Llano Ñopo

Four organizations will come together once again to bring potable water to the people living in a village.  These four consist of the Boquete Rotary Club, Contextual Solution, Panama Red Cross and Students Without Borders of Canada.

The Rotary Club is providing funding and support, Contextual Solutions is providing design, logistics material procurement and project oversight, Panama Red Cross is providing support, and Students Without Borders is providing additional funding and volunteer support.

In Llano Ñopo the village aquaduct is lacking in sufficient water to supply the people in the community.  Recently with the new dorm facilities built by the Boquete Rotary club there is additional drain on that system.  For this reason we are going to be building rain catchment systems on the dorm facilities.  This will mostly eliminate the use of village water from the people in the dorms.

The system will be comprised of 4-660 gallon and 3-290 gallon water storage tanks. We will use 4 and 6 inch pvc pipe attached to the sheet metal roofing to direct the flow off water off the roof and into the tanks.

Girls Dorm - Mirna and Steve

To the left is the girls dorm. We will install a total of three 290 gallon tanks on this building.  One on the front and two in the back.   This roof already has a 4 inch PVC guttering installed so we will modify this to redirect the water to the tanks in both front and back.  The water will be used for drinking, general building cleaning, bathrooms and sinks.

Boys Dorms

To the right is the boys dorm.  We will install two 660 gallon tanks on this building.  One in the front and one in the back.  This roof does not have any PVC guttering so we will be adding 4″ PVC to both the front and back of this building.  The water will be used for drinking, general building cleaning, bathrooms and sinks. Eventually the system can be expanded to connect these tanks to the lower tanks in order to share water if greater capacity is needed by the lower systems. This system has the highest elevation.

Kitchen/Cafeteria

To the left is the cafeteria and the kitchen facility.  We will install two 660 gallon tanks on this building.  One in the front and one in the back.  This roof does not have any PVC guttering on the front so we will be adding 4″ PVC to the front of this building.  The back of teh building has a 6 inch PVC gutter installed so we will redirect the water from that gutter into the tank. We will locate the tank directly behind the kitchen where the cooks and students will have easily access. The water will be used for drinking, general building cleaning, cooking and sinks.

The project volunteers Students Without Borders, will be arriving the evening of the 6th to Llano Ñopo. They will work two full days, the 7th and 8th, and depart for Boquete the evening of the 8th.  They will be given a lectures about life in the village from the village priest, Padre Niconar, and the dorm mom, Mirna.  Contextual Solutions will be offering further lectures/discussions about maximizing effectiveness of volunteering/aid for all involved.

This should be a project that will offer lasting impact to those involved through greater global awareness and the offering of simple tools which can be used to understand new communities and cultures where we will serve in the future.

We will follow up with the finished work in a blog form.

A big thank you to all who are part of this project.