The 5th Award Ceremony of the Latin American and the Caribbean Water Prizes (PLACA in Spanish), took place November 25, 2009 at the Panama Canal Miraflores Visiting Center. The Ceremony brought together representatives from the diplomatic corps, international organizations, governmental agencies and the business sector.
PLACA has been an annual event since 2005 with the purpose of recognizing and sharing innovative solutions in the field of integrated water resources management in the Latin America and the Caribbean region. The PLACA Water Prizes seek to honor outstanding local, national and regional efforts and best practices of communities, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, businesses, schools, youth movements, journalists, and individuals that serve as examples to halving, by 2015, the world wide proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
The PLACA 2009 Prizes was organized by the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC), in partnership with UNICEF’s Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean, UNEP’s Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), and the collaboration of Olga Sinclair, New Concept Publications, Courtyard by Marriott Panama Real Hotel, the Panama Hotel, the Miraflores Restaurant and Copa Airlines. The selected winners were Oscar Ospina and Hildebrando Ramirez from Colombia, for the Academic Prize. Agua Sustentable, a Bolivian NGO was worthy of the Community Prize. FONAG received the distinction to receive the Business Prize for the great work done in Ecuador. Young Augusto Niez Gay won the Junior Prize for the second year. For more information on the projects which made them winners of these prizes, visit www.premiosdelagua.org
2009 Winners
Academic Prize: The 2009 Academic Prize was awarded to Oscar Ospina and Hildebrando Ramírez (Colombia). Both researchers lead the AQUA group at the Cooperative University of Colombia where the work developed by the team represents a natural, cheap alternative and innovative alternative to the current water purification process for human consumption.
Community Prize: The 2009 Community Prize was awarded to Agua Sustentable, NGO represented by its Director Juan Carlos Alurralde (Bolivia). Recognized for its Innovative Circuit in approaching all regarding public policy creation and reform, impacting on policy to align it to reality for it to become a legal framework, solidly based and sustained by scientific research, that contributes to an efficient water management.
Business Prize: The 2009 Business Prize was awarded to FONAG- Fondo para la Protección del Agua (Water Protection Business Fund), represented by the Director Pablo LLORET (Ecuador). This company embodies a different water management figure that is being replicated in Ecuador and also in other countries. It leads processes to create a new water culture where all stakeholders are involved in their responsibility to manage water resources in a responsible manner; thus achieving an adequate integrated water resources management through Environmental Education, Vigilance and Monitoring; Recuperating Vegetation Cover; Training; Water Communication and Management, with projects where communities, public and private civilian organizations as well as NGOs are involved.
Junior Prize: The 2009 Junior Prize was awarded to Augusto German Niez Gay. This young and active 16 year old student project focuses on cyanobacteria (photosynthetic bacteria), some of which can produce potent and dangerous toxins if repetitively exposed to them. This exposure can affect the liver, the nervous system and promote tumor formations. His work seeks to determine their impact on the water reservoir used for recreation purposes and on the Uruguay River (down river from reservoir) which is used as a source of water intake for the city of Concordia. His work also proposes concrete remedial and mitigating actions regarding the sanitary implications, promoting the creation of an inter-institutional network for regional integrated water resources management.
Media Prize: The 2009 Media Prize was awarded to Silvana Bujan, journalist in charge to the ECOS Program which has been on the air for the last 11 years in FM Residencias of Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires from the Republic of Argentina. The author produced, made and edited an audio report on the multiple chemicals that exist and are used in agriculture that infiltrate the ground and wind up in the water wells of the farming communities.
PLACA Prize 2009 Awarding Ceremony Program
