Project

The Mazahua and Mexico's Water Crisis

Water is one of the most basic human needs, yet too many Mexico City citizens cannot rely on their tap each day. The problem is only getting worse. While most media coverage focuses on the city residents and political conflict, the impact on the nearby indigenous communities is too often ignored.

Mexico City imports its water through uphill pipes that are deteriorating, and this infrastructure is failing to support the needs of its 20-million-person population. “Always short of water, Mexico City keeps drilling deeper for more, weakening the ancient clay lake beds on which the Aztecs first built much of the city, causing it to crumble even further,” The New York Times reported.

As the lack of water contributes to growing social and political conflict in the city, miles away the Mazahua indigenous community live among the water source and also face consequences of the crisis. The Mazahua Frente, an activist group, are demanding more resources for the Mazahua people. In 2004, a group of women from the Frente even shut down part of a water sanitation plant in protest. Today, the Frente's fight continues.
 

In this project Meg Vatterott attempts to show how climate change disrupts a vulnerable community's access to water.

December 14, 2018 | Pulitzer Center

'Mazahua Frente': Film Trailer

Meg Vatterott

View the trailer of 'Mazahua Frente', a documentary that follows a rural indigenous community’s fight for water. A longer version of the film, produced by Missouri School of Journalism student Meg Vatterott, will screen at upcoming film festivals.

August 16, 2018 | Pulitzer Center

Sustainability Utopia Among the Mazahua

Meg Vatterott

Rocio Albino Garduño takes her work home with her. Garduño and her family use their own home as a classroom to educate their traditional farming community about more sustainable practices.