Barranco Alto

Barranco Alto is a small community located about 2 miles east of Panajachel Guatemala. A friend of of one of our members teaches English at the local school. He mentioned that prior to starting school, the children needed to walk to the nearby spring, fill and carry containers of water to the school. The club spoke with the Consejo Comunitario de Desarrollo (Community Development Council, COCODE) and agreed to try to help. At the time, we had no means of funding the effort. Undeterred, the COCODE obtained enough funding to purchase and install a distribution tank. This was a necessary but insufficient step; however, due to lack of funding, for about a year, we were unable to move forward. In February 2023, Rotarians from RC of Mount Clemens, Michigan visited Lake Atitlan as our first official Rotary Insider’s Tour of the lake. One outcome from this visit was funding for the distribution piping to carry water to the school and the the individual houses in the community.

The total budget for the project was Q 70,000 and at this writing (18 Feb 2024) about half of the effort is complete. In the video and photos, you can see the work in progress: Piping is purchased and installed under existing roads and runs to the individual families and to the community school. When complete, we expect to install over 2 km of piping and provide water service to the school and 84 families in the community.

Most of our other projects are Global Grants which involve The Rotary Foundation and are able to fund more work. This is the first club-to-club (RC Mount Clemens – RC Lake Atitlan) grant our club has done. These smaller grants involve dramatically less administrative overhead. Stay tuned for an update when the project is complete.