Mirador Water Supply Project

In 2025, the Harvard chapter established a partnership with the community of El Mirador in Guatemala's Quiché department to address longstanding challenges with access to clean water. Despite the presence of several natural springs, many households must walk significant distances each day to collect water because existing sources are seasonal or inaccessible by gravity. The project seeks to create a reliable, community-wide water system that will improve health, reduce the burden of water collection, and increase long-term resilience for approximately 210 residents.

Problem Statement

The community is supplied by water sources that are located at different locations within the community. Some of them dry out in the non-rainy season, while others supply throughout the year. However, there are houses that are above all the community springs, requiring families (mostly women and children) to walk down the hill to carry water every day. The community requests support to build a water system that supplies all homes. To do this, they propose the use of a main spring which currently has a tank with washing stations and tap stands. 

The main spring source is below a good number of houses, so the project that is requested is solar equipment to pump water to a tank that would be constructed at a high point in the community, and a distribution network to deliver water by gravity to each house. Next to the spring site, a few meters away, water emerges from a slope by the road. The community requests, if possible, to add a catchment box to add that water to the spring production.
 

Planned Solution

The proposed solution is a new water system that includes:

• Spring catchment improvements

• Solar pumping

• Conduction line

• Distribution tank at a high point in the community

• Distribution network

• Individual house connections
   

Collaborations

The CBO partner in the project is the Community Development Council of El Mirador Vicalamá
(COCODE of el Mirador Vicalamá). The non-governmental organization partnering in this project is ACCMARI – Asociación de Comités Comunitarios Medio Ambiental Región Ixil (Environmental Association of Community Committees of the Ixil Region). ACCMARI’s mission in this project is to support
assessment/evaluation activities, impart community workshops for the sustainability of the
project, and provide supervision and skilled labor services during implementation.