Just outside of the capitol San Jose is a neighborhood called Alajuelita. A bit of a notorious area, it has been said that “nothing good comes from Alajuelita.” But as Christians, we believe that every place is redeemable, and that good things can indeed come from the most unlikely places. After all, when Jesus started his ministry, there was a similar refrain: “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” (John 1:46)
A local church partner in Alajuelita set out to bring about the good that can be found in this part of town, seeking to fill needs wherever there may be one. This has led to multiple new projects and programs opened in the area—a men and women’s recovery center, a disabled center, a children’s feeding center, and homeless shelter service, among other ministries.
With running these ministries, there is a high cost to helping so many people in need. Thus, the aquaponics project was born. Hosted at the women’s recovery center, a team of 3 of us from Seattle came to Alajuelita to build the system on their property, with the aim of using the products from the system to support the ongoing food needs of the ministries.
Aquaponics systems can also be modified depending on the context and the available materials in the area. In Costa Rica, the design used small swimming pools for both the fish and plant beds, also taking advantage of the sloping hill to let gravity help feed water from the fish tank to the plant tank.
Some of our work directly impacts people in the community, but some of our work is more “behind the scenes” as in the case of this aquaponics system. Most people will not know or think much about where the food came from that fed them as their needs were met, but to the church it is a relief on the food budget, freeing up income to be further invested in their ministries.
Read about our other work with aquaponics in Honduras and Nicaragua.
Fulcrum Missions 