Who we are

Agua Para el Pueblo (APP) is a Honduran NGO that has been working for 20 years developing water treatment projects while performing with a high degree of professionalism, responsibility, and competence.

APP’s varied contributions in terms of technologies, boarding methodologies, and conceptual definitions have been important in the development of water treatment sub-sectors in Honduras . Currently, APP is involved in a renovation project that will bring great exposure to the new sector-based judicial system (Ley Marco del Sub Sector de Agua y Saneamiento). This new law includes experimenting with new decentralization and municipal participation efforts on a local level to aid construction, administration, and sustainability of water treatment as well as other environmental systems.

APP’s technical services have been characterized by their reach beyond construction. We also facilitate cooperation in the areas of research, documentation, evaluation, production of executive materials, and inter-institutional & inter-sector coordination to modernize the Honduran sub-sectors.

Acting as the pioneer organization of the civil society in search of solution to the demands of water treatment, APP reiterates its compromise of continuous work, focusing particularly on the less-privileged communities of the rural areas and developing urban zones. APP has promised to arduously work to integrate the family unit as a base towards improving the community, utilizing the skills and dexterity of women and children to allow them to become active participants in community solutions. This way, these two groups can alleviate the burden of lacking the water supply they deserve.

Historical Background

By 1984, the population of Honduras had reached 4 million. 40% of these Hondurans had no access to potable water, and about 43% had no access to water treatment systems at all. This situation proved worse in the rural areas, where the numbers climbed to 55% and 62%, respectively. Inspired by the necessity of forming a group of Honduran professionals to share their knowledge and experiences in order to remediate this problem, Agua Para el Pueblo (APP) was created.

Since its founding, Agua Para el Pueblo defined its major goal: “to help alleviate the necessities of the poorest communities in Honduras in order to improve their potable water and basic treatment systems.”

The Judicial Representation was obtained by resolution number 35 on May 30th 1985, as granted by the Executive Power through the Government and Justice Secretariat.

Agua para el Pueblo has developed numerous projects, including the following: construction of potable water systems, construction of sanitary sewage systems, excavation of wells, hand-dug wells, latrines, implementation of basin conservation and handling plans, and development of communitarian education processes.

APP’s management model for potable water and treatment systems

Our model strives to create sustainable services and to contribute to the improvement of the management by the involved players (the community members, Water Assemblies, local governments, health-providing units, and the educational centers) in order to help families obtain quality water services.

The replicability of the successful models, the certainty of their decentralization, and the incorporation of a technical option menu to negotiate with the users under a demand focus constitute an important key that we have incorporated to our management model, looking to optimize the following efficiency indicators:

Achieving universal potable water, disinfection, and treatment coverage

Facilitating the promotion of water treatment systems

Creating efficient and culturally acceptable services

Participation of the community in the service management

Community involvement in sanitary education and in its relationship to other topics

Principles of APP’s model:

• Equity
• Integrity
• Correspondence
• Gender Equity
• Institutionalism

Our Mission

To support the initiatives and community efforts targeted to improve their living conditions based on optimizing the available hydraulic resources, strengthening social and environmental conditions through auto-management, participation, using water and treatments as dynamic axes that will mitigate poverty levels, alleviate human suffering, and collaborating to form a more equitable and sustainable society.

Philosophy

To facilitate actions that yield answers and opportune solutions for the growing water treatment demand, ensuring the delivery of a service optimal in quality and quantity. This can be achieved through the implementation of techniques appropriate to each community’s environment. Altogether, APP will contribute to an improvement of the living conditions among the poorest inhabitants, propelling an integral development in each involved community.

Objectives

To collaborate with the official, private, and external authorities, to research and develop alternatives to the current problem of potable water and treatment access among the most vulnerable areas in the country.

To contribute to the development of pre-investment plans, finances, infrastructure construction, social integration, and basin protection among communities that demand water treatment solutions.

To cooperate with the geographical sectors’ corresponding authorities in the analysis, political identification, and applicable strategies to solve water treatment inaccessibilities.

To manage national and international financial resources and channel them into the construction of water treatment systems.

Organizational Structure

Board of Directors: Highest institutional authority

Executive Director(s): The organization’s legal representative(s), responsible for the organization’s executive management.

Operative Departments: These compose the organization’s functional structure and are in charge of the system coordinators. The departments are interrelated in order to facilitate our process development. Their divisions include: Administrative, research, management, design, performance of projects, monitoring, and evaluating.

Administration Department: In charge of the financial administration. The Secretariat’s sections depend on it. Purchasing, transportation, and logistics are also under its domain.

Engineering Department: In charge of the feasibility research, design, project execution, monitoring, and final evaluation.

Social and Agro-forestry Department: In charge of the community participation processes, training and basin conservation.