A Research Project in Roatan, Honduras

Roatan is the largest of the Bay Islands, located 35 miles north of mainland Honduras. The island is approximately 3 miles wide and 30 miles long with a resident population of 65,000. The local economy is dominated by tourism- the tropical setting with resorts, beaches, and reef diving are the primary attractions. Visitation has increased substantially- from 15,000 in 1990, to 700,000 in 2010, and 1 million plus expected in 2011. Visitors arrive by airline, ferries from the mainland, or cruise ships that make frequent stops at the two docks recently constructed for them.

Colonia Policarpo is the largest of four colonias clustered in a relatively new settlement that lies on a steep hillside on the northwest side of the island near Sandy Bay. Most of the colonia residents have migrated from mainland Honduras seeking service and construction jobs in the tourism industry. Policarpo has approximately 520 households and 3,000 residents, half under age 16. Prior to 2006, most colonia residents obtained their drinking water from rainwater catchment or shallow hand dugs well subject to pollution. Since that time Living Water 4 Roatan (LW4R), a non-governmental organization, has worked with Policarpo residents to develop a self-sustaining water system that provides treated drinking water to households on a limited basis.

The Global Partnership Project student organization at Northern Arizona University (GPP-NAU) is collaborating with this community, LW4R, and a local health clinic in an effort to improve the quality of life in the colonia. This partnership is considered to be a multi-year endeavor between NAU and Colonia Policarpo. The long term goals for this and future trips include:

- Build relationships in Roatan and within the colonia community.
- Provide for adequate sanitation systems to all residences to reduce the chances of disease outbreaks such as cholera, malaria, and dengue fever.
- Expand and improve the water system, reduce the energy costs for operating it.
- Provide for adequate solid waste collection and erosion control.
- Perform social network mapping and interviewing to gain a better understanding of the community and their needs, particularly for public works improvements.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Day 24 - Saturday 6/25/11

McWane and Mercedes went to the colonia to collect trash from 2 seperate houses. When they got back to the apartment McWane started sifting through the trash and weighing different categories. Josh and Mercedes went into the colonia to do the youth project with the kids. McWane did calculations for the water tank, water system, and e. coli testing on water samples. Picture of the e. coli test shown below.

The water testing for house #11 shows a concentration of 1.47 califorms per milliliter of water. This is not necessarily harmful for the person drinking the water, although it can indicate the presence of other bacteria that may be present.


From Mercedes:

Today was day three of the photovoice project. We mostly did housekeeping. We spent the first hour and a half or so uploading pictures from the camera and saving them in folders. Those who had time named their pictures in order to be able to identify them more quickly in the future. In the next class, they will add the date to the title. It took as long as it did because the computer directions are in English and most had never uploading pictures before. In fact, a few of the kids had no clue how to operate the mouse. Thus, the time we spent uploading pictures was well worth it because the kids got to work on their computer skills. After that, I showed the kids a few YouTube videos from that had been posted by similar projects. One was about a project in Kenya that gave cameras to children so that they could document what it was like being caretakers for ill and indigent parents/guardians. The other was a video produced by a Keiser-Permanente project that documented aspects of city life that discouraged people from making healthy eating and living choices. I showed these videos to give our participants concrete examples of how to tell a story, send a message, and effect change through photography. We followed this with a discussion about the things that they liked and disliked about life in the colonia in order to get deeper into the issues that we want to focus on.




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