Connecting Community Assets

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.

Spring Break – Part II: UNC and Duke

In addition to being one of the two leaders of the first Iowa Medical School group, I was lucky enough to also lead a mixed group for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University. At first glance mixing students from these two rival universities may sound like sacrilege, but this group, composed entirely of freshmen, did not understand our shock at such a combination as many of them have a special service scholarship where they are required (giving the opportunity?) to take classes at both schools and together. The only thing I can imagine that even comes close to this Duke and UNC partnership would be that ESPN commercial from a few years ago with a guy, in a Michigan shirt, and a girl, in an Ohio State shirt, making out. I remember being completely grossed out by such a horrific display of humanity, until the caption comes that says “Without sports…this wouldn’t be disgusting”.

Seriously though, once I got over my initial confusion as to the formation of this group, I cannot say enough about the preparation and quality of work that they put into their projects. More than any other group, they stayed in constant contact with us from as far back as November as we organized their activities here. These students proposed two major projects, both of which were carried out more successfully than I could have ever imagined. Their first project was a health education campaign among our students in our principal after-school program. They planned three courses in the areas of exercise and physical fitness, nutrition and hygiene, and sanitation and parasites.

What impressed me the most, however, was not their understanding of these topics, but rather the manner in which they presented them to our 30 some kids between the ages of 4 and 11. Teaching is not an easy task, especially when trying to present to such a group as diverse as ours; nevertheless, they managed to create activities which not only engaged and entertained all kids at all times, but also were highly educational. Not only did they highlight the most important and useful aspects in each of these three areas, but the kids actually learned what they were taught. This learning was clearly evident at the end of the week: As an incentive to encourage kids to attend these presentations we offered a party for all kids who came to each of the three class sessions. Although this was a party with cake and games, the games served as a review of all the content presented throughout the week. The kids not only seemed to enjoy the games, but they also demonstrated a clear understanding of the content as they made their way through the various “party” games.

Their second project, and what will be most important for our long-term work here in Ecuador, was a “Community Profile” within the frameworks of Social Capital and Asset-Based Community Development. These are two complementary frameworks that really attempt to reevaluate the entire process of community development worldwide. Traditionally community development has been based on the idea of identifying what a community needs and then initiating programs and activities that respond to these. Throughout history the data has shown that such a model is completely ineffective. In order to effectively develop communities a paradigm shift is required; simply searching for problems and then reacting to said problems will do nothing more than provide a quick-fix those problems, not to mention you are left in state of only realizing what is wrong with a community. These approaches ask you, rather than to look at what does not work, to look at what does work. They ask you to start from what the community already has, rather than what it lacks. The real drivers of community development are not good-intentioned outsiders (often times with money), but rather committed people, organizations, and institutions from the actual community. These approaches, I have to admit, are relatively new and poorly understand by many and may or may not be effective; nevertheless, focusing on the needs and problems and then throwing dollars at these problem has proven ineffective and something else must be tried.

We are currently in the process of mapping the assets and strengths of the communities where we work, specifically by completing an Individual Capacities Inventory. We recognize that seven gringos cannot effectively develop a community, but a community with individuals mobilized to work for themselves and their neighbors in a way they want to while at the same time doing what they themselves say they are good at is the only way we see that communities can build themselves.

As you can see from my run-on sentences, this is something that we are passionate about. The MPI-Ecuador team had talked several times about the imperativeness of this paradigm shift, but had never really done anything about it until we were provided the impetus by this group of freshmen from the Triangle in North Carolina. We may now have added a substantial amount of work to our activities here in Ecuador, but we really believe that we have finally started down the road that will allow for the people in the communities where we work to use their strengths to build their (not our) community.

Finally, here is a link to more pictures from their week here.

Safe Arrival

DUKE and UNC are here!

We are eating dinner, it was a long day of travel, but everyone seems really excited to be here!

Spring Break – Part I: Iowa

One of the classic aspects of the Manna Project International model is the fact that we host university spring break groups. Our first group came for nine days in February from the University of Iowa Medical School. I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed with behavior and work ethic of this group, not to mention the extreme joy and humor they brought to the Manna house. I have to admit that I was slightly worried how a group of students from Iowa would be able to handle life in Ecuador, but Abbie and I (the MPI group leaders for this trip) never ceased to impressed by these students.

As these are all medical students, their principal project involved volunteering in local hospitals. We focused our efforts at three major urban hospitals in Quito: Hospital Tierra Nueva, Hospital Eugenio Espejo, and the Isidro Ayora Maternity Hosital. The first of these hospitals is actually private, but they are famous throughout the region for their quality of service as well as their affordability. Insurance through this hospital is a mere $3.00 a month, with which patients receive medical attention considerably superior to that which is provided in the public hospitals at comparable prices. Though this is a small hospital, they do their best to provide as many services as possible to local Quiteños. I get the impression that are students all thoroughly enjoyed their experiences at this hospital, being provided the opportunity to observe and assist in the Emergency Room, Surgery, Pediatrics, Psychology, Physical Therapy, Radiology, Dentistry, Obstetrics, and General Hospitalization.

The other two hospitals are large public hospitals that serve thousands of patients a day. Espejo is a specialist hospital located in one of the tallest buildings in Quito with just about every possible speciality available in Ecuador at an extremely low-cost. The Maternity Hopsital is also public and, due to its clientele, is a very exciting place to care for mothers and babies. Because so many of these mothers cannot afford quality pre-natal medical attention for themselves and their children, many babies are not born fully healthy and immediately have to go into intensive care. Although several of our medical students are not planning on going into maternity care and obstetrics, I think they really appreciated the experience of understanding just what it takes to bring life into this world.

With each trip we provide a weekend excursion that serves two primary purposes: (1) relaxation and diversion after a strenuous week of work and (2) a chance to reflect upon and evaluate the experiences gained and knowledge learned during the week. Iowa chose to take their excursion to Volcán Cotopaxi, a majestic glacier-capped volcano towering above Quito at 5897 meters (19,460 feet). What most of the group chose to do was drive up to 4500 meters and bike downhill some 28 kilometers through Cotopaxi National Park. I have to say that this was a great bike road surrounding by the amazing scenery of Volcán Cotopaxi, Volcán Rumiñahui, and the Limpiopungo Valley filled with Andean grassland and wild horses and llamas.

Fortunately for me, two students chose to not only ride bikes down the mountain, but also attempt to summit the mountain. Because we are so close to the equator, this climb must be done during the night; therefore we woke up at 11:45pm the previous night to complete this climb. We were on the trail by 12:45am and continued the climb, complete with gaiters, boots, ropes, and ice axes, for the next five hours. With about 25 people leaving the refuge together between 12:45 and 1:00, I was the first person (of only nine) to reach the summit just at sunrise at 6:00am. I will not deny that this is one of the most difficult things I have ever done, but I would not have been able to accomplish it without my guide. He did an incredible job of setting a very, very slow pace, but a pace which required minimal breaks. Although I have never walked on such a steep slope for such a long time, I never felt excessively tired or too sick to stop moving and I attribute this to the pace that my guide set for me. I will always remember what it felt like to reach the top: the view, of course, is breathtaking, but more than anything, you just feel like you are on top of the world. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but after completing a climb like this, one really feels like he or she can do anything.

I have included several pictures from the week here, but the entire album (along with pictures from the Carnaval parade) can be found by clicking here. Oh, by the way, did I mention that I did this on my birthday. Yes, I had a great birthday topped off by a night of dancing with my MPI Program Director friends and new-found friends from Iowa. I actually made it to the point of being awake for all 1440 minutes of my birthday (midnight to midnight)!

GO DORES!

This does not really have anything to do with our work, but last week we finally managed to get internet at our house. I was so excited that I went back to check on the Vandy basketball and baseball teams, only to realize that I can get the game's Live Audio here in Ecuador! Anyways, last night Vanderbilt (#14 in the nation and 18-0 at home this year) hosted #1 Tennessee (first time in school history at #1). Highlights are included below (let's just say I'm happy with the result)!

VU Commodores Writeup/ESPN Postgame Highlights and Interview

ESPN Video Highlights

GO DORES!