Meet Our Community Partners: Roberto Escanio

Meet Roberto Escanio. Collaborating Community Organizer in the Bateyes Community of Monte Coca, Dominican Republic

"So long as I'm here and have the strength to do so, I will be here to collaborate to better our communities. It has been such a blessing from God to do so."

Don Roberto was born in the eastern part of the country, in a region called Hato Mayor, though he now has lived in the Batey community of Monte Coca, where he's been a community leader and local organizer for decades.

He has dedicated nearly 40 years of his life to bettering the communities he's been a part of, with a particular service to the education of young people and to the care for elders. In particular, he is the leader of the Junta de Vecinos (Neighborhood Association).

Building the Junta de Vecinos

He helped start the Junta de Vecinos in the early 1990s, a time when many youth in his communities were not attending school and were instead being led into lives with little opportunity, oftentimes being taken advantage of.

He says that it was one incident in particular that sparked his inspiration for creating the Junta de Vecinos - when local police came to drink with some youth only to end up robbing, beating, and arresting them instead. Since then, he's taken a leading role in developing his communities for the better through the Junta de Vecinos.

A Decade of Partnership

In 2012 he began collaborating with service-based learning organizations who he reports have had an immensely lasting impact in his communities. What once began with a group of local volunteers showing students how to create structures like cement floors and latrine bathrooms has developed into a lasting partnership over the past decade.

Now these former volunteers not only have well-paying masonry gigs to teach and collaborate with students in building these structures, but the work that they began has now impacted 11 Bateye communities that Don Roberto collaborates with.

This includes his own community of Monte Coca where he reports that over 15 houses, 70 latrine bathrooms, and 50 floors have been built thanks to these collaborations. Don Roberto shows immense gratitude to the collaborations we've built with his communities over the years, and we show immense gratitude to him in return.

When Don Roberto isn't busy overseeing a community-impact project or helping provide the youth with the education or elders with the care that they need, you can find him at Church or in the company of his loved ones.