Goal 2

There are three goals of which I’m theoretically completing as a Community Health volunteer in Peace Corps Peru. The second one is: “Peace Corps Volunteers, along with the participation of Service Providers and community health promoters, will organize and strengthen programs promoting good hygiene and sanitation practices, and proper preparation and use of water.” Oddly enough, when I attempted to describe this to the water inspector of San Marcos, he didn’t believe me. So, I short letter later, entailing goals, objectives, and recommended projects by the Peace Corps, he looked at me and said, “Wow! We could really help each other!”
So, this past week I went to four different caseríos with him to check the water supplies. Along the way we gave several hand washing charlas, a few of which someone might have listened to.
Three of the communities are classified as high risk because they have higher levels of “EDA’s” (Ok, it’s diarrhea but EDA sounds so much nicer…) than the other communities that the health center attends. You could really tell a difference between the communities that were not high risk, they had locks on their reservoirs, lids, and didn’t have mud flowing into their water supplies. Quite intriguing. So, now we are going to work on a project to improve the water in the high risk areas. Yay!