COVID-19: Collaboration with Cántaro Azul in Mexico
Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico is collaborating with the NGO Cántaro Azul to provide hand sanitizers to people without access to clean water.
The coronavirus pandemic has made us aware of the importance of correctly implementing the hygiene practices that have been instilled in us since childhood; however, in some places in Mexico, something as simple as washing hands has become a great challenge due to lack of hygiene and water infrastructure and services.
Such is the case of Chiapas, a state that, although it has beautiful tourist destinations, also hosts 94% of the population living in poverty and lack of social security, as well as access to fundamental health services, food, sanitation and water for both hygiene and human consumption.
As a result of this situation, Boehringer Ingelheim Mexico set out to ensure that this sector has access to something so basic and necessary through an alliance with Cántaro Azul, a not-profit organization that dedicates its work to develop and implement sustainable water, hygiene and sanitation solutions with rural communities of the country, from a rights, health, resilience and equity perspective- Right from the beginning of the crisis, Cántaro Azul decided to focus its efforts on generating emergency response strategies among which is the production of liquid products that include hand sanitizer, soap and other disinfectants.
Thus, while Cántaro Azul produced the supplies, Boehringer Ingelheim was in charge of acquiring and donating alcohol gel to the benefit of 1,666 highly marginalized families, as well as 60 municipal clinics, schools and strategic centers in the Chiapas community so that they can face the health emergency. This is facilitated through more than 1,800 collaborators nationwide who are working at home, who will also receive a protection kit -with alcohol gel included- to safeguard their health and physical integrity.
Boehringer Ingelheim kicked off the alliance with Cántaro Azul in 2014, after selecting it as an Ashoka fellow for its joint Making More Health program, and will continue to work together to benefit more families. Over the years this has been established as a collaboration that shares values and is aligned both with respect to solving the problem of access to water and the objective of fighting against a common enemy: COVID-19.