Meet María del Rosario, the Woman Who is Managing a Groundbreaking Water Solution in Los Ricos

Photo: María del Rosario, a local mother from the community of Los Ricos, who has become the manager of an innovative new water solution serving her community.

While Los Ricos is located right on the banks of the Laja River – the main river in northern Guanajuato – dozens of families in the upper part of the community lack access to affordable, clean, and safe drinking water. Given that the community well doesn’t reach many of these families, residents here often have to pump water from the river into containers and transport them back to their homes. However, the Laja River is now only seasonal, carrying no water at all for most of the year. That means for the families in Los Ricos, the only year-round water source continues to be the community’s well, which not only provides water inconsistently, but is also heavily contaminated with arsenic and fluoride. These chemicals are extremely detrimental to human health when consumed regularly and can cause chronic kidney disease, dental and skeletal fluorosis (the browning of teeth and deformation of bones), skin lesions, cognitive development and learning disabilities in children, and several types of cancer.

Photo: A beneficiary (on left) and Allie, Caminos' Director of Technology (on right), inspecting our GTS filtering medium.

“We had many years without safe drinking water, while taking care of the GTS is hard work, it’s changed the reality of my family and community.”

– María del Rosario, from the community of Los Ricos

Our first GTS in Los Ricos has been “live” for months now, providing the participating families all the clean drinking and cooking water they need. This system is now administered directly by local community leaders, like María del Rosario. As a community member and a mother, she is all too familiar with the effects of our regional water crisis. The direct risks associated with drinking contaminated water, and a deep desire to help safeguard her own family and community, pushed Rosario to do something about the situation. Since 2019, she’s been part of a series of workshops and training sessions for understanding and testing GTS. Today, Rosario is responsible for taking regular water samples, helping maintain the treatment system, and she works closely with Caminos team members to figure out how to take GTS to more people in her own community and soon how to replicate it in others.