Martha Azucena has lived in the community of La Carreta, El Sauce, for 18 years, in an area located within the Central American Dry Corridor. She says that she, her husband, and their two children were among the first families to settle there. They were forced to move because they lived on a hillside, and when Hurricane Mitch (1998) struck, a landslide swept away everything they had.
“It was very hard because before, we lived up in the hills and didn’t have water, and when we came here, we didn’t have it either. For me, it was really difficult; all my life I’ve suffered from water scarcity. Many times I had to leave my children home alone, playing, so I could go fetch water from the river or from a well my father-in-law had. Sometimes I went on foot, other times on horseback,” she says.
Just four years ago, the mayor’s office finally built a drilled well, and fortunately for Martha, it was relatively close to her home. The problem was the road. “There’s a road with river stones here, and I had to make two or three trips a day, carrying a 20-liter container of water. Sometimes I also had to go milk the cows, and afterward I couldn’t handle it anymore. Twice I nearly fell. I would say, ‘Oh my God, when will the day come that I’ll have water in my house?’”
The day Martha longed for finally came: Wednesday, August 20, 2025. After months of work and community organization, the 40 families living in La Carreta and El Porvenir inaugurated a piped water system that now supplies 144 people, many of them school-aged children.
“I am so grateful to...all of you at El Porvenir to bring us this blessing. The day they tested the pump was such a joy—everyone started calling each other on the phone to ask, ‘Did the water reach your house yet?’ ‘Yes,’ they told me, ‘And you?’ ‘Yes, me, too.’ This is a blessing from God,” she says.
The children of La Carreta were at the center of of the inauguration ceremony. The joy of knowing they now have water at home is reflected on their faces. El Porvenir©
At El Porvenir, we believe that access to clean water is a basic human right. We partner with Nicaraguan communities to improve their standard of living through the implementation of sustainabile clean water projects, including water systems, latrines, hygiene education, and watershed restoration.
El Porvenir is a thriving US-based nonprofit organization of mainly Nicaraguan staff partnering with rural Nicaraguans to improve their standard of living through integrated clean water projects. Founded in 1990, our projects are community-driven, sustainable, and comprehensive.
We partner with remote communities that lack access to the most basic services and are too small to receive assistance from other organizations.
Our projects include one or more of the following components, based on the needs and requests of the community:
1. Increasing access to clean water through community water systems
2. Improving sanitation with double-pit latrines and flush toilets
3. Educating communities on the best practices for health & hygiene
4. Restoring watersheds via nature-based design and reforestation
To date, EP has assisted rural communities with projects that now supply 300,000+ people with clean water and improved sanitation daily. EP has its headquarters in Managua, Nicaragua as well as regional offices in Terrabona, Camoapa, Comalapa, El Sauce, and Waslala. All but one of the in-country staff are native Nicaraguans.
Organization name
El Porvenir
other names
EP
1990
Category
Human Services
Organization Size
Large Organization
Address
80 Garden Center, Suite 135Other
Apartado R.P. 71 NicaraguaBroomfield County, CO, US
NI
Phone
303 8611499
Other
303-861-1499
Other
303-861-1480