Project Name: Sustainable Models for the Financing and Provision of Household Connections

Project Name In Spanish: Conexiones intradomiciliarias a agua potable y saneamiento.

Location: Cañasgordas, Antioquia. 

Description:

In Colombia, there are currently 3.3 million homes without running water and 4 million homes without sewage connections. The lack of these basic necessities has had detrimental effects on the population as it has affected not only the country’s workforce and productivity, but also the children and their chance at an education. One such example is that over 1 million cases of diarrhea occur every year in Colombia and 45% of children who drop out of school do so due to diarrhea. In rural areas of the country, these cases worsen as 92% of the population has no access to clean water. 

These situations can easily be prevented by connecting the homes to aqueducts and sewerage system. However, many low-income families in Colombia lack the financial options needed to do so, and as such are unable to improve their homes and provide basic necessities for their children.  To solve this issue Give To Colombia designed and implemented a sustainable, innovative, and financially inclusive model for the community in Cañasgordas and the local companies. This model also included a socio-economic and technical diagnostic, as well as a social marketing strategy where we reached out to the families in Cañasgordas and informed them of the health benefits that clean water could provide.  

As part of this intervention we built the infrastructure that provides families with water services and proper sewerage connections, and installed basic sanitary infrastructure such as kitchen sinks, bathroom sinks, toilets, showers, and kitchen faucets. Through our efforts 205 families or 824 individuals can now drink clean water, wash their plates and utensils, and do so many simple tasks they could not before. This project has won the award for the Most Innovative Water & Sanitation Project in Latin America and the Caribbean by the Inter-American Development Bank and FEMSA in October of 2014 and has now become the inspiration for our Water Flow game.