The Mothers of Salitrillo: From Beneficiaries to Facilitators

Photo: María de Jesús (first from right to left) explaining our water issues to a group of members from the community of Salitrillo.

Pictured above is María de Jesus. She is a mother, a beneficiary, a volunteer, and now a facilitator – creating solutions for her community. Together with her fellow community members, Rosa and Katrina, María has been working closely with Caminos de Agua to make the residents of Salitrillo more aware of the water issues that are directly affecting them.

In 2019, in partnership with Caminos de Agua, the members of Salitrillo built a large-scale rainwater harvesting system at the community's elementary school. Through this process, Maria learned why she and her family were starting to have health problems, what it meant, and that something could be done about it. It became crystal clear to her, and the other two mothers, that it all begins with awareness and education. With that in mind, the three of them, with training from Caminos, have been running workshops and providing educational materials so that as many community members as possible are aware of the water issues they are facing, what their health risks are, what they can do about it, and how to do it.

“We all need to learn about our water issues to make changes and have better health”

– María de Jesús, from the Salitrillo Community

As a result of this effective “train the trainer” effort, Caminos de Agua and this group of committed community leaders have motivated dozens of families to become organized and take action. Impressed by our collaboration, the Municipal Government of San Miguel has already signed on to provide the funds to help build 20 more of these rainwater systems in Salitrillo, and we plan to build at least 20 more during the next 12 months in this community. This means that not only will all these families have clean drinking water, they will also avoid the horrible and debilitating health consequences that come from continuously consuming water contaminated with arsenic and fluoride.