A graduate from MASHAV’s Young Leadership course, together with members of a rural community in Ecuador, used 13,000 recycled plastic bottles to build a clinic which will provide medical assistance to the local population.
María Ángela Serrano, a graduate from the 2011 Young Leadership: Tools and Methodologies course organized by MASHAV’s professional affiliate the Aharon Ofri International Training Center, came up with the initiative for the Punta Hacienda community. MASHAV trains young leaders in Israel to become agents of change in their own communities.
Serrano and the Punta Hacienda community collected the plastic bottles and filled them with earth and sand to convert them into “green bricks.” Members of the community then built a three-room building that is being used as a medical clinic.
The medical clinic will host weekly visits from a physician and dentist.