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After confirming the sanitary conditions of schools in La Mosquitia, UNICEF returned to
the area, located east of the country to witness the evolution of the water and sanitation
projects taking place in this region, one of the most remote in Honduras.
The Honduran Mosquitia has struggled for decades with limited access to clean water and poor
sewage services; on our last visit, we met MARIBEL CALDERON, THE SLIMA LILA SCHOOL PRINCIPAL,
who showed us the school well, which, lacking a pump, was only a danger to children playing
around it. Today, thanks to the project improving water access and sanitation funded by UNICEF
and Water for the People, installed one rope pump, a simple, economic system that can be
easily repaired to provide safe water to the school.
Well, now everything is easier because the children no longer go out to look for water
elsewhere and the women who come to prepare the snack do not have to fetch wáter elsewhere
either, the children will no longer relieve themselves outside the school, now everything
is easier because it helps us a lot in making use of the bathroom and kitchen; after eating,
the children wash their plates and glasses, they wash their hands.
Lack of potable water is less obvious, but more significant in the lack of good health
practices that it carries, children in La Mosquitia often relieve themselves outdoors
for lack of latrines in their homes, the school is virtually the only place where they can
access healthy bathrooms. Glenda Coleman is president of the Committee
for Child Sanitation of the Chino Tatallon school, an association of students who seek
to change behavior that threatened the health of the community.
The activities we do are cleaning, maintaining the bathrooms clean, we wash the bathrooms
every time we do the cleaning, we rake the yard, the whole yard, we wash the classrooms,
chairs and all.
The bet on schools' health infrastructures has also reached the most remote communities
of the city; after a forty minute boat ride through the Caratasca lagoon and its canals,
we met with Tun Tun Tara , one of communities with higher basic sanitation challenges , the
people of this community used to use contaminated river water for cooking, bathing and drinking.
Until recently, The Froilan Turcios school's latrines were dilapidated and their use was
minimal. Today , the school has not only healthy latrines, but also complementary construction
work, such as tanks to recollect rainwater for the students' use, concrete paths to access
the latrines , Wells, pumps and wáter basins. This Project, valued at nearly two million
lempiras has an even more valuable component, the work and organization done by community
residents for the construction of health infrastructure .
The installed pumps help not only the schools, but have also become the main sources of water
for entire communities , completely transforming the way of life of nearly seven thousand inhabitants
of La Mosquitia; better access to water and improved sanitation customs have resulted
in fewer diseases, greater assistance in schools, and healthier children who do not drop out
of school.
They had to go get water from that river, washing clothes, drinking that water, with
unimaginable contamination, with diseases, thank God we have dropped the high rates of
illnesses, mainly diarrhea, and the malnutrition that also came from that.
The project to improve water access and sanitation has already covered sixteen schools in ten
communities in La Mosquitia, ensuring the supply of safe water to sixteen hundred children
and the rest of the community that makes use of sanitary facilities. UNICEF and Water for
People plan, in the coming years, to extend the project to other communities in the area
neglected because of the distance and poverty, while in communities such as Puerto Lempira,
La Catara Tun Tun Tara and La Catavila will continue efforts to educate the people in
the proper use of water and hopefully the next time we return, we will find more healthy
children.