A few words about SDG 2030 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Our organization is committed to contributing towards the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Throughout the years we have worked in improving housing, schools, as well as local daycare centers in rural areas, ensuring the general well-being of our stakeholders. Our main targets are youth, single parent homes, as well as senior citizens; we are driven through our work to improve living conditions to ensure healthy lives. One of our main objectives is to work alongside single household women by assisting in the construction and improvement of their homes and therefore assisting to create a better general well-being of persons who reside in the communities where we work. Through our construction campaigns we have intervened in households by revamping systems for drinking water, as well as waste disposal systems, such as the installation of septic tanks. Through the work of our volunteers we have improved infrastructure in schools, daycare centers, and housing which helps communities improve quality of life. Through some of our interventions we have been able to alter structures that adapt to the negative effects of climate change, such as torrential rains which causes erosion that can wash away homes. Costa Rica's economy is largely supported by tourism, however oftentimes wealth is not distributed well which creates vast inequality between locals in the area and tourists who come to vacation. This is why our organization works hard to unify forces and efforts of international and local volunteers to work together to reduce conditions of poverty. When planning an intervention in a community, we seek to create a space that will integrate all actors within a framework of participation. Moving away from the current unsustainable system requires a recognition of our societies as a space with a plurality of actors and visions for a multidisciplinary approach for other areas of urban sustainable development. We must expand our perceptions to act and react differently, seeking a variety of trajectories of action – all at a national, regional, sectoral and local level. The end goal for Siempre Amigos is to be able to step aside and let stakeholders continue to empower themselves through their own means while inspiring other communities to do the same. The area of Guanacaste is heavily affected by droughts as a result from climate change; this will unfortunately continue to heavily impact vulnerable people across the globe who contribute the least to climate change but are the most hurt in comparison to those who live in countries who contribute the most to climate change but are the LEAST affected. Having this in mind, we have created local school gardens and planted climate resistant fruit species. This helps promote local food security as well as curve the impact of increasing carbon emissions in our atmosphere. Much of our work is done to provide support to local communities where government and other institutions lack the necessary resources.
