Posted by Marianne Barker on Nov 30, 2019
Thanks to Rotary club collaboration with The Rotary Foundation (TRF), the Tormento community of 300 inhabitants in western Ecuador will soon have safe water.
Thanks to Rotary club collaboration with The Rotary Foundation (TRF), the Tormento community of 300 inhabitants in western Ecuador will soon have safe water. Global Grant #1987584 was paid to host sponsor The Rotary Club of Bahia de Caraquez in Ecuador on November 13, 2019. Victims of the 2016 earthquake that devastated Manabi province, the residents of Tormento are subsistence farmers without a reliable, continuous water source.
 
The $51,000 budget for this project will develop and construct a community water system intended to improve the health of the residents and help to lift them from poverty.  The international sponsor of the project is R/C Eagle River Area in District 5010, Alaska.  Participating financially from D5400 are Buhl, Emmett, Blue Lakes-Twin Falls and PDG Jim Johnston from Pocatello-Gate City. The power of Rotary Foundation grants is in the leveraging of club contributions. The donations from our clubs totaled $7,000.  When matched 1:1 by District Designated Funds (DDF) from TRF and .5:1 by the World Fund of TRF, the amount to the project became $17,500.  The DDF is also matched by the World Fund 1:1, for another $7,000.  Grand total as a result of our participation: $24,500.  Available DDF is determined by your contributions to Annual Fund-SHARE.
 
Global grants are one of the easiest ways for clubs to be active in international service.  A club in a host country conducts a needs assessment to gain insight as to a community’s need.  From there, it develops a project and finds an international partner club to assist in raising the needed funds.  The funding of a project is about relationships with clubs in many districts.  The Tormento project has club partners from Idaho, Alaska, California, Pennsylvania and Ecuador and DDF from three districts.  Bill Stumbaugh of Bahia de Caraquez first contacted us in D5400 in December of last year with his project in search of partners.  He submitted the grant application to TRF the end of April once pledges totaling the budget were obtained. Districts’ DDF was tied-up at that time, preventing them from diverting it to another project. The grant was approved mid-September and clubs were asked to remit their money to TRF.  Once all the club money was collected, the grant was paid to sponsor club Bahia de Caraquez.
 
Rotarians in D5400 have long-established relationships with the Rotarians of Bahia de Caraquez.  I myself visited the club in 2014.  This relationship is what gives us the confidence that the project will be completed in reasonable time and that the funds will be spent appropriately. 
 
A seepage pit is often dug to collect water
 
A global grant project includes methods for storage and purification of water