Dear Project Schoolhouse Family,
Twenty years ago, we drove down a rutted dirt road to a small community in rural Nicaragua, unloaded some tools and materials, and got to work alongside families who had been hauling water for hours each day just to cook, clean, and survive. We built a school together, but heard that water was the more critical need. So, in the next community project, we added a clean water system. We celebrated together. And then, as we always do, we moved on to the next community waiting for help.
But this year, as we mark our 20th anniversary, we’ve been asking ourselves a different question: “How have these communities fared in the years since?”
That question has been leading us back — back up those same roads, back to communities where we broke ground years ago — to see whether the work has lasted. What we’ve found has been both humbling and energizing.
The Systems Are Running. But It Takes Real Work.
The good news: in community after community, the water is flowing. The gravity-flow systems we built together — tapping mountain springs, running lines downhill into homes — are doing exactly what they were designed to do. No pumps, no electricity, no moving parts. Simple by design.
But clean water doesn’t sustain itself. Every system we’ve ever built depends on one thing above all others: a functioning Community Water Board.
These are volunteer committees, elected by their neighbors, who oversee maintenance, collect monthly meter fees, manage a maintenance fund, and ensure the water in their community remains safe to drink. They are the unsung backbone of everything we’ve built.
And here is the truth we want to share: being a Water Board member is genuinely hard.
Farmers First, Board Members Second
The families in the communities where we work are, almost universally, small-scale agricultural farmers. Their lives are full, and often precarious. A bad rainy season can mean a very difficult year.
Asking these same neighbors to also serve as community water administrators is a significant ask. A board treasurer must track every córdoba collected from meter fees, keep records of maintenance expenses, and steward a fund the whole community depends on. A board president must call meetings, navigate disputes about unpaid fees, and decide when to repair and when to wait.
None of this comes naturally. It requires organization, consistency, and administrative skill that most board members are learning on the job, while also harvesting their crops.
Where Project Schoolhouse Comes In
This is where our return visits have become so meaningful. Going back to communities isn’t just about checking on the pipes. It’s about checking on the people responsible for the pipes.
When we return, we sit down with the Water Board. We review records together, help strengthen simple accounting systems for the maintenance fund, and work through the math of what meter fees need to cover — not just today’s small repairs, but larger needs that could arise years down the road. We help boards think through how to handle a household that has fallen behind on payments, or how to respond when a neighbor questions how the fund is being used.
When technical expertise is needed — a cracked pipe, a filtration issue, a water quality question — we bring or connect that expertise. But we are always clear: the technical support is ours to offer. The governance, the organization, the community trust? That belongs to the water board. Ultimately, communities are the first line of defense for the water their children drink. And that is as it should be.
A 20th Year Worthy of the Journey
Returning to our earliest communities has reminded us why community ownership was never just an aspirational value — it is the mechanism by which a water system built in 2009 is still running in 2026.
We still have a long waitlist of communities ready to break ground on new projects. We will keep building. But this year, we are weaving in the work of return — revisiting, reinforcing, and recommitting to the communities that trusted us first.
You made this work possible then, and you make it possible now. Thank you for being with us through all twenty years of it.
With deep gratitude,
Selina
Executive Director
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Click here to download and read the full 2025 progress report.