Clean water for more than 3,000 members of Colombia’s Wayuu community

Water scarcity is still a serious problem that plagues many corners of the world today. Where drinking water is a scarce commodity, the consequences, in terms of health and even mortality, are devastating. Unfortunately, this is the order of the day in the Colombian municipality of Maicao, which is located in the department of La Guajira, on the country’s Caribbean coast. In an attempt to reverse this situation, on February 19, Enel Green Power Colombia (EGPC) launched a system of public water fountains; in other words, a sustainable scheme for granting access to clean drinking water to the rural communities of the middle and upper Guajira. This project will benefit 3,000 Wayuu indigenous people and make it possible to obtain water, treat it, make it drinkable, store it and distribute it, thereby improving the quality of life of the population. The presentation ceremony for this project, which is part of the Colombian Ministry of Housing’s Guajira Azul program, was attended by a number of officials, including the President of the Republic of Colombia, Iván Duque, and Enel’s Country Manager in Colombia, Lucio Rubio Díaz, who emphasized: “Our commitment to sustainability and the regions continues. Projects like this are our contribution to reducing the gap in terms of unmet basic needs in disadvantaged areas and to achieving greater social balance in the country, supporting and complementing the efforts of the national and local governments.” Social and economic development These kinds of initiatives are a great step forward for communities such as those in the municipality of Maicao as they seek to improve their conditions and boost their social and economic development. Enel’s commitment to encouraging social progress in the areas where it operates is in line with the Group's policy of creating shared value. As a matter of fact, this part of Colombia is home to Enel Green Power's Windpeshi wind farm, which is responsible for the energy supply for the public fountains, the extraction system and the treatment of drinking water. All this is possible thanks to an energy point that has been been installed at the fountains. It is powered by a photovoltaic system with a capacity of 50 kVA. From this strategic point, electrical connections can supply the entire system with the internal energy it requires. The project, which was funded with around 6 billion Colombian pesos, is part of a program called “Obras por Impuestos” (“Works for Taxes”), a scheme implemented by the national government for private sector companies to design projects of great social impact like this. Water is life This system for providing drinking water also fits the characteristics of the area, featuring a deep well that helps extract groundwater, two water basins and 13 community water tanks with a capacity of 5,000 and 10,000 liters, which supply water to the different areas of the local communities. The supply capacity is 2,000 liters of water per week with a productive cycle of eight hours a day, five days a week. These are more than mere numbers: they show us that it is genuinely possible to improve the health and nutrition of the inhabitants of the municipality and reduce child mortality caused by gastrointestinal diseases, a consequence of unsafe water consumption. As a matter of fact, the scarcity and impurity of available water, which ranges from brackish water to salt water, is the cause of the increase in mortality in the area. The causes of the scarcity of clean drinking water do not, however, end here. The lack of interconnection between communities, the unreliability of badly kept roads in the region and the low levels of rainfall are also contributing factors. Furthermore, the water supplied to the indigenous communities, which can only be obtained by walking long distances, does not receive any type of treatment to make it suitable for human consumption. For all these reasons, urgent action is required in La Guajira. That is why EGPC, in addition to the Windpeshi project, is also working on new public fountains which are due be completed in 2022. They will benefit 1,800 people in 23 Wayuu communities in the rural area of Amaripa and the municipality of Maicao.

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Clean water for more than 3,000 members of Colombia’s Wayuu community

Clean water for more than 3,000 members of Colombia’s Wayuu community