At one point in time, Students International had wanted to start a new country location every three years. After looking at a few countries to consider, it was decided that at this time it would be best to look into starting another location here in the Dominican Republic. Santiago has a lot of need for services and outreach like we provide so it seemed a good match to pursue that avenue. After a couple of fund raising events to kick off that location, in March of this year we will begin with two of what we hope will be three sites for this year - a medical site and an appropriate technology site. The Medical site will be working in two to three communities and the technology site will be working primarily
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| Progresso Segundo on the North West side of Santiago DR. |
in the community of Progresso Segundo. It is a small "squatters community" to the North side of Santiago.( Google Map of the location ) It is about 3-4 years old now and currently there is no running water at all and the ground is so contaminated with agriculture chemicals that it is not advisable to put a well in the ground. There are about 300 family dwellings on the west side of the canal and about 1200 families on the east side. All the water that is used there is brought in by tanker trucks and put in Tinako or barrels for each family. They then either drink that water or buy 5 gal bottled water to drink. We are hoping to start making and installing a concrete water filter for individual homes. We have ordered the forms from José Rivas in Dajabon to make the filters and they should be ready to pick up by the middle of March or so.We will also work with José for the media that goes into the filter.
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| Concrete water filters (about 18" sq X 36" H) |
Our goal is to get the water for the filters from a canal that runs through the community and pipe it to the house of Alex Jimenez. He is a pastor in the community of Progresso Segundo that will be running the AT site for us there. We will then filter that water into clean drinking water. Alex will then work with short term mission groups in making and distributing the filters to homes. He will be spending a lot of time training the homeowners in how to use the filters and how to sanitize the containers that they use for the clean water. It is likely that the Community Health site will also get involved in the project to teach the value of clean water and how dirty, contaminated water can lead to numerous health problems. Eventually we would like to locate and tap into a main water line that runs by since this is only a solution for their drinking water and not water to bath, wash, cook, and clean with. But at this point the distance is too far to consider the option of the main water line tap.
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| The water filters that we will be making in Santiago. |
We are really excited about this project and look forward to seeing where God can take this and use this for His glory. Currently there are two outreaches planned for this location in June and July. We have a couple of young ladies that were interns last year that are planning on helping us at the new location this summer and are actively looking for a location to host those two teams.
Right now we are all set on the funds to run the sites and host the teams but we are actively searching for additional funds to help pay for the 2 or 3 National Staff that will be working at this location. We have faith that God will provide those funds through individuals like you and so we are moving forward with this project at this time. Pray that God may use you to partner with the National Staff in Progresso Segundo in this venture.
