In 2001 CESO Adviser Jake Dick travelled to Santa Rosa de Copan, a city nestled in the western mountains of Honduras, to restore an abandoned water-treatment plant to functionality. The plant had never been used; South American donors had built it in the 1980s, but had not been able to stay long enough to get it running properly or to train local officials on how to do so.
Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans lack access to safe water and many suffer from water-borne diseases like dysentery. CESO had worked in Honduras since 1975, and had made municipal water and sanitation a priority in the Central American country, completing 28 water-treatment assignments with 19 partners over the years.
CESO expertise gets results
Jake Dick had 36 years of experience in designing and operating water-treatment systems for the Ontario government. His inspection of the plant in Santa Rosa de Copan was his first assignment with CESO. He returned the following year to provide local partners with training in the use of equipment and chemical testing. After overcoming other challenges, the plant was up and running in 2004, providing clean water to a city of approximately 42,000 residents.
Improving health in Santa Rosa de Copan
Within months, according to health professionals in Santa Rosa, the number of patients suffering from water-borne disease had dropped significantly, a result they linked directly to a cleaner water supply. Years later, the plant is still running, a concrete symbol of a long-term Honduran-Canadian partnership.
Our ongoing commitment
In July 2010, access to safe drinking water was declared a human right by the United Nations General Assembly. A recent report by the UN Millennium Project revealed that 884 million people are without access to safe drinking water, while 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. CESO is actively recruiting expert Advisers to assist in delivering water projects around the world.
Partner with us
If your organization would like to partner with CESO, please contact us now. We are engaging with funding and program partners to provide lasting solutions to water and sanitation issues.