Brazil: Amazon projects on sustainable water use win ANA 2020 Award

Marcela Leiros – From Cenarium Magazine

Educational institutions in the state of Amazonas and Tocantins, in Brazil, won this Monday, 22nd, the ANA Award Trophy 2020 (National Water Agency), with initiatives for the sustainable use of water resources.

The project ‘Clean Water for the Curumins of Tracajá’, created out by Escola Municipal Luiz Gonzaga, in Parintins, and the High Level Management of Water Resources project at the Federal University of Tocantins (UFT) won the award in their respective categories.

The event was broadcast on the Youtube channel of the National Water Agency and awarded projects in eight categories: Communication; Education; Medium and Large Companies; Micro or Small Companies; Entities of the National Water Resources Management System; Government; Civil Organizations; and Technological Research and Innovation.

The Amazon projects were included in the “Education” and “Research and Technological Innovation” categories.

The Ana Award was created 14 years ago by the National Water and Basic Sanitation Agency to recognize the best practices and initiatives aimed at water care in Brazil. It’s considered the most traditional award in the water sector in Brazil.

Amazonas

This was the first time that Amazonas won the ANA 2020 Award Trophy. Coordinated by Professor Valter Pereira de Menezes, the Clean Water Project for the Curumins of Tracajá solved the diarrhea problem that affected children and the elderly during the ebb and flow of the Rio Negro. With research, students found that the disease was caused by water.

The school is located in the Santo Antônio do Tracajá riverside community, in the interior of Parintins – a municipality 369 kilometers from the capital. About 70 families residing in the community, which until then had no access to the sewerage and drinking water, a social problem that inspired the school project, which was also nominated for the Global Teacher Prize in 2017.

Professor Valter Pereira Menezes has a degree in Science and specializes in Biology Teaching Methodology. He works at the Luiz Gonzaga Municipal School, in the rural community of Santo Antônio do Tracajá. In 2015, the “Clean Waters for Curumins do Tracajá” project won the Educator Grade 10 award, which recognizes and values ​​teachers from early childhood education to high school and also pedagogical coordinators and school managers from public and private schools across the country.

Tocantins

The High Level Management of Water Resources (GAN) project started in 2016 as the result of an agreement with associations of rural producers, resulting from a judicial agreement signed at a public hearing and developed by the Institute of Attention to Cities, UFT.

Coordinated by the professor of Civil Engineering at the Campus of Palmas, Felipe Marques, the project is a monitoring system that serves as a planning tool, which guides official bodies with information that will serve as technical support for decision making, in order to minimize uncertainties about the availability and risks of a water emergency.