My Community's Latrine Project

Dear blog readers,

Happy Thanksgiving to all! I spent it in a lodge in the mountains near Costa Rica, like last year. I had a lot to be thankful for to be spending Thanksgiving in the company of all of my Peace Corps friends, eating delicious food.

Below is a letter I composed to ask for financial support with my community's latrine project.

Carolyn

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Dear family, friends and colleagues,

Since August 2010, I have been living in Panama, working as an Environmental Heath Peace Corps volunteer, and will be here until October 2012. I live in a small indigenous (Ngabe) village called Lajero in the mountains of Western Panama, and work predominately with the newly formed water and sanitation committees.

I am contacting you on behalf of Lajero’s sanitation committee to ask for support of a pit latrine project benefitting 32 families and 203 men, women and children. Currently many families are without pit latrines and use the river or woods to defecate, which contributes to waste-borne illnesses.

Each family involved in the pit latrine project is contributing sand, gravel, wall materials, and labor, which amounts to 52% of the total project cost. I am looking for support for the remaining $2,543 or 48% of project cost to cover the materials that are not locally available (cement, rebar, corrugated roofing, and tools). A donation of $80 pays for a pit latrine for one family. Plus for every dollar donated by contributors like you, the NGO community service organization Synergy is contributing a matching $1 to reach the goal.

My sanitation committee’s goal is to secure funding by January 1, 2012 so that we can start construction on February 1 at the peak of the dry season. Community members have already started digging pits in preparation for the project. It has taken a year of community analysis and meetings to reach this point, and community members are excited to move forward!

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to contact me via email at carolyn.purington@gmail.com. I will also be back in the United States January 2 through 10 if you wish to talk via telephone (508 886 6539). Contributions can be made on the Peace Corps Partnership website at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=525-171 .

Although the web site is the quickest way to make a donation, you may also make a check payable to Peace Corps Partnership Program. Please write the project number, 525-171, on the check and send it to:

Paul D. Coverdell, Peace Corps Headquarters

Peace Corps Partnership Program, OPSI

1111 20th Street NW

Washington DC 20-526

I appreciate all of your support. Thanks so much!

All the best,

Carolyn

Photos: 1. Working with community members on an aqueduct project; 2. Giving a waste-borne disease talk in the local school; 3. A family in the community