Lucia lives in Paja Colorada, Ecuador. She is the daughter of the community’s founders and grew up working alongside her parents to develop their small but beautiful hometown. Before the team in Ecuador built a water storage and treatment plant, there were no permanent sources of water in this area. Families would spend up to $50 a month (a large portion of their modest rural incomes) for water they acquired from tankers and jerry cans.
To ensure the project’s success, Lucia mobilized her neighbors to support, participate, and learn how to address the problems generated by the lack of access to drinking water. “Currently the community is organized and we are very enthusiastic,” she said after phase one of the project brought water to nearly 3,000 people in 9 communities. “We are now waiting for the pipes that will bring water to reach each home, since being a rural community, we do not have this essential resource.”