Salsipuedes, in the heart of the city of Moca and in contact with its historic center, is a neighborhood of more than 450 households living in a highly vulnerable situation.
The narrow, labyrinthine streets are made of dirt and are on a steep slope that pushes everything washed away by the rain into a gully. The houses are very small and made of precarious materials, and the families live with a high level of overcrowding. Each household has informally installed its own access to water and the sanitation system is based on single-family or shared latrines or cesspits. All this makes for extreme environmental conditions in the neighborhood.
Before the transformation, dirty gully of Barrio Salsipuedes.
The NGO Arquitectos Sin Fronteras, with the support of AECID, promotes the transformation of the neighborhood through a pilot experience in which the architectural solutions of the houses and the conditions of access to water and sanitation are improved, together with the inhabitants of the neighborhood and in coordination with the Municipality of Moca, the Association for the Development of the Province of Espaillat (ASODEPE), and CORAAMOCA, active partners in the development of this initiative that guarantee its sustainability and its extension to the whole neighborhood.
Today, each house is equipped with a hygienic bathroom and connected to a network with primary treatment, which will prevent the discharge of sewage into the gully and the Moca River. Two-story houses have been built and designed with the inhabitants, which has allowed for the widening of the streets, which have also been paved, as well as generating mechanisms for garbage collection.
Erika Estevez, a community member of the Salsipuedes neighborhood in Moca, highlights how her quality of life and that of her family has improved after the reconstruction of her house through this project – “Improvement of the conditions of access to water and sanitation in the Salsipuedes neighborhood”-, supported by Aecid and ASF.
The Spanish Cooperation works as a priority in the Dominican Republic to improve sanitation and hygiene as one of the main lines of intervention.
