Myrna Greenfield, director of UUSC's Outreach and Mobilization Department, filed this report after traveling recently to Ecuador to learn how grassroots movements are organizing youth and helping to ensure the human right to water for all.

Twenty years ago, the people of Guasmo Sur — a low-income neighborhood of about 40,000 households in Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city — started working together to address the poverty, inadequate education, substandard housing, and lack of water and sanitation services in their community; today, the neighborhood is still poor, but living standards have improved and people brim with a sense of pride and possibility.

I traveled to Guasmo Sur last month with a delegation of UUSC members and supporters to observe and learn from the extraordinary progress that this community has made. At a time when the political stalemate in the United States is forestalling efforts to create change, it was inspiring to see the impact that people organizing together can achieve.

They call themselves El Movimiento Mi Cometa (the "My Kite" movement). Over the years, Mi Cometa has developed a variety of dynamic social services, such as a Head Start–type program for preschoolers, an after-school enrichment program, a women-led housing construction co-op, a microenterprise loan program, and music and computer programs for all. Mi Cometa's programs are developed to meet community needs and are largely headed up by women and youth.

Youth activists

Over a simple, healthy lunch, our delegation was regaled by a pint-sized band performing a spirited rendition of "Oye Como Va," the Tito Puente song popularized by Santana. In addition to developing children's creativity along with their ABCs, Mi Cometa strives to educate people about human rights. For example, if they have a parade, each child carries a sign about a specific right, such as the right to education and the right to vote.

Ecuadorans are eligible to vote at age 16 and are required to vote at age 18 through 65 or they may be subject to possible government sanctions. The leader of Mi Cometa's School of Leaders for the New Millennium, an energetic 24-year-old named José Luis Echeverría, told us that youth have an important voice in shaping Ecuador's future. "Age doesn't make you mature," José Luis told us. "It's the supposedly 'mature' people who are responsible for the state our country is in!"

During their campaign to develop and eventually help pass a new Ecuadoran constitution in October 2008, youth from Mi Cometa traveled around Ecuador by bus, soliciting ideas for the constitution from other young people; 9 of the 40 articles they submitted were adopted into the constitution. Mi Cometa, which is not affiliated with any political party, is now working on a program to train youth to run for public office.

Constitutional right to water

In addition to the youth provisions, Mi Cometa informed our group that the Ecuadoran constitution states, "The right to water is a fundamental and inalienable human right." Hearing that the human right to water (access to safe, sufficient, affordable water for daily human needs) is actually written into the constitution was really moving. I thought of my colleagues in Boston, who are campaigning to ensure that low-income people won't get their water shut off if they can't pay their bills, and wished they were with me to hear about this remarkable accomplishment.

Although Mi Cometa successfully campaigned to get the human right to water included in the constitution, the struggle to make sure it is implemented is still under way. As with low-income communities around the world, one of Guasmo Sur's most pressing problems is the lack of access to safe, sufficient, affordable water. As of August 2009, only 90 percent of the residents had potable water piped into their homes, and only 75 percent had sanitation services. People without running water must purchase water from water trucks called tanqueros. Industrial and home waste is dumped into the Guayas River without effective treatment.

Our delegation met with Jose Luis Santos, the general director of ECAPAG, the Ecuadoran regulatory agency that has oversight responsibility for Interagua, the former Bechtel Inc. subsidiary that was granted the concession contract in 2001 to provide privatized water and sanitation services to Guayaquil. Santos reported to our delegation that ECAPAG had fined Interagua $5.6 million dollars for failure to install the requisite number of water and sanitation hookups required by the contract.

Citizen watchdogs

Mi Cometa realized that people from other neighborhoods were experiencing similar problems with poor-quality services and lack of responsiveness to customers, so they formed a coalition of 40 organizations, called Observatorio Ciudadano de Servicios Publicos (OCSP, or the Citizens Observatory on Public Services), to serve as a watchdog organization for water, sanitation, and other public services in Guayaquil. OCSP has tested water quality, gathered testimony documenting how citizens' needs have been ignored, attracted the media to examine the problems, and brought its case to local, national, and international courts.

In fall 2009, the World Bank's ombudsman responded to OCSP's claim on behalf of 3,500 Interagua customers who had unresolved complaints about their bills. Through mediation, the ombudsman got Interagua to form a negotiation table with OCSP and the customers. During our visit, OCSP and the customers were engaged in daily negotiations to resolve these 3,500 cases.

"This is the first time we've been able to get Interagua to talk," attorney Augusto Parada, one of OCSP's leaders, told our delegation through our translator, UUSC Environmental Justice Program Manager Patricia Jones. "It wasn't easy. It has happened little by little, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. It was so difficult that at one point we thought the negotiations would break down!"

By relying on a clause in the Ecuadoran constitution during negotiations, OCSP was able to get Interagua to agree to cancel the unpaid water debt for people in extreme poverty, and to reduce 50 percent of the debt and forgive penalty fees and interest for those who didn't qualify as extremely low-income.

"When we started the negotiations, conversations broke into arguments," Parada told us. "After 15 days of negotiations, the combativeness has diminished. There's a different dynamic for the customers. You can see in their eyes that they now have hope that they'll be able to resolve these issues."

While many in Guasmo Sur criticize OCSP and don't believe that Interagua is truly concerned about responding to low-income people's needs, Parada and others are optimistic. "The power relationships have changed," Parada continued. "People feel we can speak together to dialogue, investigate, and come to a resolution. This is a completely new experience here in Guayaquil! We'll see what the results will be."

For more information about UUSC's Environmental Justice program, visit www.uusc.org/environmentaljustice.