Connectivity is Key.
Los Llanos, Guatemala is an isolated community due to a lack of vehicle roads and a large ravine preventing contact with–and travel between–nearby communities. EWB-NU partnered with the community of Los Llanos, Guatemala to build a vehicle bridge across the ravine to help facilitate inter community trade and travel.
Members from the Guatemala Project Team traveled to Los Llanos in December of 2017 to assess the terrain and learn more about the community. Through their data, work began on potential bridge designs. However, right before any substantial work was completed in the design, the bridge site was moved for external reasons. The bridge design was finalized and implemented in the summer of 2019.
This project is a one-lane vehicle bridge crossing a river in the Los Llanos communities. The bridge serves roughly 7000 people in the Los Llanos communities and over 50 trucks travel over the bridge daily, in addition to motorcyclists and pedestrians. It decreases the commute from these communities to Guatemala City and provides year-round access to education, healthcare and economic development. Community leaders informed us that the bridge is primarily used by trucks carrying necessary farming supplies (cows, fertilizer, etc.) bought in Guatemala City and goods to be sold in Guatemala City. This bridge spans a river at the bottom of a larger ravine just outside of Joyabaj.