Here at Manna Project International – Ecuador we have now entered our busiest time of the year. This may not be the best aspect of the Manna model, but it remains a fact that the first several months for MPI Program Directors (year-long volunteers) is dedicated primarily to merely getting one’s feet wet. This includes orienting oneself to the culture and language, leading pre-established programs, and developing relationships within the targeted community. These are all vital tasks to the future work of each Program Director (PD) and Manna Project in general; however, they are not necessarily difficult or stressful tasks.
After the New Year, though, everything really begins to change. Not only are PD’s expected to maintain and continue all the work they have already been doing, but they are all individually asked to take on significantly more tasks. Some of these tasks are driven by the organizational model (i.e. planning and hosting four nine-day long spring break trips as well as two month long summer sessions), whereas others come from the individual drive and interest of the Program Director. It is really inspiring to me to see how other MPI-Ecuador PD’s have taken the initiative to create vital, though not necessarily easy or without stress, programming that will benefit MPI-Ecuador and the people we serve as well as Manna Project as a whole for years to come. I would like to give just a taste of some of these initiatives.
- Zak and Mark are developing a consortium of young, campus-based, international service organizations that (1) externally will be a one-stop shop for young Americans interested in international service and (2) internally will provide for opportunities of information and best-practice sharing so all organizations can improve and grow.
- Seth has been coordinating with Ecuadorian universities to develop a service-learning component where local education and psychology students serve and teach in our programming.
- Abbie has been in conversation with Aliñambi, a clinic at a local school, and Health E Clinic, a US-based medical philanthropy organization, to help Aliñambi expand its services to the community as a whole.
- Zak has registered a local savings and loan cooperative with a network of micro-finance operations that provides training and support in organizing, giving, and ensuring repayment of micro-loans.
- I, with the help of Mark and Abbie and the students and faculty at Aliñambi, have been conducting a socio-cultural diagnostic assessment of the households in our community based on Asset-Based Community Development and the Social Capital Assessment Tool. The primary purpose of this research is to discover everything that is good and strong about the communities where we work. We hope to then take this information and connect interested people and organizations so that Ecuadorian community members may serve and work with each other. Our goal is to become the place that people come to not only when they desire a certain service or to learn a specific skill, but also when they are looking to volunteer, serve, or teach in their own community.
These are just a few of the independent projects born out of the passions and interests of the individual Program Directors, and I would like to highlight one theme that unites this diverse group of projects: They all come from the perspective that our best role as young, energetic, and inexperienced college graduates is one of connector. Though we all have unlimited ambition and desire to do everything we can for these communities and the people with whom we work, we recognize our limited capacity to really help everyone in everyway possible. It is for this reason that we elect to identify what individuals and organizations believe will serve them best and to then connect them with experts in said area. Additionally, as highlighted by the work of Seth and Zak, we hope to make this connection with Ecuadorian individuals and organizations whenever possible.
It is for this reason that I believe that our research with Aliñambi to be so vital to the growth and future of Manna Project International – Ecuador. One major section of this survey asks individuals to respond to six pages of abilities and capacities to identify everything they can do well. This section is then followed by four short, but extremely important, questions which asks individuals to identify (1) which abilities they are very good at, (2) which ones they could be paid to do, (3) which ones they would like to learn, and (4) which ones they would like to teach to others. We believe the answers to these questions can really improve the economic situation of the community. We hope to diffuse this information to the community so that if they need some sort of work done, rather than calling a carpenter or mechanic or repairman from a larger city farther away, they may be able to call on a neighbor who is also looking for work. Additionally, we are very interested in providing for technical courses: Already we have identified that many women are interested in knitting and other forms of tailoring, coupled with the fact that several women are experts in these areas and would be willing to teach a course on these topics. On the one hand this helps the teachers because they earn money from the students who register for this course, and on the other hand the students benefit because they learn a skill that will help them find employment. And, the key, Ecuadorian community members are teaching Ecuadorian community members.
As I mentioned earlier, we are collaborating with Aliñambi on this project. After we provided a 25-hour survey training course to the eleven student volunteer surveyors, they have already conducted over 130 surveys in just over a week. Many of these surveyors are in their last year of primary school and are currently considering the prospect of going on to secondary school. In Ecuador, secondary school is a privilege not awarded to all. As a means of incentive for these students to collaborate with us, we have offered to help them pay for their secondary school tuition and/or school supplies or uniform. It is exciting to see that several students who were not considering secondary school are now talking about looking at available schools in order to register themselves.
As with any research project, this one costs money. We worked with Aliñambi to come up with a proposal (if you would like to see it send me and email and I will be happy to forward it along) that currently sits at $4500. Aliñambi has offered to provide supplies and funds to cover $1000 of the cost. Another US partner, Health E Clinic, has offered another $1000 bringing MPI-Ecuador’s expected contribution down to only $2500. We are using the money from Aliñambi, Health E Clinic, and some of our reserves for the initial stages of this research, but we are need of more funds if we hope to do everything we have planned over the next several months. If you believe this project to be important and are interested in providing support we would greatly appreciate it. This will probably be my major project over my remaining months here in Ecuador and I am really excited about the prospect of conducting this type of research and then taking the data to encourage and support the community members to take the initiative to grow together.
