Update....with photos!

 Thank you to Valley of the Flowers United Church of Christ in Lompoc, CA for your donations to the latrine project.  We currently have raised $1,210!  We'd like to raise $2,500 by the end of the year.

Here are some photos of the typical pit latrines in Batey Cuchilla, Dominican Republic.

 

 

  

Global Potential youth working with community members in 2010 to build a compostable latrine.

 

A video from 2011 of a community meeting in Cuchilla with Global Potential youth.  Community members repeatedly expressed the need for latrines. 

Latrine Project Details

Idea for the latrine project

We are a group of participants and staff of Global Potential, a program of the non-profit organization Globalhood, which promotes youth leadership (www.global-potential.org).  In Global Potential’s program, youth travel and live with families for six weeks in rural villages while learning about and working with the community to implement service projects.  We were lucky enough to live in Batey Cuchilla.

In the summer of 2010 we conducted a community census in addition to other community projects and workshops.  We counted 104 households and 476 people.  We also found some startling statistics.  The most salient statistic was that only 22 households (21%) had a latrine or had access to one.  That means that 82 households (79%) have to do their business in places not designed for human waste, such as fields or streams.   
    

Global Potential returned to Cuchilla in the summer of 2011 with a new group of students to find some positive changes in the community.  Local teen Francia Simone won the International Children's Peace Prize for helping undocumented children receive birth certificates.  Her prize money will help build houses.  An American church group engineered clean drinking water at two retrieval points in the community.  World Vision was repairing the school.  The latrine situation, however, remained the same.    

In a community meeting, Cuchilla residents voiced that their greatest needs were improved housing and latrines.  Again in individual conversations with key leaders, the need for more and better latrines was repeated.  When asked what barriers prevented the construction of latrines, community members cited "money" as the greatest obstacle.  We consider the lack of latrines in Cuchilla to be an issue of urgency not only for community sanitation, but also for human dignity.  It is not unusual for children to get sick with bacteria infections, and even more worrisome is that cholera has slowly been making its way to the bateys in 2011.  Improper disposal of human waste only exacerbates health problems. 

Project outline

In dialogue with the community, the goal is to raise money for five to ten community latrines, to be placed throughout the batey.  They will be compostable latrines and we will work with a local NGO to build them.  The cost per compostable latrine is about 500 U.S. dollars.  Our goal is to raise the money between September and December 2011.

Our time in Cuchilla had profound impacts on us (for more info see www.global-potential.org) and now we want to do something for the people who so generously shared with us their time, energy, and love. 

How to help

All donations will go through the non-profit organization Globalhood.

To donate with a credit card, go online to:

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/friendsofcuchilla/fundraisingpage. 

To send a check:

Make the check payable to Globalhood, Inc. and in the memo write “Cuchilla Latrine Project” Send it to:

Globalhood, Inc.
c/o Demos
220 Fifth Ave., 8th Floor
New York, NY, 10001

Please help us reach our goal!  Thank you!

About Batey Cuchilla

Batey Cuchilla is located in the southwest of the Dominican Republic in the province of Bahoruco. It is a small community of about 500 residents, surrounded by sugarcane fields on all sides. Most residents are children or grandchildren of Haitian immigrants who came to work in the sugarcane fields, or were born in Haiti themselves. The economy of Batey Cuchilla is based primarily on the production of sugarcane. Additionally, some people work in other sectors of agriculture and raising livestock. There is a high rate of unemployment, illiteracy, and child labor. In Cuchilla, there is a community center and a four-room school that serves children up to fifth grade. There are no paved roads, and during heavy rains the roads often flood or are washed away. The majority of houses are made of wood with dirt floors and no bathroom.  Electricity is intermittent and running water comes on about twice a day.  There are no health services directly in Cuchilla, but there are two health clinics in other bateys nearby.  Locals enjoy sports, especially baseball, and there is an informal baseball team that plays weekly against other communities.  Locals also enjoy going to church and visiting with friends. There is an organized youth group, and a number of incredible youth leaders. (Taken from www.global-potential.org Community Profile)

More on bateys

A batey is a community built by a corporation to house migrant farm workers.  In the Dominican Republic most bateys were built to house sugar cane workers from Haiti, but have grown to include many 2^nd and 3^rd generation Haitian Dominicans.  Sugar cane workers are paid extremely low wages, and children born in the bateys often do not have birth certificates, which essentially renders them stateless and denies them an education past the eighth grade.  The government provides little to no services to the bateys.  To learn more about living conditions in bateys, watch “The Price of Sugar,” a highly revealing documentary about the plight of cane workers and batey dwellers.