Women of San Luis Undertake Environmental Clean-Up Project with Support from French Embassy

The Women’s Association of San Luis (ASOMUSAL), with support from the French Embassy, is undertaking a project called “Improving Sanitary Conditions and the Environment” in three sugar-producing areas of the Municipal District of San Luis. This includes the construction of 150 latrines, picking up garbage and solid waste as well as organizing reforestation days and educational programs in the area of health, community hygiene and environment.

She indicated that they are just about to harvest their first crops which include tomatoes, garlic, lettuce, cabbage, eggplants and beets, among others.

According to Mercedes Ozuna and Nathaly De Sena, President and Secretary General of the Association, the Project´s main objective is to improve living conditions for inhabitants of the villages around San Luis and to contribute to the environmental clean-up of the rest of the communities in the area.

The villages, known by the Arawak Indian word ´bateyes´ where the project will be carried out, are Batey Pueblo Nuevo, Batey La Cerca and Batey Los Mameyes. In this area there is a population of approximately 4,300 inhabitants who, following the closure and privatization of the San Luis sugar mill in 1999 have been unemployed. Prior to the closure, they had been totally dependent on the cutting and production of sugar cane.

Ozuna explained that the environmental clean-up project has prioritized education in the area of community and personal hygiene as well as informing people on how to combat unhealthy practices and illnesses among the community. Many of the illnesses are related to the abundance of accumulated garbage and the lack of adequate solid waste management. A build up of residual waters can produce large numbers of mosquitoes that cause skin and other illnesses like dengue and a large range of contagious diseases.

Other components of the project have to do with horticulture, explained Ms. Ozuna, as a way of giving families of the San Luis villages alternative agricultural options. She indicated that they are just about to harvest their first crops which include tomatoes, garlic, lettuce, cabbage, eggplants and beets, among others.

After the closure of the sugar mills, the community of San Luis – converted into a Municipal District in 2006 – began to decline in terms living conditions. There was a big increase in unemployment, prostitution and small informal commerce.

In the face of this reality, expressed Mercedes Ozuna, this project is a response that will contribute to combat poverty and improve health conditions and the environment in the communities due to “the accumulation of garbage, the precarious education and unemployment that threatens the survival of the various communities that make up the Municipal District and whose authorities do very little to confront the terrible situation.”

The community leader thanked the French Embassy for its cooperation in getting the project started. She referred to the project as a relief for the poverty in which the people of San Luis are living, especially those from the bateyes, or small villages.

The Municipal District of San Luis is made up of about 52,800 people with Dominican-Haitians comprising 35%. “With the closure of the sugar mills prostitution and illnesses have grown in the bateyes,” said Ms. Ozuna.

The project has been underway for 12 months, with a 50% function rate for the four months of its application. Once the project ends, it is expected to have provided some 150 health solutions, a dozen education days on community hygiene and environmental clean-up as well as at least three fruit and vegetable harvests.

It is also hoped that there will be a consolidation of the Women’s Association of San Luis, an organization that has worked for the community since 1995 and now has some 600 women involved as members.