Project Schoolhouse

Improving Nicaraguan lives by building new, community water systems, and improving sanitation.

March 2020 Newsletter

Greetings from our Executive Director – “An Unprecedented Opportunity”

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Dear Friends,

Wow, how our world has changed in just a few short weeks. Our work continues and the need has never been greater, as is highlighted in industry publications we monitor, one of which we wanted to share with you below, ‘COVID-19 a collective failure, an unprecedented opportunity’. Sanitation and hygiene are the most basic needs, particularly today when diligent hand-washing is top of mind for the world, virtually impossible for those without access to clean water.

We are so pleased to share our 2019 Impact in the Annual Report linked below. Beyond the numbers, I’d like to also convey the emotion I see as I talk to moms who worry about the contaminated water they are forced to use all day, every day, to drink, bathe and cook, even when they see the rashes that break out on their children every time they bathe. Your generosity truly changes lives.

We had a strong kick-off to 2020, finishing up water and latrine projects in two communities. We visited the mayor of a neighboring region, Bocana de Paiwas, when touring the projects in early March and were thrilled to come away from that meeting with a commitment of funding towards a project in this region. As we were driving to the meeting, we took a right where we always take a left and Tab said “haven’t you always wanted to turn this way? I have.” It’s good to see our reputation spread and have the opportunity to expand our reach by tapping into additional municipal funding.

The mayor is excited to collaborate, allowing him to stretch his budget through investing in our community volunteer model of building. The area has some of the most stunning vistas I’ve had the pleasure of seeing, and I got to meet this cute little boy in the community of Bilampi. We hope to be able to build him a new school in the not too distant future.

In these uncertain times, please know that we wish you and your loved ones good health.

Selina Serna
Executive Director

Impact Report: A New Water System for El Aulo

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It’s been a long road to getting water to the community of El Aulo in Nicaragua. Twelve years ago Project Schoolhouse partnered with them to build a three-room schoolhouse but we were unable to build a permanent water system.

Persistent roadblocks involving the availability of springs and uncooperative landowners prevented us and other orgs from being able to assist this community until 2019 when we found a design that would work and got funding from Rotary International and the Burdine Johnson Foundation to finally start work on a water system.

Every project we complete involves serious problem solving and overcoming difficult logistical hurdles, but this project has been exponentially more difficult, even since we began construction in July 2019. One of those obstacles was that the spring providing water to the system was damaged through rogue deforestation and was only going to be able to provide sufficient water for 9 months of the year. On top of aggressive reforestation efforts, we solved this problem through an innovative hybrid system design that involves both a closed spring capture as well as an open water filtration system to provide additional water capacity during the three dry months of the year. To my knowledge, there isn’t another system like this in existence in Nicaragua or further afield.

To break this down, our most common method to harness spring water is to completely seal in the underground water source. This allows us to capture 100% of the spring water, which is already clean and free from contaminants and keep it clean inside a closed system. This is by far the best way to harness water and most of our systems are built like this.

The other way to harness water is to collect surface water with a small dam and then run it through a series of filtration structures to clean it. In El Aulo, we utilized both of these methods to ensure sufficient water to the community for a 30-year design spec accounting for population growth.

This particular open capture is, in my opinion, a work of art and science. Our lead engineer is one of the most respected water engineers in Central America and he built a system that takes water carefully filtered through underground gravel tunnels into another filter involving special fabric and special sand. From there it passes through an ultraviolet filtration process, through two de-sedimentation tanks, and then through another set of special fabric and sand before passing through a chlorination process. At this point the water is triple filtered, double de-sedimented, ultraviolet treated and chlorinated before being stored in a nearly 80,000-gallon storage tank.

The tank is nearly double the normal size in order to make the very best use of the closed capture spring water before turning on the open capture water. Even better, the system has very special controls that allow each part of the system to be turned on or off to allow for regular maintenance and water source management.
It took all the savvy Project Schoolhouse had accumulated in its 15-year history to make this project a reality and I’m thrilled that finally, the community of El Aulo will have a reliable and clean water source after years of carrying water by hand.

Tab Barker
Director of Operations