The success of ACSI-Yorito cannot be understated and must be recognized as a cumulative effort. When I visited Yorito in 2010 to share the idea of AHMEN's Community Empowerment Program with the quaint mountain town, it was Fanny Aviles who took action. It was Janet Espinosa of Peace Corps-Honduras who organized. It was CD and Linda Tripp who continued to foster relationships with Yorito as the community agents approached graduation. Together, they brought a small contingent of representatives from Yorito all the way across Honduras to Cusuna to participate in the initial ACSI-Cusuna meeting in 2010. I visited Yorito again in 2013, and after three years, the small group of leadership had blossomed into a legion of community agents. Six years since then, that legion has fruited animation and activation.
The original concept behind AHMEN's Community Empowerment Program was to teach Honduran communities without access to resources to learn to meet their own social, political, and economic needs without outside help. Out of the four ACSI workshops, Yorito has always had the privilege of enjoying leadership who knew a thing or two about getting a job done. Together, Fanny, Janet, and the Tripps are accomplishing the mission behind ACSI.
While many mission teams, like my own many times, continue to look for foreign solutions to the clean water issues in Honduras, ACSI-Yorito merely looked to the ground which gives forth life. AHMEN clean water efforts in Yorito began as relief and quickly moved to empowerment. When the Tripps first began working on clean water with AHMEN's "Feed My Sheep" team to Yorito, they initially began using bio-sand filtration. The team hauled sand, pebbles, gravel, and the plastic filtration systems to the mountains each year until finally CD said he was tired. Now usually, this means it is time for a coffee break, but this time it meant that he was tired of hauling earth to a place with plenty of it.
That is when the light bulb turned on for a "Feed My Sheep" team full of engineers. The group set off to make an analysis of the sand, pebbles, and gravel local to Yorito to see if it would work in a biosand filter. They also set out to design a mold to be used to make biosand filters from local materials. Today, CD and the team haul no water purification supplies to the area but merely evaluate projects. The ACSI take care of everything!!
As of today, ACSI-Yorito has built and installed:
- 300+ locally made biosand water filters
- 26 outhouses
- 18 floors
- 12 roofs
And they would like to do more with your help! I am setting up a fund with AHMEN especially for project grants in Yorito. $20/month would go a long way to helping ensure all families in Yorito live clean, healthy, dignified lives. Education continues; as each project commences, Fanny and Jovel ensure that the skills they are implementing are also being taught to the larger group of ACSI along the way. How can you help the work continue?
To learn more about how to address developmental needs in Yorito or to join an outreach team to the pueblito, contact me today @EcofemFranklin.
Together, we are the difference!
***Since I began writing this blogcito, nuestro querido Yorito has experienced trauma. A mining company has begun operations against the wishes of the town. Protest has erupted, and members of the community have been shot by riot police. Among the injured is the father of our own Fanny Aviles. Please be in prayer for the community and its land.***
