Because of my interest in water-related environmental issues, I am using the short time in Chiapas with Cántaro Azul to gain insight into the inner workings of a successful non-profit environmental organization. The office is located in a beautiful house in what appears to be a fairly nice neighborhood. Rotoplas tinacos line one side of the house, awaiting delivery, which was especially cool to see in person. These are large water storage containers I’d only seen in a PowerPoint.

The first impression upon walking inside was the emptiness, however, it was explained that a majority of employees were currently doing fieldwork. The next day, the office was much livelier and I observed each person’s interconnected role as they shuffled around the office. The workday in general feels much more informal and schedules are not strictly followed, rather you must be adapted to going with the flow and become a master at finding those precious five minutes to ask a quick question.

Cántaro Azul is split into 3 main areas: Administration, Knowledge Management, and Technology. Administration focuses on running the office, maintaining records, and keeping balanced books. Knowledge Management deals primarily with research and water quality analyses. Technology is based in the workshop and is responsible for building water treatment devices. These areas work together to operate 3 programs: Communities Network, Safe Water in Schools, and Social Franchise. Communities Network promotes safe water in communities, Safe Water in Schools promotes safe water education, and Social Franchise supports women entrepreneurs in their distribution of purified water to their communities.

In the few days that I’ve been here, I would best describe Cántaro Azul as a fine oiled machine that gets a significant amount of work done in a relatively short period of time. A different perspective was revealed after observing Su Chen and Horatia’s experience of adapting their prototype designs with feedback from the foundation. Su Chen’s project focuses on the remineralization of rainwater, hoping to solve communities’ dislike of the flat taste. In conducting her research, she opted to perform a taste test to gauge whether people can actually taste the difference in water hardness or if the dislike is caused by bias. Anyway, I was surprised to learn that Cántaro Azul currently has no procedure for conducting taste tests. It was explained that upon receiving funding, Cántaro Azul as a non-profit is pressured to provide results, which primarily is in the form of distribution of water treatment devices. This creates difficulty in holistically conducting analysis on the effectiveness of these designs, such as through the performance of taste tests.

I guess it’s a bit of an eye-opener to see first-hand the difficulties a non-profit faces. It’s definitely not all rainbows and gumdrops and must be quite frustrating at times, but meaningful nonetheless.

-Sophia