Casa Guatemala
Casa Guatemala is a self-contained children’s village, located in the midst of the Guatemalan jungle on the banks of the river Rio Dulce. The village includes, among other things, living quarters, school buildings, a farm and a clinic for up to 300 needy children. All of the services offered by Casa Guatemala are completely free of charge: the children living in the village are provided with food, medical care and access to education.
Mission
Casa Guatemala targets children who were abused, abandoned, malnourished, or living in extreme poverty, seeking to provide them with a safe and loving home, proper health care and access to adequate education.
Vision
Casa Guatemala strives to equip the children in their care with the skills and education needed to be responsible and empowered citizens of their community. Furthermore, the children are trained to become fully self-sustained through the businesses they run – as, for example, the farm – which, at the same time, also provides meaningful job training to the older children in the village as well as financial support to the whole Casa Guatemala community.
Impact and Scale
In 2013, Casa Guatemala provided a home to 235 children, 90% of whom coming from the surrounding Mayan communities. In total, there are 31 communities who benefit from Casa Guatemala’s services. In addition to the children permanently living in the village, the clinic treats an additional 200 outpatients per month on average.
Current challenges: water supply at Casa Guatemala
From a health perspective, one of the biggest challenges the people in the jungle of Guatemala have to deal with is related to the access to drinking water. There are many children who do not have any access to clean water in their homes and thus they often suffer from intestinal infections and other diseases. For these children, habits such as regularly washing hands or to not drink from any river but only use filtered or treated water can represent important life skills. Given this situation, Casa Guatemala has declared it one of its goals to teach the children living in the village about the importance of proper hygiene habits. Thus, when the children return to their villages, they are less likely to get sick and can positively influence the others in their homes to follow their example.
After 25 years of operations, and the regular wear and tear of torrential weather and earthquakes, Casa Guatemala’s infrastructure is in constant need of regular maintenance and repair works. Thereby, part of this infrastructure is the water supply. Currently, the two water towers – one is used to hold the water from the well, the other for the river water used in the toilets – and the PVC plumbing system are in urgent need of replacement. The total costs to replace both the water towers and the plumbing system amounts to approximately 38,000 USD.
Support Casa Guatemala and support the following water-related project:
With over 300 people onsite every day, Casa Guatemala is in need of up to 48,000 liters of drinking water each day. If the current water supply collapsed, this would mean that the whole village would be without clean water for as long as it would take to secure the needed funds and rebuild the water supply infrastructure. Thus, it can be considered of vital importance that the necessary reparation and replacement works are completed as soon as possible. Priority 1 is the:
Replacement of the “Well Water Tower”
As it is already starting to decay, the replacement of the well water tower is currently the most urgent reparation Casa Guatemala has in regards to its infrastructural needs. This water tower holds six large tanks that collectively hold over 12’000 liters of water. The cost of rebuilding this tower lies at approximately 20,000 USD. Given favorable weather conditions, it’s going to take around six weeks to complete this project.
Optional project, if the campaign gets overfunded:
River Water Tower
The river water tower holds four large tanks that collectively hold over 8’000 liters of water, used to flush the toilets. Over the years in use, the tower has become extremely oxidized and today the structure is starting to fail. The estimated cost to replace the river water tower is approximately 15,000 USD. Again, as long as weather conditions permit, the new tower should be completed in approximately four weeks’ time.
Plumbing System Replacement
By replacing the PVC tubing which is used for the complete plumbing system in the village, Casa Guatemala can ensure that there are no leaks in the piping, while also optimizing the general water pressure. The material and labor cost of this project lies at around 3,000 USD.
Thank you for your donation!