A plot of land and a big dream. Building a brighter future for El Salitre, one step at a time.
An hour outside of Guatemala City, bordering a highly polluted lake, you will find El Salitre. In this impoverished area of the city Amatitlan, 5,000 residents — mostly women and children — live in abject poverty. The obstacles here are many: violence and malnutrition, and no access to clean water, sewage treatment, or electricity.
Over the past two years, El Salitre’s Women and Children’s Center has been involved in a life-changing capital campaign to develop its own two-acre site for the benefit of its families and countless others in the future.
Each phase of development brings the center closer to realizing a long-awaited dream: having a safe place where women can live, work and raise their children.
Phase 1
Land AQUISITION
To launch its campaign, El Salitre purchased two acres of land on the edge of Lake Amatitlan, and began planning for development of the site. The location is strategically close to where the women in the program live, the area school and local medical clinic.
Phase 2
Security
Because El Salitre is a high-crime area, increasing security was a necessary first step in developing the site. A concrete wall was built topped with razor wire and a tall, iron fence on the lakeside. El Salitre also renovated a small cottage on the property to house its local groundskeeper, Olimpia, and her family, to provide on-site security for the center.
Phase 3
SEWING WORKSHOP
In October 2022, the building of a sewing workshop was complete. This workshop includes a main sewing room for the seamstresses, along with individual sewing stations, bathrooms with flushable toilets and washing sinks. There is also a small, eat-in kitchenette, a nursery for infants and young children, and a supply storage closet with laundry.
Phase 4
Utilities
Did you know that the ground water in El Salitre is boiling hot? This is because of the proximity to volcanos in the area. This makes access to clean water a challenge. Thus, an essential part of site development is building the infrastructure to support the center’s water needs. In addition to a water well, the community center will need a solar water pump, a cistern cooler and a filtration system. (The lake adjacent to the property is too highly polluted with industry chemicals to be a responsible, viable water source).
Phase 5
COMMUNITY CENTER - FUTURE CONSTRUCTION
The final and most exciting phase of development is the building of a brand new, 5,150 square foot community center for the women and children of El Salitre. The community center will include a preschool, bathrooms, a small library, a work lab with technology access for older children, a director’s office and a work/play space for younger children. Also, a community kitchen, pantry and outdoor dining porch will host nutrition classes and provide space for preparing and serving healthy food to the women and children in the program, and elderly in the area. To learn more about this highly-anticipated culmination of the project, visit the community center page.
Building a Brighter Future With Your Help
Your generous donation represents the gift of the lifetime for these women and children. We ask for your continued support as we enter the final phase of our fundraising campaign, which will allow us to complete Phase 5 and make the dream of a community center a reality!
El Salitre is grateful to its contractor on the project, Constu Casa — a well-respected, Guatemalan non-profit that has built over 1400 homes and 200 community buildings/schools in the country!