Ceramic Filter Sale Day – La Fragoza

For the past several months we have been working with the Honduran NGO, ADEC (Agua y Desarollo Comunitario) and IRWA (International Rural Water Association), on a potable water project in the community of La Fragoza. Our biggest accomplishment up to this point has been organizing and training the JAAS (read about that here) and getting the community members on board with the project – through visits to all of their houses and also several community meetings.

This past Sunday David and I held a “Filters Sale Day” at the community school, complete with refreshments (coffee and sweet rolls), to encourage the families to come and order their ceramic filter.  The filters are made in Sabana Grande, Honduras by a group called Potters for Peace.  The raw cost of the filter, which comes with a 3-5 gallon bucket with a spigot, is 330 Lempiras or about $17.  ADEC subsidizes the community’s first round of filters and in our case the families paid L.100 or a little over $5.  In this project, the community contribution will be used to purchase spare filters, storage buckets, and spigots in the case that these parts break during normal use.  The families will be required to buy these replacements from the JAAS when needed.   The JAAS was on hand to accept the money and practice giving receipts and keeping financial records for the first time – a topic we covered in December during one of their trainings.  We also had drawings of the filters and also the treatment tanks (to be installed in the school) in order to answer any lingering questions.

 

First official filter sale

The community requested that we meet on a Sunday because during coffee harvest (November-April) weekday meetings mean missing work time and losing money.  Transportation is one of the biggest challenges in this project and as there is no scheduled truck route on Sunday we had to rely on our friend, Juan, to drive us up there.  Thanks to Juan for giving up his Sunday morning!

 

Me and my helper serving (very sweet) coffee to the masses

As most things go in Honduras, most of the community members didn’t actually show up until about an hour after the listed start time, but we were really glad to see folks come out and order their filters.  The JAAS did a great job recording the sales and writing the receipts and David and Juan fielded the engineering questions while I addressed some of the health aspects.  All in all it was a very successful day!  By the time we left the JAAS had recorded 22 filter sales out of 36 total families.

 

Two members of the JAAS recording the sales

On Monday we made the trek to Marcala to the ADEC office to crunch some numbers and discuss the next phase of the project.   It can be a pretty long journey (up to 9 hours) but luckily we had a ride with the mayor of Trinidad ¾ of the way.  It was an important trip in terms of settling all of the logistics of the implementation phase and also getting the go ahead to begin scouting another community.  And it didn’t hurt that we got to catch up with Fred and PC friend Zach as well as treat ourselves to Marcala’s finest – empanadas, steak nachos, red wine, and smoked mozzarella cheese all the way from Copán, yum!  Thanks as always to Fred for putting us up and also the continuing support for our projects!

Next week we will be placing the final order for the filters and making the final preparations for the mini treatment plant site so that we can begin the implementation phase of the project in February.