By Bruce Janklow
Amistad Canada is a Canadian federally-registered charity that collaborates with Mexican non-profit organizations to deliver needed health and education projects in the San Miguel de Allende area and several other Mexican locations. It recently selected local organization Caminos de Agua to become a new project partner.
Caminos de Agua is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit in the U.S. as well as a Mexican Associación Civil (A.C.). The organization has been working in the region for more than 10 years in pursuit of its mission to improve human health and community wellbeing through adequate and affordable access to clean water.
According to Dylan Terrell, the organization’s founder and Executive Director, “Unfortunately our mission is becoming increasingly critical. The region we work in, which includes San Miguel de Allende and the surrounding area of more than 2,800 other communities, is confronting a complex water crisis that demands decisive action. Our water supply is becoming more contaminated with dangerous levels of extremely difficult-to-remove arsenic and fluoride. But even more worrisome, is the increasing depletion of our water table. It is so severe that our region has been classified as having one of the highest levels of water stress in all of Mexico, second only to Baja California.”
Caminos de Agua’s work is focused on partnering with local communities to monitor levels of water contamination, providing educational programs to better understand the health and environmental risks, and developing and implementing customized solutions to help families avoid the health and economic consequences of regularly consuming contaminated water. Included in these solutions is the rainwater harvesting program. Rainwater is naturally free of arsenic and fluoride and, when combined with Caminos de Agua’s own filtration technology, rainwater becomes a sustainable, safe drinking water source.
Amistad Canada is an all-volunteer organization, developed and managed by Canadians who have a special interest in Mexico. On a yearly basis Amistad invites a limited number of candidate non-profits for consideration as partner organizations. Once they are selected, partner organizations create defined projects that meet Amistad guidelines. Because these projects are funded by Canadians making tax-deductible donations, Amistad Canada is responsible for seeing that they comply with the regulations of Canada’s Income Tax Act.
As explained by Mark O’Neill, Amistad Canada’s President, “Our board of directors was particularly impressed by the work that Caminos de Agua does in addressing the growing water crisis in the State of Guanajuato. Through this partnership, Canadians will be able to make tax-deductible donations to help a selected community develop rainwater harvesting systems and the related education and training that will provide a lifetime of clean drinking water, and, therefore, avoid suffering the many health repercussions that would otherwise result.”
To learn more about these organizations or the joint Amistad Canada–Caminos de Agua Clean Water Access Project, visit www.caminosdeagua.org or www.amistadcanada.org.
