Country Service: professionals provide drinking water solutions in localities in the south-central area of the country

According to data provided by the Amulen Foundation, in Chile water scarcity affects about one million people, and in the Maule region more than 11,000 homes.
That is why in this region, water projects have been carried out promoted by Servicio País, which seek to ensure water for human consumption and that it reaches families in a dignified way, so that they can open a key and access this elementary service as is normally done.
In the commune of Empedrado, Maule region, in the Colmenares sector, a project was developed that aims at the accumulation of water and its purification, to benefit 11 families.
In the El Parrón sector of the commune of Rauco, since 2018 a water collection system has been developed in a well that supplies families in the sector, a project in which the professionals Of the Country Service have contributed to the design, application, execution and extension of the network, in addition to developing a water school, to deliver the necessary tools and competencies to the community to optimize its operation.
In the town of El Rincón, in the commune of Hualañé in the same region, during the year 2021 a team of professionals, together with a group of volunteers from Ingenieros por Chile, from the Catholic University and the municipality of the commune, launched the project “Drinking Water Storage and Distribution System”.
This allows to supply 25 families through a system composed of a network of pipes and a pond to accumulate the water carried by the cistern trucks of the municipality. This method allows the resource to reach directly to homes that have a meter and sanitary installation.
In the Biobío, Santa Bárbara is a commune that has 5,600 inhabitants in its urban areas and 8,500 in rural areas, the latter being affected by health problems due to the non-existence of drinking water in their homes.
That is why the Country Service program, together with its professionals, the municipality and the community, have developed strategies to solve, in the medium term, this problem and have water for human access in the rural sectors of the commune.
Together with the municipal department Secplan, professionals collaborate in the formulation, design and application of engineering projects that allow water to reach the most remote homes.
During this year, the projects supported are three, the first contemplates 15 individual solutions for families that are outside the committee, in the Cerro Negro sector. Secondly, an extension of the distribution network of the APR Bajo Mininco was made, which will benefit 34 families with new starts; and the third is the project of a new APR in the Cullinco sector that will benefit 54 families.

In addition, in Biobío they are working with some rural drinking water (APR) committees to activate the social fabric through associativity, and thus strengthen individual and joint management.
In this context, during this year they collaborated in a project called “The University of Water”, a project led by the Santo Tomás University and the citizen council of the sanitary company Essbio, to train leaders in the legal, administrative and environmental fields, in order to implement environmentally friendly sanitary solutions.
In addition, workshops have been carried out that seek environmental awareness and promotion to young people, through an alliance with the Liceo Agrícola de Los Mayos, to make them part of the care and protection of water.

Follow us on

Original source in Spanish