UV Bucket:::Niparajá

Sociedad de Historia Natural Niparajá, A.C.

Distribution

The collaboration Niparajá-CONAFE

The collaboration between Niparaja and CONAFE is vital to ensure the long-term success of this project.

CONAFE is in charge of approximately 150 rural schools in BCS. When the UV Bucket project started, CONAFE launched a campaign “Water and health” in all rural schools of BCS to complement the transference of the technology by an educational campaign for the children in the rural communities. They have printed posters and booklets “Clean water for you family” and “Clean water for your community” for all rural schools of BCS.

Because of their continuous presence in the rural communities, the rural teachers serve a point of contact between Niparaja and the distant communities of BCS. The rural teachers can indeed report problems, comments or observations on the UV Bucket, therefore ensuring that the monitoring and evaluation of the project is thorough and enriching for all participants.

To render the session more participative, experiments are conducted with water, washing of hands and other topics related to hygiene, to demonstrate the relationship between the number of bacteria found in the water and the hygiene around the house. Bacteria culture is conducted using a field test kit called Coliscan Easygel, which is simple and accurate and allows the participants to perform their own bacteria analysis.

This training is repeated several times a year with different activities, construction of sand filters, sampling of local sources of water, models of subsurface flow to understand the contamination of wells from latrines and animal parks, all of which activities allow the rural teachers to gain more knowledge on the topic of water.

site map

Training of rural teachers

The rural teachers of CONAFE are trained during a summer training session on the following topics:

Water and its contaminants (fecal matter, pesticides, fertilizer, trash…)
Waterborne diseases and their origin: types of bacteria, viruses, protozoa
The different methods of purification available to us: chlorine, sand filtration, ceramic filters, UV rays.
The UV Bucket itself: its origin, technology, mode of use

TOP

To render the session more participative, experiments are conducted with water and washing of hands in it to detect the increment in the number of bacteria. Bacteria culture is conducted using simple field test kits called Coliscan Easygel.

This training is repeated several times a year with different activities, construction of sand filters, sampling of local sources of water, to allow the rural teachers to gain more knowledge on the topic of water throughout the year.