Tikkun Eco Center to implement a large-scale reforestation and restoration program, which includes building a massive water retention reservoir that will hold 10s of millions of liters of rainwater, increasing water security and changing the environment for an entire community.
We’re also working with the Municipal Government of San Diego de la Unión on a series of water quality studies that will update data on arsenic and fluoride levels for regional wells and provide that information in a series of workshops to the 31 impacted rural communities, followed by a National Forum in 2025. Working directly with local government – who in the past often preferred to sweep water quality problems under the rug – greatly enhances the credibility of these issues at a national level.
After years of collaboration with numerous university, academic, and technical partners – like NC State University, Imperial College of London, and Gonzaga University (just to name a few) – we are implementing our second community-scale Groundwater Treatment System (GTS), which removes arsenic and fluoride from an entire village’s water supply, in partnership with Alonso Yáñez – a rural community of more than 1,500 people.
There’s much more happening with our GTS project. Over the next three years, we’re preparing to install 6 community-scale GTS’ and are currently working closely with the State Water Commision of Guanajuato to certify GTS, paving the road for widespread implementation well beyond our watershed. (Learn more about GTS here).
We are also expanding deeper into the public health impacts of our water crisis, collaborating with the National Public Health Institute of Mexico, Columbia University, and the University of Colorado to execute a pioneering public health study to gauge biomarkers for kidney damage in 70 children exposed to excessive fluoride in the community of Alonso Yáñez (learn more here).
Working closely with INANA A.C. and the UCIRED (The Campesino and Indigenous University Network), we will introduce a comprehensive educational program called The Water School, which, over the course of at least two years, will train 30 aspiring community organizers, mostly young women, to create a new generation of environmental stewards and community leaders dedicated to watershed revitalization and community well-being.