Project # 023 - Mezapata Suspended Bridge

Location: Peru; Santo Cruz River, District of Oxapampa, Province of Oxapampa, Region of Pasco,
USA Sponsor: The Rotary Club of Midlothian, Virginia, and the Rotary Foundation
Peru Sponsor: Pasco Region
Other Support: Province of Oxapampa
Local Community Sponsor: Community of Mezapata – labor and local materials
Dedication: Dick and Audrey Warren
Trainees: Regional and Provincial engineers from Pasco and Oxapampa.

Bridge name: Mezapata Suspended Bridge
River name: Santo Cruz River
Bridge span: 55 meter span (180 feet)
Population served by bridge: Approximately 600 families or +/- 3000 people

Bridge Story: Mezapata is a small village/town on a dirt road that leads to the provincial town of Oxapampa. The area is famous for the world’s best coffee and in harvest season the roads are flooded with the aromatic green and red beans. Industry has not come to Mezapata, so they sell their products at 5% what we pay for it in the US as a finished product. But some years that price doesn’t even cover effort and sometimes the loss it takes to harvest the small coffee beans. For, almost every year the people of Mezapata must repair their rickety wooden bridge after the floods have taken it away and once again either denied them access to the coffee plants on the other side of the river or villagers access to the road for food, health and education. Now a bridge will turn their hard work into savings.