Photo provided by the author
Representing ALDEA. which manages charity for Guatemala, Zoe Kopp shows the donation check she has received from the local Rotary Club District for water and sanitation projects there. Pictured with her, left and right, are Suffield Rotary Vice President Richard Kisiel and President Jackie Guzzi.
The Rotary Club of Suffield has joined twenty-four other Rotary Clubs in Northern Connecticut and Western Massachusetts (Rotary District 7890) to fund a project that will bring drinking water to two needy communities in Guatemala. These Rotary Clubs along with matching funds from The Rotary Foundation raised a total of $118,180. Adding this amount to the funds raised during the previous nine years brings the ten-year total to $528,118.
These funds will build complete gravity-fed water systems with gray water filters, vented pit latrine and improved stoves for the 146 families (875 people) who live in the rural communities of Patzaj and San Lucas, Guatemala. This project continues the goals of Rotary International to have every Rotary Club support international water and sanitation projects each year. By working together, pooling their resources and obtaining a global grant with matching funds from the Rotary Foundation, the Rotarians have been successful in adding size and strength to their chosen projects.
Rotary District Chair and Manchester Rotarian Rick Lawrence, who has spearheaded this drive for the past ten years, travels to Guatemala each year with his wife to visit villages that were funded in the previous year. The project’s implementation is coordinated through the host partner, the Rotary Club of La Antigua, Guatemala, and its cooperating partner, ALDEA. ALDEA is a non-profit organization that provides extensive training in sanitation, personal hygiene, maintenance of the water system components, and nutrition, including help in schools and home vegetable gardens, as well as educational talks about family planning and birth spacing. In Guatemala, over 50% of the children suffer from chronic malnutrition.