Making Friends in Central America

Around the world, Christians are coming together to care for creation – and A Rocha is lending a hand through the Friends of A Rocha Network. Network members are groups and organizations, led by committed Christians, who are undertaking biodiversity conservation and interested in sharing and learning together with like-minded groups around the world. 

To learn more about the current Friends and to see if your group could apply, see the Friends page. Meanwhile, meet our two most recent members: 

Casa Adobe is an intentional Christian community rooted in Santa Rosa, Heredia Province, Costa Rica. It was born in 2013 when people from different contexts and cultures came together with a common goal: to be good neighbours. Casa Adobe seeks to promote integral human development, facilitate cultural interchange amongst people from different contexts, care for the environment and stimulate its protection. 

Their current environmental activities include a local community composting project and a plan to recover one of Casa Adobe’s most neglected ‘neighbours’, the Virilla River. The Virilla flows down from its source in the cloud forests through densely populated areas where it is impacted by sewage, litter and degraded riverine forest. Casa Adobe is re-engaging the community with the river and liaising with other stakeholders. 

Huellas Panamá (meaning ‘Footprints’) was born in 2018 as a project in Kuna Nega, an indigenous settlement heavily impacted by the operation of Cerro Patacón, one of the main landfills in Panama. The original project raised environmental awareness in the community through the community church and setting up a waste collection point. 

Huellas Panamá is now setting up an online Virtual Academy to promote creation care theology and wiser consumption habits; supporting recycling as they can (there is no recycling collection in Panama!) and litter clean-ups; and developing an Eco Tours Programme to create opportunities for friendship, recreation and learning about caring for the earth.