Casa de Abue
Donation protected
Puerto Rico is known to the world as the Island of Enchantment! Its blessed with some of the best soils, beaches, mountains and jungle views in the world. There is plenty of rain water here to grow food without irrigation. There is a diverse and multicultural population, and a huge range of ecosystems all in a space that measures 100 by 35 miles. The potential for prosperity and abundance for the people and land of Puerto Rico is immense.
Yet despite this bounty the Island is in crisis, due to an engineered bankruptcy, and the horrors of Hurricane Maria. Puerto Ricans have been hit with increased sales taxes, electrical bills, and university costs, all known to hurt the poor. During the months after the hurricane, the United States Government turned away food aid from neighboring countries, even as FEMA failed to meet basic needs. Almost a year later, there are still many homes without water. The young farmers on the Island, mainly students and young parents, are working to grow the food to feed this island. Their hard labor, sometimes working with children on their backs, is fueling a food revolution that is rebirthing and changing the way food is produced, marketed and distributed on the island,with the potential to recharge the Puerto Rican economy and society.
We are supporting this network on the Island which is working on building a new economy based of sustainable agriculture, autonomous energy, and strong local economies and we need your support!
What Casa de Abue is doing:
Casa de Abue is a space to host volunteers that are interested in coming to Puerto Rico to help build a local sustainable agriculture as well as to immerse themselves and learn from the puerto rican culture. We work on connecting with communities abroad that are looking for meaningful volunteer opportunities and we connect them with farms and projects in puerto rico the teams coming will raise the funds to help “their” farmers. Our team is committed to working with volunteers every step of the way, including providing local transportation, introduction and debriefing sessions and purchasing and delivering the materials that they fund Our space is being designed to host up to 20 volunteers at once.
As well, Casa de Abue is working on growing its own food, by farming and gardening the backyard. The backyard is used as a demonstration site for the local community in Guaynabo, for them to see the potential of growing food locally and in an urban setting. In relationship with that function, we are using the space at “Casa de Abue” to host workshops opened and geared towards the local community. As a community space we hope to provide a location for information to pass, relationships to grow and networks built both locally and internationally.
We arrived in Puerto Rico in June 2018, to a house that had been empty for a decade. In a period of two months, we scraped, painted, fixed walls, ceilings, windows and electrical connections. In August we moved into “Casa de Abue” and hosted our first workshop/brigade that turned our backyard into a wonderful urban permaculture garden. We are in the process of becoming entirely self sufficient. Already built a retaining pond and swales as the first step of a water harvesting system, and we are eating the food from our garden. In the near future, we plan to install solar panels, and create a biogas digester to be energy independent as well!
We have a lot of concrete needs as we move forward. We need to finish vital repairs in the house’s plumbing, and furnish it fully for volunteer groups. Once folks are here, we will need vehicles for transport, and tools to equip our volunteer brigades at our partner farms. As we move further off grid, we also need money for the purchase of solar panels, and materials to build other sustainable technology.
2 Passenger vans: $ 14,000
Tools and supplies: $2000
Furnishing and appliances: $2000
Solar Panels: $7000
Water Harvesting Tanks: $1500
Plumbing repairs: $2000
Estimated Total: $28,500
Your love and solidarity mean a lot to us. So far, we have financed this with small donations, and our own hard work and savings. Right now, we are asking for more help, and we want to invite everyone who donates to this campaign to come to visit the Island of Enchantment and join in our work. As we say in Spanish, mi casa es tu casa!
Casa de Abue’s team:
Vasti Rosado: I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, from a young age my parents taught me how to think critically about the world we live in and question its social structures. This led me to leave Puerto Rico at the age of 18 to go study in the mainland. When I left Puerto Rico I made a pact with myself to return home, when it called. I ended up in a small mid-western town, Goshen, Indiana, where I studied Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies at a small liberal arts school, Goshen College. After college, I traveled a bit, mainly through East Africa, working with humanitarian and self sustainable environmental efforts in the region. I spent around two years there, coming back to the US afterwards. While in the US, I focused my work towards serving the homeless population in Colorado. Then in September 21, 2017 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and everything changed. Puerto Rico called to me, and I decided to return home and be part of a long term rebuilding and transformation process. Currently I am back home in Puerto Rico, working on creating a space called “Casa de Abue”. Being back in one of the home’s I grew up in and transforming it, feels a bit surreal, since I never expected this to be. I can still feel Abue roaming about in the home, her spirit guiding us and blessings us as we undertake this path.
Clare Maxwell: A year ago, I wouldn’t have imagined myself being in Puerto Rico. Vasti and I had talked about building a project here at some point since we were undergrads together, but always as an abstract, something that could happen down the line. Instead, I had spent most of the past few years in Palestine, Lebanon, and Greece, studying Arabic and working as an activist and a journalist. I’m eternally grateful to the organizers, environmentalists, and people of struggle I met in those years, and I’m working now to connect these people of conscience to the growing movement here on the Island.
My tracks switched after Vasti decided to move back to Puerto Rico… and asked me if I was interested in coming too. For a multitude of reasons, it came at the perfect time for me to shift some focus away from other shores, and join up with people who were fighting back against an oppressive status quo imposed by my own country, the USA. In the coming months, our plans to move took shape, and so did the project of Casa de Abue.
Right now, I’m amazed and excited by the space and community that are all coming to fruition, the many adventures and victories to come, and to giving our sweet little puppy Baxter a forever home!
Karla Rosado: I am an artist in the process of creating herself. Boricua born and raised. Currently living in Denver, Colorado. Due to the distance, at the moment I assist my sisters, Vasti and Clare, with social media management of the Instagram and Facebook accounts for Casa de Abue. It fills my heart to see my abuela's home becoming a center for solidarity and unity. I look forward to returning home and visiting the house in person after many empowering changes. I plan to leave the house filled with some colorful art on the walls. In the near future I'd like to permanently relocate back to PR with my husband, dog, and two cats in order to be present in my island during this time of change. I'm hoping this project inspires people everywhere to be the change their world needs.
Yet despite this bounty the Island is in crisis, due to an engineered bankruptcy, and the horrors of Hurricane Maria. Puerto Ricans have been hit with increased sales taxes, electrical bills, and university costs, all known to hurt the poor. During the months after the hurricane, the United States Government turned away food aid from neighboring countries, even as FEMA failed to meet basic needs. Almost a year later, there are still many homes without water. The young farmers on the Island, mainly students and young parents, are working to grow the food to feed this island. Their hard labor, sometimes working with children on their backs, is fueling a food revolution that is rebirthing and changing the way food is produced, marketed and distributed on the island,with the potential to recharge the Puerto Rican economy and society.
We are supporting this network on the Island which is working on building a new economy based of sustainable agriculture, autonomous energy, and strong local economies and we need your support!
What Casa de Abue is doing:
Casa de Abue is a space to host volunteers that are interested in coming to Puerto Rico to help build a local sustainable agriculture as well as to immerse themselves and learn from the puerto rican culture. We work on connecting with communities abroad that are looking for meaningful volunteer opportunities and we connect them with farms and projects in puerto rico the teams coming will raise the funds to help “their” farmers. Our team is committed to working with volunteers every step of the way, including providing local transportation, introduction and debriefing sessions and purchasing and delivering the materials that they fund Our space is being designed to host up to 20 volunteers at once.
As well, Casa de Abue is working on growing its own food, by farming and gardening the backyard. The backyard is used as a demonstration site for the local community in Guaynabo, for them to see the potential of growing food locally and in an urban setting. In relationship with that function, we are using the space at “Casa de Abue” to host workshops opened and geared towards the local community. As a community space we hope to provide a location for information to pass, relationships to grow and networks built both locally and internationally.
We arrived in Puerto Rico in June 2018, to a house that had been empty for a decade. In a period of two months, we scraped, painted, fixed walls, ceilings, windows and electrical connections. In August we moved into “Casa de Abue” and hosted our first workshop/brigade that turned our backyard into a wonderful urban permaculture garden. We are in the process of becoming entirely self sufficient. Already built a retaining pond and swales as the first step of a water harvesting system, and we are eating the food from our garden. In the near future, we plan to install solar panels, and create a biogas digester to be energy independent as well!
We have a lot of concrete needs as we move forward. We need to finish vital repairs in the house’s plumbing, and furnish it fully for volunteer groups. Once folks are here, we will need vehicles for transport, and tools to equip our volunteer brigades at our partner farms. As we move further off grid, we also need money for the purchase of solar panels, and materials to build other sustainable technology.
2 Passenger vans: $ 14,000
Tools and supplies: $2000
Furnishing and appliances: $2000
Solar Panels: $7000
Water Harvesting Tanks: $1500
Plumbing repairs: $2000
Estimated Total: $28,500
Your love and solidarity mean a lot to us. So far, we have financed this with small donations, and our own hard work and savings. Right now, we are asking for more help, and we want to invite everyone who donates to this campaign to come to visit the Island of Enchantment and join in our work. As we say in Spanish, mi casa es tu casa!
Casa de Abue’s team:
Vasti Rosado: I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, from a young age my parents taught me how to think critically about the world we live in and question its social structures. This led me to leave Puerto Rico at the age of 18 to go study in the mainland. When I left Puerto Rico I made a pact with myself to return home, when it called. I ended up in a small mid-western town, Goshen, Indiana, where I studied Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies at a small liberal arts school, Goshen College. After college, I traveled a bit, mainly through East Africa, working with humanitarian and self sustainable environmental efforts in the region. I spent around two years there, coming back to the US afterwards. While in the US, I focused my work towards serving the homeless population in Colorado. Then in September 21, 2017 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico and everything changed. Puerto Rico called to me, and I decided to return home and be part of a long term rebuilding and transformation process. Currently I am back home in Puerto Rico, working on creating a space called “Casa de Abue”. Being back in one of the home’s I grew up in and transforming it, feels a bit surreal, since I never expected this to be. I can still feel Abue roaming about in the home, her spirit guiding us and blessings us as we undertake this path.
Clare Maxwell: A year ago, I wouldn’t have imagined myself being in Puerto Rico. Vasti and I had talked about building a project here at some point since we were undergrads together, but always as an abstract, something that could happen down the line. Instead, I had spent most of the past few years in Palestine, Lebanon, and Greece, studying Arabic and working as an activist and a journalist. I’m eternally grateful to the organizers, environmentalists, and people of struggle I met in those years, and I’m working now to connect these people of conscience to the growing movement here on the Island.
My tracks switched after Vasti decided to move back to Puerto Rico… and asked me if I was interested in coming too. For a multitude of reasons, it came at the perfect time for me to shift some focus away from other shores, and join up with people who were fighting back against an oppressive status quo imposed by my own country, the USA. In the coming months, our plans to move took shape, and so did the project of Casa de Abue.
Right now, I’m amazed and excited by the space and community that are all coming to fruition, the many adventures and victories to come, and to giving our sweet little puppy Baxter a forever home!
Karla Rosado: I am an artist in the process of creating herself. Boricua born and raised. Currently living in Denver, Colorado. Due to the distance, at the moment I assist my sisters, Vasti and Clare, with social media management of the Instagram and Facebook accounts for Casa de Abue. It fills my heart to see my abuela's home becoming a center for solidarity and unity. I look forward to returning home and visiting the house in person after many empowering changes. I plan to leave the house filled with some colorful art on the walls. In the near future I'd like to permanently relocate back to PR with my husband, dog, and two cats in order to be present in my island during this time of change. I'm hoping this project inspires people everywhere to be the change their world needs.
Organizer
Clare Bear
Organizer
Guaynabo, PR
