Nueva Esperanza de Capire is a remote community located in the Trojes region of Honduras. It is a very mountainous, rural community that takes upwards of 2.5 hours of travel time to access from PWW’s office located in the main town of Trojes. Water sources are abundant in the community. However, water quality analysis results showed the local water is highly contaminated with pathogens. With agriculture as the primary source of income for these families, livestock have greatly contributed to the water contamination due to poor environmental practices. All 60 families living in the community only had access to this contaminated water. Because of this, members of the community regularly suffered from hepatitis, giardia, and other waterborne illnesses; some even died.
Community members from Nueva Esperanza de Capire reached out to Pure Water for the World in 2015 requesting support with their water and sanitation challenges. They were added to the list of communities in high need of WASH support.
In 2020, PWW was finally able to share greats news with community members in Nueva Esperanza de Capire. Thanks to generous funding from WESTECH, Inc., PWW would be coming to begin their safe water, improved sanitation, and hygiene education project that would reach all 290 residents. The community members were overjoyed, as this meant their greatest wishes would be granted.
Today, these families celebrate their new lives. They have reliable access to safe water. They know how to keep their water sources cleaner. They have improved sanitation at their homes. And the school has safe water and sanitation. All in the community have received layers of education, empowering them with the knowledge to use their tools and hygiene practices to protect their health and the health of their community. Life is different. The future holds new hope and opportunity.
The Herrera family lives in Nueva Esperanza de Capire. When asked how the WASH program impacted their lives, here is what Mr. Herrera shared:
“I will say that we no longer expected the project, since PWW had already worked in the neighboring communities for several years. We would always go to the Trojes office to ask, but they weren’t able to give a concrete answer.
Then, in February 2021, one of PWW’s promoters came to tell us that there were funds to work in our community. They said that they would be coming this same month to give us training on hygiene practices. They would explain how to use the filter, although some of us already knew because we had asked families in the neighboring communities where PWW had already worked. It was a great joy for us, because we knew the mothers in our community would no longer have to go to the health center so much with our children who were sick from consuming contaminated water.
When PWW gave us the trainings, it was very important because they helped us understand what things we must change to improve not only our health conditions but also improve our economic conditions. We learned many things regarding the care of our home that we did not do before because we did not know.
And not only did they help us with the filter to treat the water, but they also helped us with materials so that we could build our latrines. With latrines, we would no longer pollute the environment and that will also support the health of our family. Additionally, there are no longer bad odors in the surroundings of the house, nor in the community, because all of us who did not have a latrine now have one.
We are grateful.”