Community Unity and Soccer Field Success: Transforming Guayaquil's Hillside Slums
The city of Guayaquil in Ecuador's western region has witnessed The Salvation Army's unwavering presence for nearly four decades. It’s a difficult area where local communities grapple with issues like gang activity, violence, and drug-related problems. Many build houses wherever they can find land, even if it’s on an extreme slope of a hill. The concrete box homes are stacked on top of each other, with no formal streets, limited access to water and electricity, and little to no space for play.
To address these concerns, a group of community cooperatives emerged, providing mutual support and advocating for change. Despite their persistent efforts, they remained largely unrecognized by formal authorities. The problem lay in the fragmented state of these cooperatives, each struggling to find a space for meetings or activities. Their surroundings resembled a concrete jungle, with no safe or suitable gathering place for the community.
The Salvation Army corps (church) in Guayaquil, located at the base of one of these informal settlements, began partnering with The Salvation Army World Service Office (SAWSO) to find ways to increase mission space and generate local income to support their community mission. The identified solution involved funded the clearing and leveling of a field at the base of the hill and creating a soccer field that could be rented by the hour for games or activities. This would then generate income that would fund The Salvation Army's local programs and community assistance in Guayaquil.
Construction took months, and once completed, local Salvation Army officers reached out to the community to promote the soccer field. That’s when an unexpected impact took place: the various cooperatives asked permission to use the space simply to have group meetings where they could unite their efforts rather than compete for resources. By the mere change of having sufficient level space within walking distance for 30+ people to meet, they began to pool resources, invest in improvements, and take charge of their environment. They saw the space as their own and strived to enhance it.
The impact was profound. The field had been operational for a year, becoming a hub for both sports and fellowship. It attracted a diverse crowd, including police, lawyers, transit officials, and government employees who came to play soccer. This provided community members with an opportunity to engage with these officials, fostering valuable partnerships and networking opportunities.
One community member emphasized, "The Salvation Army invested in us and gave us the space we needed to become a community." The flat space had not only united the cooperatives but also empowered them to invest in themselves. They sought to address long-standing community issues and ventured into new endeavors, like a playground for youth and an industrial oven for baking bread, generating more income for their programs.
The principle of sustainability was a core focus for the project design, ensuring that field operations could continue autonomously, without the need for further investment. In fact, the Guayaquil field will repay its construction costs over time into a fund that can be used by other Salvation Army corps (churches) in Ecuador to begin their own sustainability initiatives. This project was a testament to the power of unity, community engagement, and sustainable development, transforming a challenging area into a thriving, self-sufficient community.