Mano a Mano’s water reservoir in Laguna Sulti, Bolivia is currently at about 80% of its water capacity. We took a trip across the reservoir during a visit to the area this week. Mano a Mano originally constructed the Laguna Sulti reservoir in 2008, which provides a critical source of water for household use and crop irrigation for the region’s subsistence farmers. Our counterpart organization Mano a Mano Nuevo Mundo completed 2 expansions to the reservoir in 2020; each expansion involved both deepening a selected section and increasing the levee wall height, to expand the water holding capacity by at least 50,000 cubic meters. With another expansion of the project in 2021, the expansions will increase the reservoir water volume by 350,000 cubic meters. The expansions increase the long-term functionality of the reservoir, in addition to making more water available for more families. Currently, there are about 700 families (4,200 people) that are part of the community water Association and have consistent access to water from the Laguna Sulti reservoir.

In the video they point to the middle island and say “aqui es donde vamos a tener la Isla del Sol” – here is where we are going to have an Isla del Sol (Island of the Sun) – a well-known site in Lake Titicaca.

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Laguna Sulti Reservoir Photos – 2019-2021