Protesting for the Right to a Water Supply

Nicaragua is one of the 18 countries due to be granted 100% debt relief by the G8 at the Gleneagles summit in July 2005. In order to qualify for this, not only is the country extremely impoverished but...

It has already been made to open its markets to the free trade policies favoured by its wealthy neighbour, the USA. It has for years spent next to nothing on basic services such as water, health and education provision.

What it's like to be poor in Nicaragua

70% of the population live in poverty, 43% live on less than $1 a day. This means they don't earn enough to feed their families and they often don't eat every day.

There is no unemployment benefit, sick pay or pension, or any other kind of welfare provision. There is very little free medical treatment.

Schooling isn't free either. There are no fees but many families can't afford to send their children to school because they can't afford shoes, uniforms, books, pencils, jotters, school reports, school trips, even cleaning materials. The government pays for nothing in the education sector except the teachers' salaries: less that £90 per month.

El Limon, a village with almost no water

This is the story of one community and their fight to do something for themselves about the water crisis that has hit them in recent years. As in almost all rural communities in the country there is no running water and people are dependent on wells and rain or river water.

Getting water and washing takes hours every day

The 200 inhabitants of the rural community of El Limon in northern Nicaragua have two wells for drinking water and a river that runs along the valley below for everything else - bathing, washing all their clothes, washing up, watering their animals etc.

Men, women and children all spend an incredible amount of time and energy fetching and carrying heavy cans and buckets of water every day. In the past, although it's not quick or easy or comfortable to live like this, the well and river have provided what they need.

Dry season crisis - the river dries up

But in recent years the river has become less and less reliable. Climate change is disrupting the regular rains which used to replenish the flow of water for six months every year. And the Ministry of the Environment automatically gives permission to large landowners upstream to irrigate their large plantations of commercial crops throughout the dry season, so huge amounts of water are pumped out of the river reducing it to stagnant pools.

Even more hardship

For months at a time all bathing and clothes washing has to be done in small waterholes dug into the riverbed. Many inhabitants of the community become ill as normal hygiene levels cannot be maintained due to a lack of water. Animals become ill from drinking the dirty stagnant water. The lives of the whole community have become increasingly unsustainable.

Community action

In early 2005 the community of Limon, together with four other neighbouring communities affected by the same problems, set about launching an unprecedented protest. They wanted to shame the Ministry of the Environment into recognising that their policy of allowing a few richer people to irrigate their commercial crops in the dry season is seriously damaging the health and livelihoods of the vast majority of people in the area.

It took weeks to organise the protest and when it happened on 5th April it had an immense impact and has since encouraged other local communities to speak out about environmental injustices affecting their lives.

Protest march

More than 120 children and adults marched silently, carrying huge colourful banners that they themselves had made, through the nearby town of Esteli behind a pick-up truck.

A loud PA system was set up in the truck and a woman slowly and dramatically announced the long list of problems caused by the river drying up, problems concerning the health and economic life of the people and their animals, and the environmental damage to plants, trees and wildlife.

She then read out the part of the Nicaraguan constitution that guarantees that natural water resources should be prioritised for the use of people and their animals and not for industrial or commercial use.

Clowns and music

When the procession reached the local office of the Ministry of the Environment (MARENA), clowns and a group of nationally famous musicians performed and sang. By this time no one in Esteli could fail to notice that something extraordinary was happening. MARENA had had no warning that this was going to happen so all their staff were there and the director was forced to come out and meet the protesters.

Children demand their constitutional rights

Then the 40 children all filed into his office with statements of their constitutional rights concerning water, and a request for him to sign them. He duly signed all of them and as the children went out they each left behind a small bag of stinking dead snails, symbolising the death and destruction wrought by the authority's neglect of the communities' rights to water.

Media coverage

The story was covered by the national newspaper La Prensa and featured on national television news. Officials from MARENA and the mayor of Esteli have since visited the communities and inspected the river. Everyone hopes that by the time the next dry season comes round that their protest will have made it impossible for the authorities to avoid their responsibility to ensure that water is available to everyone.

Community solution

Who knows if MARENA will really take it on themselves to sort this problem out properly. The people of Limon don't want to carry on being dependent on the authorities and they're now working on a plan to become independent of the government, the Ministry of the Environment and any future privatised water company.

Solar-powered water system for the village

The plan is to use the deeper of the two existing wells and to set up an electrically powered pump which will bring water to the surface and then up to a holding tankon higher ground. Then pipes will be laid to each household and water will flow along them so that, for the first time ever, every family will have running water. Not just running water, but pure, clean water that's safe to drink.

Easier said than done?

Yes and no. The people of Limon have almost all the skills required to construct and maintain a water system like this. What they don't have is the money to pay for a water engineer, equipment and materials, and these are likely to cost about £5000.  The people are able to tap into a Scottish support network through a Scottish woman who lives and works in the community.  (The necessary money was raised in Scotland in 2005/6.  The project will now be self-financing, with each household paying the cost price of the water they use.  See 2007 Update)

Drawing water from the well

Riding to school on horseback