Constructing Sanitation and Education Infrastructure
Water and Sanitation: Beginning in 2002, Mano a Mano created a new initiative, building on its success in mobilizing residents of rural communities to take positive action to address their health needs. Through health education groups offered by their clinics, residents of these communities learn that lack of clean drinking water and absence of sanitation facilities create risks to public health. Water and sanitation projects have substantial impact on community health status by reducing the incidence of communicable diseases. 
Community sanitation projects involve construction of public bathrooms and showers near the community school. School personnel, working with clinic staff, and health promoters take responsibility for teaching both children and adults the importance of using these facilities. Previously, the only bathrooms and showers in these communities were located in the clinics themselves.
Community water projects bring into the community a consistent water supply that has not been used for bathing, laundering or toileting. In most communities water is carried a considerable distance from a source that has been contaminated by multiple uses.
Communities are selected for these projects based on their successful participation in planning for and managing their clinic, identified community needs, demonstrated motivation to address these needs, and their geographic and population size in relation to available resources. Building on the partnerships developed during clinic construction, Mano a Mano - Bolivia staff work with villagers to develop innovative, modest-cost solutions to sanitation problems.
Schools and housing for teachers
|
|
Schools in most rural areas currently consist of dilapidated buildings, one-room adobe structures without doors or windows, or simply benches under trees. These “schools” lack the most basic supplies and furnishings and rarely have access to electricity. Their environments create nearly insurmountable obstacles to teaching and learning. Mano a Mano has responded to this need by constructing classrooms. |
|
|
Photos contrast old and new classrooms and teacher living areas. |
||
|
|
While Bolivian law requires that children attend school through grade six, most rural communities simply cannot attract or retain qualified teachers. Although Bolivian cities have an over-supply of qualified teachers, rural areas find that teachers decline offers to work in these classroom conditions or to live in the one-room, dirt-floor adobe houses available. |
|
|
Teachers who are willing to accept rural positions frequently travel to the city for supplies and fail to return for weeks at a time, leaving the children with no one to teach them. Parents in clinic communities have approached Mano a Mano with desperate pleas for help in constructing schools and housing for teachers in an attempt to reverse this dismal situation. |
||
 |
  |
|
|
Dream Fund: Scholarships for Youth This fund helps young people for whom educational opportunities would otherwise be an illusive dream to obtain post-high school training. Eighteen students are currently enrolled in nursing, agronomy and other programs with Dream Fund support.
|
|
