Esmeralda: A Small Community with a Big Hope

When Living Waters for the World partners helped install a community water purification system in Tres Reyes, Yucatán, Mexico, it also brought hope and clean water to Esmeralda, a small Mayan community nearby. Esmeralda is home to just eight families.  Those families gained something truly life-changing and unexpected — the assurance that their children would grow up drinking safe water every day.

These smiles tell the story of those first days with clean water. At that time, the Tres Reyes water system nearby had begun reaching beyond its own borders, providing clean water to neighboring communities like Esmeralda. For the first time, families no longer had to worry about where their next drink of safe water would come from.

Today, these girls are much older — teenagers and young women now — and they have never known a day without clean water since. They’ve grown up healthy. They’ve been able to attend school regularly, to study, to dream of a future that was once out of reach for their parents and grandparents.

For Esmeralda’s families, clean water doesn’t just quench thirst — it means health, hope, and opportunity. It means mothers no longer have to boil or haul water from unsafe sources. It means children can focus on learning instead of struggling through illness. And it means that this small Mayan community, just eight families strong, can thrive on its own terms.

Your gifts make stories like this possible. When you support clean water through Living Waters for the World, you’re helping to sustain communities like Esmeralda — places where even a single system can serve as a lifeline for generations.

Thank you for being part of this story. Because of your generosity, clean water continues to flow, and with it flows hope, health, and a future that shines a little brighter for children and families across the world.