Mi laguna Coña Coña, Bolivia

Project name: Mi laguna Coña Coña

Project location: Coña Coña lake on Cochabamba City, Bolivia

URL Facebook or other social media channels: https://www.facebook.com/Mi-laguna-Co%C3%B1a-Co%C3%B1a-919991574808275/

Project description:

The project ‘’Mi Laguna Coña Coña’’ will change practices and sensibilize people who live on the 22 hectares around the lake about the importance of water and environmental conservation. The two groups with which we will collaborate are the kids of the Coña Coña lake border school (José Ignacio de San Jines) and the lake’s Neighbourhood Association (NA) (OTB Villa Coña Coña). With the NA committee, we will create two pedagogic gardens with information about the lake biodiversity and good environmental practices. We will also give them capacity building about the biodiversity and functions of the lake, its sources of contamination and the ways to prevent them. This training will also include materials and content to be reproduced by the NA Villa Coña Coña to the 7 other NA’s which exist around the lake. We will also provide technical assistance to the NA of Villa Coña Coña to establish the lake as a Municipal Protected Area. We will help the students from the lake school to organize 3 ‘’citizen lake cleaning days”. We will also provide environmental capacity building to the school teachers – regarding the role of water sources in urban ecosystems and nature preservation – that will be directly transmitted to the students. The project will contribute to make the school a pioneer on environmental education. With the help of neighbours, children and teachers we will also install 10 trash bins around the lake and publish a journal about urbans ecosystems and how to preserve them 

Goal and purpose of the project:

With ‘’Mi Laguna Coña Coña’’ project we want to restore and preserve Lake Coña Coña as well as raise environmental awareness among the citizenship of Cochabamba and future generations.

Our first specific goal is to create and diffuse a citizen awareness campaign about the importance of the conservation of Lake Coña Coña.

Our second specific goal is to train the kids of Lake Coña Coña border school in the subjects of sustainable water management and environmental protection.

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

As an NGO, our motivation is to support neighbour groups of Lake Coña Coña (227 families), the school students bordering the lake and the ecologist activist group ‘’Don’t cut the trees in Cochabamba’’ (No a la tala de árboles en Cochabamba) (18 950 members) to preserve one of the last lakes and a vital source of water supply in the city. We are participating in the #youforG20 project because we believe that it is still time to change our practices and ideas on global climate change.

Use of prize money:

The prize money will finance 2 pedagogic gardens (plants, signs, benches, orchards, composting boxes); edit 500 journals regarding urban ecosystems (research, design and print); 10 trash bins; an environment and water specialist to train the NA group (20 hours) and the teachers (20 hours); a ‘’facilitator book’’ to help the neighbours reproduce the training; a consultant to establish the lake as a Municipal Protected Area; materials for the lake cleanings days (garbage bags,  plastic gloves).