Mujer y calidad del agua : estudio de caso Bogota - Santa Marta, Colombia

This case study gives the results of the Appropriate Technology for Women (PROTAM) project in two cities in Colombia. A national study in twenty cities on how women deal with the urban crisis gave lack of reliability, distance, and poor quality of water as major problem. The PROTAM project trained women through participatory workshops and games on the relationship between water quality and health and helped them to install, operate, maintain, and manage water filters using slow sand filtration in creches to eliminate the need for boiling the drinking water. Educational materials include a game on appropriate technology to raise the awareness of children and husbands. Laboratory tests are reported to show that the filters produce E-coli free drinking water, but no hard data are included. Wrong siting caused initial damage and breakage and led to a workshop whereby the causes of problems were identified and the women trained on better site selection, and operation and maintenance. Since 1993, the women keep a logbook on the functioning of the system. They reported more time and space; less anxiety for their children getting water borne diseases; enhancement of analytical, technical, and managerial skills; more self-confidence; validation of existing knowledge; and more dialogue on water and health between men and women.