Nicaragua
El Edén: Irrigation System, Rainwater Harvesting, Footbridge...
El Edén is composed of roughly 30 families that came together in hopes of becoming land-owning, sustainable farmers. Seattle based NGO Agros International is assisting these families in owning their own land by providing an affordable land loan, as well as other support. Agros works in 5 Latin American countries and has helped to create over 35 rural communities in these areas.
El Edén is located in the Matagalpa region of Nicaragua, and has 52 acres of organic coffee on 95 acres of farmland. Families choose to live in El Edén because Agros teaches them how to diversify their crops sustainably, maintain economic self-sufficiency, and promote a healthy community.
While Agros has the ability to help the community with their agricultural, education and health needs, they do not have the technical expertise to help with more complex engineering related projects. We have partnered with Agros to help them in their quest to develop sustainable rural communities by assisting in the technical portions of projects.
In April of 2009, the team traveled to El Edén to discuss the community's hopes and needs. The community said that irrigation during the dry season was their main concern. They also mentioned a need for more potable water, a footbridge over the river, and a micro-hydro system for basic electrical needs such as lights and radios.
In March of 2010, the team installed a ram pump for irrigation, as well as construction of a rainwater harvesting system to supplement the community's potable water supply. A separate team also traveled to assess the need for and feasibility of constructing a footbridge across the river.
The El Edén Program seeks volunteers to help with the following 2011-2012 projects:
- Monitoring and Maintenance of Irrigation and Rainwater Harvesting Systems
- Expansion of Rainwater System
- Assessment of Dam for Irrigation
- Assessment of Home Based Water Filtration
- Alternatives Assessment of Footbridge
El Edén has future plans for a school as well as a possible health facility in their village, which will provide more exciting projects to develop.
Please Sign In to review previous reports of our progress.
Next Meeting Goal: Complete Pre-Monitoring and Pre-Assessment Trip Reports
SAVE THE DATE:
Our next Meeting will be on August 18th at 7 PM, location TBD.
We will be preparing the Pre-Monitoring report for the Irrigation and Rainwater Harvesting systems, and the Pre-Assessment report for Water Quality and Filtration.
If you'd like to help, please Sign In (click here) to review past documentation of our work as we will use much of this in preparation of the reports.
Our success as an organization depends on having active members that are engaged and informed. Please email projects-team [at] ewb-pugetsound [dot] org if you have any questions.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| 521 - Pre-Assessment Report Template.rtf | 995.26 KB |
| 521 - Pre-Assessment Report Instructions.doc | 77 KB |
| 530 - Pre-Monitoring Report Instructions.doc | 70.5 KB |
| 531 - Template (Rev Sept 2010).rtf | 1008.49 KB |
Nicaragua Team page
This page will host content for the Nicaragua project team.
Google Docs link:
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B2iX1MU8MQVwOTVlZTliZTUtYjIyZC00YmY2LTlhZGItODg3ZTgzM2MyZDI0&hl=en_US