A Day in the Dominican: Community Development

Pastor Urbano Vasquez is taking on the project of training an entire neighborhood to handle their trash differently. Instead of throwing it in the gutter and letting the rainwater carry it to the river, he is raising money to purchase garbage cans, shovels and wheel barrows, and he is recruiting volunteers to carry the trash up the hill to the main road once a week where the garbage trucks can reach it and carry it away.

Urbano explained that people throw the trash in the holes in the sidewalk.
When it rains, the water flows heavily down the hill to the river below
and carries the trash to the river

His plan is to start with a small part of the neighborhood, communicate with the people living there, showing them the garbage cans and asking them to put their garbage in the cans rather than in the gutter. He will explain all the reasons why this will help the community be healthier, have fewer problems with rats, cockroaches, mosquitos and disease. Children will be healthier, miss less school, it will better for the environment and make the neighborhood a more pleasant place to live.

Urbano plans to ask the residents to pay a small fee of about 25 pesos a month, which will be used to purchase materials and pay the men who do the hauling.

Urbano has a great vision. He’s heard about this working in other neighborhoods where the conditions are such that garbage truck can’t make it down their street - there is no street down in this valley. With a big rain, the entire neighborhood floods and some houses are completely covered in water.

We visited Pastor Urbano who has lived and worked in the neighborhood just up the hill as a pastor and as a teacher in the school he started over 20 years ago, educating students through 6^th grade.

Some of Urbano's students

The type of change Urbano is hoping for with the garbage cleanup project takes time, but Urbano has demonstrated that he is faithful. He knows how to persist and persevere through the challenges that present themselves, and will reflect the love of Christ with kindness and patience along the way. If anyone can cause change in this neighborhood, with the help of God, he can.

Urbano leading us to the neighborhood where he will be working.
Some of his students decided to join us.

In his church they’ve been praying a lot about this project, and I’m excited to see how God unites this community and brings change among them in the months and years to come.