The ETAP, APLV's Water Technician School
The ETAP (Escuela Técnica de Agua Potable in Spanish, or Potable Water Technical School) is a cornerstone of APLV's sustainability program. APLV Nicaragua trains its own water technicians, turning out a new class of eight or so local experts every two years or so. These technicians come from rural, agricultural areas all over Nicaragua. They grew up in the very villages that they'll be developing water systems for, and lived the life of the communities where they serve.
The ETAP started with a class of five students in the mid-1990's (see the history of the ETAP), and is typically a program of slightly more than two years. APLV advertises through the municipalities and NGOs all over Nicaragua to attract the cream of the crop of graduating high school seniors. Applicants must be high school graduates, be from rural areas, and have scarce financial resources. Eight students are accepted into each two-year program.
We were delighted to be able to spend an afternoon with the current class of 7 students who are just finishing up their program and wanted to share a little bit about them. They've spent just over two years studying and will complete their classwork in March, 2012, after which they'll spend a few months in the field working on APLV projects.
The six young men and one woman told much the same story of how they arrived at the school. Each was from a rural, agricultural area and finished high school successfully, but had few options to go forward with education because there was no money available. Each had the skills to manage cattle or raise beans, knew how to use a horse to do whatever was needed, and was completely ready for a life of agriculture, near the family, in a fairly sheltered and yet challenging world, but wanted to do something more. They had to send the school a letter of application, and then, having passed that round in the selection process, had to travel all the way to Rio Blanco for the entrance examination. For most, this was the most significant travel of their lives. And of course, once they were accepted, it meant coming to Rio Blanco and living in the dormitory accommodations of the school for two years. Can you imagine being the single woman in that dormitory? She says it was one of the primary challenges.
The academic rigor is striking - These students attend class from 8-12am and 2-5pm five days each week, for more than two years. The school's intent is all about mastery, not just exposure to the material, and they study social organization, mathematics (through trigonometry, calculus, and many water-oriented specialties), computer use, surveying, health, environmental topics, physics, hydraulics, and quite a selection of other topics. The end goal, of course, is to be able to design and lead implementation of a water project in a rural community. They have to be able to use Autocad and specialty water design software alongside the more mundane Microsoft Word and Excel, have to be understand how to organize a community to construct a water project and how to write reports about it.
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Latest News from APLV
Agua Para La Vida in Rio Blanco received visits from two friends and donors from the US.
January 2-10, 2012: Randy Fay and Nancy Lewis
Randy Fay and Nancy Lewis, friends of APLV, with Jaime Alonso (Technical Directory) and Esteban Cantillano (Project Followup Director) visited San Isidro, El Carmen, El Carrizal, and La Enea. They wrote about each of the projects on the website.
January 18: Laird Norton Family Foundation
10 people from the Laird Norton Family Foundation (donrs) visited La Esperanza together with Jaime Alonso, Esteban Cantillano, and Denis and Cecilia Barea (Directors of the ETAP). The family members and the La Esperanza committee met together and discussed the project completed in this community.
Caño Seco, Siuna RAAN.
The Caño Seco project is in the final stage of execution, with the official delivery to the community scheduled for 12 March, 2012, with Thierry Sciari (representative of Res Publica, France), the donor present.
ETAP (Technical School for Potable Water) - APLV
The ETAP is in the final phases of receiving applications for the Water Technicians course for 2012-2015.
Young people interested in studying this technical program still have a short time to send their applications via the APLV office in Rio Blanco. They can contact Denis and Cecilia Barea, directors of the ETAP, at 2778-0538, Cel: 84953535.
Rehabilitation of APLV Projects
Introduction
(Translated from the Spanish language original by Esteban Cantillano)
APLV has been building potable water and sanitation projects in remote communities in Nicaragua since 1987. Those projects have helped thousands of families to reduce water-borne illnesses. The projects themselves are maintained on a day-to-day basis by the community itself, which was trained by APLV water technicians and health and environmental promoters. Massive changes in community lifestyle have resulted, with communities using pure water, improved personal cleanliness, and completely changed relationship with the environment.
Why Projects Have to be Rehabilitated
Many changes take place as a project goes through its useful life. Population increases, with new families moving in and family growth, community development and change, new forms of income, and new types of work. read more »
Pablo and Jose, Graduates of the ETAP School
We had the pleasure of sitting down with two graduates of the ETAP (The Potable Water Technical School, or Escuela Técnica de Agua Potable) yesterday. Pablo Gomez Martinez, 31, and José Mendoza López, 28, graduated from the rigorous program in 2008, in the fourth graduating class.
El Carrizal: A Demonstration of APLV Project Sustainability
Yesterday we visited El Carrizal, Matguás. It's quite a lot closer to Rio Blanco than the previous visits we did, but we still spent a couple of hours getting there, partly on the terrible "paved" road out of Rio Blanco, and then on a rough dirt road.
El Carmen, Matiguás Site Visit
San Isidro, Matiguas Project Site Visit
On Wednesday January 4, 2012, we visited the neighboring communities of San Isidro and El Carmen, which are a very long ways down a dirt road from the town of Matiguas in the Department of Matagalpa.
San Isidro, El Carmen, and Quirragua are three projects that share the same water source, which is up on a far hilside from San Isidro and El Carmen. Quirragua is much closer to the water source, but much more difficult to reach. San Isidro and El Carmen share the same water delivery line, but have separate water tanks and distribution networks. Neither community has electricity, although a few houses have a little bit of electricity gathered from solar panels. read more »
Water Meters for Each House: An APLV Standard
For the last five years, every new APLV project has deployed water meters for every "puesto" - every water tap for every house.
Although it increases the initial cost of the project, the return on investment is impressive.
- Water waste stops immediately. There are no more faucets left running.
- Conflict about water usage between the water committee and community members is resolved because the meter does the job.
- The treasury of the water committee grows, to better handle maintenance tasks.
Every month the committee member with the job of reading meters visits each household to read the meter, determines the usage for the month, and collects the payment due.
Most communities use a flat monthly rate of 30 Nicaraguan Cordobas (about US$1.30) for the first 15 cubic meters (4000 US Gallons, or 15,000 liters) of water and 5 Cordobas for every cubic meter beyond that. Except for larger households, or when they have lots of company, the base rate works out fine for most households. Everybody recognizes that it's way below the true cost (and value) of the water, but it's a fair contribution allowing the committee to build up the treasury for future maintenance.
La Enea: The Story of One Project
We revisited La Enea on January 5, 2012 to see how the project had ended up. I had come to the site at the height of construction in February, 2008, and seen what the construction looked like and how the diversion was being done, but we wanted to see what had happened after the project was completed. We were amazed at the success of the project, the prospective sustainability, and the maturity of both APLV's approach and the La Enea community's response.
Beginnings: The "Solicitud", or Application Letter
The impressive project at La Enea was completed in 2008 after 20 years of dashed hopes. The community, which had enormous water problems, had sought to solve them over the years by approaching organization after organization, both governmental and non-governmental, asking for help. But although many promised, none came through. Finally an evangelical pastor in the area who was familiar with Agua Para La Vida mentioned that he had heard of it and encouraged them to get in contact.
As always, the official process began with a "Solicitud", an informal letter of application, explaining the community's need, possible water sources, the names committee members who would back the bid for a water system, and the estimated population of the community.
First Impressions: A Community in Dire Need
Okawás Formal System Handover
The village of Okawás, whose water system was completed in 2006, had the formal handover ceremony on February 18, 2008, along with a visit from the entire APLV team to see the final results. Thierry Sciari, representing the French funding organization Res Publica, flew from France for the ceremony.
To get to Okawás from the quite rural town of Rio Blanco, you have to travel about an hour and a half on dirt roads, then cross a river on a small boat and go another hour or more on foot or horseback, so getting the entire team, along with a piñata for the kids and a band for the music up there was no small accomplishment.
The entire village was ready, cleaned up, and decorated for the occasion. The dedicated health promoters Lillan and Gregoria went right to work with their regular survey and check-up, seeing whether the outhouses were being used and the water "puestos" were being managed correctly, and checking into the health (quite a lot improved) of the various families. Thierry and several others went by horseback to see the water tank and the water source, now completely finished. Finally, the full ceremony began - a ribbon-cutting followed by serving good, fresh, clean water to the children, lots of speeches to solemnify the occasion, lunch, and (what the kids were waiting for) the piñata. read more »