Los Casabes and Duqueza City dump Community Project
In 2008, while conducting a medical and evangelistic outreach in Duqueza, Villa Mella, we treated a 12 year old for severe malnutrition and diarrhea. After treatment, her condition improved, but her lab work showed she was HIV+. We went to her village to speak to her family and found that they were a settlement of Haitian squatters that lived close to and made a living on the city dump. In collecting family history we stumbled into the neighboring village of Los Casabes where sanitation and lack of water supply are issues. Severe poverty is rampant in the community as well. We began to work with the community leaders in bringing medical education and mobile clinics on a regular basis, but the malnutrition remains an issue to be addressed.
Our vision is to purchase a piece of property in the area we have located that has a working well and a partially constructed building. We desire to expand the construction, institute a nutrition program and head start education to help children prepare for going to school, and to help older children with homework. Offering technical training will also bring hope to those with lack of skills and unemployment be more marketable.