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PANAMA EWB-USA partnership. The members of Las Delicias

were able to explain how their system worked and
showed the community members of La Pedregosa our
maps and designs.
The Panama Program started off 2019 with the ex-
citement of having commissioned a new water distri- Fall 2019 was spent finalizing all designs for the new
bution system in Las Delicias. With this new system transmission main, and also analyzing the informa-
in place they took off working on designs to bring tion the program had about La Pedregosa’s resources.
more water to the community. This included design- They connected with the previous Peace Corp volun-
ing a source capture, a filter box, a new transmission teer who worked there, as well as another organiza-
main, a stream crossing, and new connections into tion, Water Engineers for the Americas, which helped
the existing storage tank. The added water brought to Lisa Sherman, Alyssa Dubois, and Lisa Sangree review design and construct their current water system. The
Las Delicias by this transmission main will ensure the notes with a community member in Las Delicias. (Decem- program performed hydraulic calculations to deter-
community has the adequate water capacity for the ber 2018) mine where the system has weak points, and they
next 50 years. made maps of both Las Delicias and La Pedregosa.
project. They reached out to their NGO, Sustainable They also selected and prepared a travel team to im-
During Summer 2019, the program received a mes- Harvest International (SHI), who connected them to La plement a new source and transmission main in Las
sage from Las Delicias stating two float valves in their The float valves in a break tank. (December 2018) Pedregosa, a community in Panama located 15 kilo- Delicias and assess the project in La Pedregosa. This
break tanks were malfunctioning. This concerned the working again, but also because they were able to meters from Las Delicias. A phone call with the NGO travel application had the most applicants seen in the
program, and they immediately began working on demonstrate the sustainability of the project by us- and the Peace Corp volunteers in the area confirmed program and allowed them to assemble a great team
calculations to determine how the malfunction oc- ing their knowledge and understanding of the system that there is a need for potable water in La Pedrego- to perform in-country work in the Spring of 2020.
curred and designs for how to fix the malfunction us- to troubleshoot and maintain it without help from the sa, and the community members are excited to form a
ing community resources. A week later they received program. partnership with EWB-USA NEU. La Pedregosa’s com- As December 2019 came to a close, the Panama Pro-
another message from the community saying that munity members filled out an application to EWB-USA, gram prepared to complete the Las Delicias design
they were able to fix the float valves. This was great Having accomplished a large milestone in Las Deli- and by August 2019 the partnership was official. package, and they ventured onto the task of planning,
news to hear, not only because their float valves were monitoring, evaluation, and learning (PMEL) for both
cias, the program also began searching for a new While completeing the partnership application, mem- Las Delicias and La Pedregosa. They also began pre-
bers of the La Pedregosa community went to Las Deli- paring for the upcoming trip by determining locations
cias to speak to them about what it is like being in an for water quality testing, preparing a detailed work
breakdown structure, and training the travel team
members. This work is all in preparation for a full and
productive trip planned for March 2020. The program
is very excited to commence the new partnership in
La Pedregosa and continue to help communities gain
reliable access to clean drinking water.

Article by Cassia Lockwod and Alyssa DuBois

A Las Delicias community member looks at the profile of
the water system design. (December 2018)

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Lisa Sherman and Mike Sanders discuss surveying with the beautiful mountains of Panama as a backdrop.
(December 2018) residents served active members years active
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