Having returned from its trip to educate and share with communities on the Dominican Republic’s northern shore, GFDD’s ReCrearte program spent the last two days in Santo Domingo’s eastern communities of Brisa del Este and La Caleta.
This week, life skills were on the menu, and program coordinator Lucía Marte served up a very important, but often overlooked, offering: soap. Though it can be produced with relative ease, many do not think to make this valuable and essential material on their own. The best part: the ingredients needed are readily available, and come from recycled materials.
Having been instructed in the process of making lye from ashes and water and then soap by combining lye and animal fats or oils, the attendees were enthusiastic about trying it out on their own and cutting back on unnecessary waste. Ruth de Jesús even went so far as to say that she would begin to make her own soap for the purposes of selling it to others.
Following the organization’s mission to engage change-makers around the Dominican Republic, these workshops were carried out in coordination with neighborhood committees and mothers’ clubs in the communities where they were held. In learning the principles of proper management of solid waste, participants in both events came away with a broader outlook and a new life skill.
About ReCrearte:
The ReCrearte program works with the most disadvantaged communities, who receive training in the art of recycling and creating new objects from waste and simultaneously learn to develop an alternative source of income. The program revolves around the “three golden rules” (or 3Rs) for the proper management of solid waste: reduce, reuse, and recycle. The workshops demonstrate and emphasize the idea that recycling waste and transforming it into art and objects for daily use strengthens individuals and communities alike.
More Information:
www.recrearte.org
http://globalfoundationdd.org
Niños y adultos desbordaron un amplio salón de FUNGLODE, para seguir las instrucciones de Bertha Santana y Moses Ros, sobre creaciones con botellas plásticas y cartones desechados.
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