Project Overview
In 2016, Global Brigades completed a new water system in the community of La Naranja alongside the NGO, Water for People, and the Municipal government. This system provides clean water to 704 beneficiaries.
La Naranja, Nicaragua
Before Global Brigades’ arrival in La Naranja, most of the community resorted to looking for water in springs, in the mountains surrounding the community, having to walk and carry containers of water back to their homes. The springs were unprotected making the water unsafe to drink without treatment, and sometimes it was located up to 1 kilometer away from the homes in the community. This consumed a significant amount of time and energy each day from the community members. About 20 families had access to a 25-year-old water system, but this only supplied them with untreated water for a few hours per day.
Water System Solution
In May 2016, a partnership between La Naranja, Global Brigades Nicaragua, the Municipality of San Rafael, and Water for People was officially formed. Before a plan for a water system custom-designed for La Naranja was created, the land was first surveyed by the Municipality of San Rafael. From this land survey, it was determined that the best fit for La Naranja would be a mini-aqueduct served by a gravity construction system with two storage tanks. Five water sources were identified, unified, and connected to the two storage tanks (each with 28 m3 storage capacity). By gravity, it was designed for the water to flow through the distribution pipeline to every house in the community. This new water flow would supply the community of La Naranja through the projected 20-year lifespan of the project.
In addition to construction, La Naranja mobilized to form a CAPS (Comité de Agua Potable y Sanitación/ Water and Sanitation Committee). Over the course of three months of construction, 296 Global Brigades volunteers worked alongside the committee and community members to construct a system that now reaches 163 families and 704 beneficiaries. Before the project’s completion, a capacity test of the 5 springs water sources was completed and demonstrated an average of 107 gallons per minute. The celebration of this system’s water inauguration was September 27th, 2016.
Water Project Stages
All stages of this water project have been completed.