Location
La Estancia, Olmos, Lambayeque, Peru
Community Description
The district of Olmos is located in the department of Lambayeque in Northern Coastal Peru.
La Estancia is a small agricultural village nestled in the dry forests of the district of Olmos. The village has a population of approximately 1,200 people.
The community is located 35 minutes by moto-taxi on a dirt road to the main town of Olmos where families can buy fresh meat and vegetables in the market.
The village has a pre-school, a joint primary and secondary school, a health post, a municipality, a community run comedor popular (like a soup kitchen), a women’s club and a beekeepers association.
The majority of the men in the village work in agriculture, receiving a salary of around $5 a day. Most women are stay-at-home mothers, responsible for the maintenance of the house and children. Families usually have between 3 and 5 children.
Families raise animals such as chickens, goats, sheep, and pigs for consumption. Houses are made of mud and wood with tin roofs.
Recently the national government installed electricity in the community.
This project will take place at the school “Cesar A. Vallejo Mendoza” I.E. N 10181, located in the village of La Estancia.
Currently, students have to use a rustic handwheel to pull up buckets of water, one bucket at a time, from a cemented well, 15 meters in depth.
Due to the hard labor of extracting water, the amount of water available to students is limited. The students use latrines and currently have no hand washing facilities.
The science and work education teachers have installed two large vegetable and fruit gardens, but are unable to plant vegetables due to the difficulty in retrieving water.
Project Description
This project is to install an electric water pump, and connect the well to the bathrooms and the elevated water tanks that serve the school.
The tanks have already been bought by the school. They will provide water for the bathrooms as well as the two gardens.
With water available Peace Corps Volunteer Sara Mascola, teachers, and the health post workers will give workshops to students, parents and community about handwashing, how to brush teeth, nutrition, gardening, and the SODIS method of water purification.
Sara states:
Our goals are to benefit 100% of the student population with improved cleanliness of the restrooms and handwashing stations, maintain the trees and plants that are currently planted in our school gardens and throughout the 2 hectares of campus, and be able to plant vegetables in our gardens for the students to take home and share with their families.
Project Impact
194 students (between the ages of 5 and 18) and 214 adults (teachers and parents) will be directly benefited by the installation of this electric water pump and piping system.
Also, the rest of the community will benefit from the improved sanitation at the school, as it is used as a community meeting place.
Peace Corps Volunteer Directing Project
Sara Mascola
Comments
This small project will be of great benefit to the students and staff of the school, as well as the community at large. It will contribute to a healthier student population through improved sanitation and better nutrition.
Dollar Amount of Project
$497.00
Donations Collected to Date
$497.00
Dollar Amount Needed
$0.00 – This project has now been fully funded, through the generosity of The Soneva SLOW LIFE Trust as a part of their Clean Water Projects initiative.
We encourage others to continue to donate using the Donate button below, and we will notify Peace Corps Volunteer Sara Mascola of your donation. Additional funds will be used to fund the next project by Sara. and/or those of the counterpart PCVs in Peru.
This project has been finished. To read about the conclusion of the project, CLICK HERE.