I guess I should update you all on whats going on with me. So, the soccer game! First of all, on Wednesday, I was on the local radio here!! Well, my name was. Jared was interviewed (they only like to interview guys here. Girls are completely overlooked, which is the problem wit girls soccer. Plus, he is the one that speaks spanish.) and he told the radio announcers our names, ages, and positions. He didn´t say I had a position, though. He said that I just started playing soccer, and that I usually play basketball, but that I am pretty good for just starting. Then, on Thursday AND Friday, I was in the local newspaper-La Hora!!! There were pictures of Jared, me, Kami, Diana, and Amy on both days, and a small article attached to them both days!! Then, at the tournament on Saturday night, we played in a stadium (which was really just a field with bleachers, but we played on turf under the lights.) against two other university teams and a club team. And guess what...... We won!!!!!! We beat the first team 7-1, and then we beat the university girls we always play with 5-1 I think. It was insane!! Kami, Jaylynn, Amy, and Diana played REALLY well! (They are the girls that played soccer before coming to Peru.) There was a reporter there that took a bunch of pictures, we were covered by a local news station, and a couple people asked to take pictures with me. Basically what I am trying to say is that I am famous :) Haha actually, I am just thankful that I didn´t play terribly and embarrass myself! I didn´t play all that well, but at least I worked hard, and I don´t think I looked too idiotic. Unfortunately, though, we all wore cleats at the tournament, and I have never played soccer in cleats in my life- I think I only ever wore them for softball in middle school- so I wasn´t used to wearing them, and I rolled my ankle. It´s pretty puffy and swollen, and it hurt a lot last night, but it is feelin a bit better today, so I´m sure it will be back to normal in no time! So thats the update on soccer- basically we are famous here. :)
So with my project, UNIR, we had a couple more meetings this week, and they went amazinly well! We had another meeting with the students, and now we are up to 15. I´m not sure if all of them will be able to make it, and its moving along really slowly, but its gonna happen! After we met with them, they took us to talk to their professor, who turned out to be the woman in charge of all of the volunteer offices at the University! She reports directly to the Rector (president) of the university, and she is awesome!!! When we told her we would need transportation, she said it would be no problem at all! It was crazy!!! That was always our biggest concern, and she just blew it off like it was nothing and asked us what else we would need! She has been extremely helpful, and is setting an appointment for us to present ourselves to the Rector of the university this week! With her help, she said we could recruit a ton more students and make it into a formal program! I am so excited that we ran into her!
Now the biggest problem is sustainability. Everytime we talk to people here, they ask how long our program is going to last, and we try to explain that it isn´t supposed to end, and they don´t understand. They want us to tell them its going to happen for six months or something, and they don´t completely understand what we are trying to do, because its just not done here. We are going to have to work really hard to get a fully established program going, so that they can reorganize themselves each year. Right now we are not sure that will be a possibility, and we might have to have next year´s HELP volunteers help them to reorganize it next year, which isn´t ideal, but it is a start. If we helped them a couple years, hopefully they would catch on and be able to run it themselves. I hope we will help them be self sufficient with this program, but this is the problem we are currently facing. We will know more once we speak with the Rector on Tuesday.
Another cool thing that I learned from the university students when I talked to them on Thursday was that they are trying to start a Women in Engineering (WE) chapter here! We work with a lot of electrical engineering majors- they were just our first contacts here at the university- and they were telling me about it. I told them I would love to be involved and help them organize things with the club if they would like. Isn´t that awesome that things like this span different countries and all walks of life?? I love connections like that. Like how Courtney and I share embarrassing moments even oceans and countries apart. Courtney, who is in Spain, told me that while running one morning she tripped over a rock and fell flat on the ground and was extremely embarrassed. Haha literally the day before I read that story from her, I had been running in the morning and had tripped over a rock and fell face first in the dust! Haha I was completely mortified as the local boy Jaylynn and I were running with helped me up, and we just kept running! Then, on Saturday, we were invited to play volleyball with the people of Villa Chulucanas- the town without water. We went there, and they tied up a net between a couple houses on the street, drew lines with water and chalk on the ground, appointed a referee person, and played! The president of the village, as well as all the other officials and the women of the community joined in, and it was fantastic! It amazes me how we, as people in different countries and from different cultures, can share such familiar and similar life experiences all over the world. This is probably my favorite part of Peru- experiencing the different culture and exploring new places and ideas, and yet basking in the similarities and revelling in the facets of life that don´t change no matter where you live. Its a wonderful combination.
Other fun facts about Peru:
-They don´t have real napkins here. They use these weird one-ply, tiny pices of tissue paper that slightly resemble napkins. They wrap up all of the tops of their utensils in them, and call it good! So we have to be careful to never spill anything or make too much of a mess, because they reallý don´t do much!
-Peru is very.....fragrant. Well, there are many smells in Peru, but mostly only one of them is good, and that´s the food! The food here smells and tastes delicious. Now, if you smell something awful, there are a couple options:
1. Poop- animals and humans just go anywhere, so sometimes you get a nice whiff of that.
2. Garbage- garbage is just sitting around rotting everywhere!
3. Burning garbage- if garbage ISN´T just sitting there, its because it is being burned. It ALMOST smells good, like a campfire, but then there is this weird rancid smell that ruins it. Sometimes its hard to breathe. Its not good for the environment to burn garbage, but I don´t think most people recognize that here.
4. Men with too much cologne
5. Men WITHOUT too much cologne- people here don´t always smell that great! Haha, but to be fair, us volunteers don´t really smell that great anymore either...
6. Car exhaust- I don´t really think there are any regulations around here protecting from pollution, so people are pretty free to drive whatever they want.
I´m sure there are more smells, and I am probably forgetting a couple, but these are the main ones. :)
-I don´t know if I mentioned it already, but there was a second flood. Not as funny as the first time! But it builds character, right??
-Glenda is now dead. Her purpose in life as a turkey was to produce eggs to create more turkeys, but she ate all her eggs after she layed them, so she wasn´t fulfilling her purpose in life, so Mary Carmen killed her. I must say, Glenda was a little tough, but over all she tasted quite nice.
Well, in closing, I would just like to say that while I doubt I am making a huge difference in the lives of people here in Peru, Peru is making a difference in mine. I hope that as I continue to serve others, I can improve myself and find ways to apply everything I learn here to my life back in the states.
Have a great week everyone!! (or two, since I haven´t been that consistant at blogging. Sorry!)
Melanie
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Friday, June 1, 2012
UNIR Peru!
Things are well under way here in Peru; we are working hard to get a youth mentoring program in full swing before we leave. The name we have chosen for the project in UNIR, which means "to unite" in Spanish, with the play on "uni" for "universidad" since we will be partnering with the university. This is the proposal for our program so far:
UNIR
Soñar en Grande
(PS this is just the English version of the project proposals we are giving out)
Problem:
There is a low percentage of students in the Sechura area that persue higher education. This is partly due to a lack of exposure to the idea that university education is available and attainable. Education empowers individuals to improve their quality of life and can lead to stronger families and communities.
Goals:
Short Term- Provide mentors or role models for young students to inspire in them the desire to earn a higher education and to introduce children to the reality of receiving a university education.
Long Term- Empower individuals and families to change their station in life, improving the standard of living in the community.
Strategy:
Organize university students to commute to Vice once a week to mentor students for 1-2 hours. University students will be paried with 1-3 children in the fifth or sixth grade of primary school. University students will help with homework, encourage education, instill values, and build relationships with the children.
Sustainability Plan:
In order to make a difference, the program will need to continue through the years. To do this, we hope to work with a small group of dedicated university professors that can keep the project going. To encourage university student involvement, we are working to set up a program where the participating university students will receive a certificate from the university and a resolution from the Municipality for their service.
So this is the proposal for the project. We have begun to work with the National University of Piura, and have met several times with students there. The student we are in closest contact with helped to organize an engineering career fair in that area last year, so it gives me hope that we will be able to find students willing and able to participate in the program. We also heard from him that the university is trying to set up a service office to help the students become more involved in the community, kind of like the Y-Serve office at BYU. Things seem to be falling into place! We are holding a meeting with univrsity students next Wednesday- with the students we have already talked to and their friends, and we will be working to publicize the meeting on Monday and Tuesday by handing out flyers, so hopefully we will get a decent turnout!
I am still waiting to hear back from the NGO´s we are trying to work with for the Soilets. Unfortunately, this is just the culture in Peru. Most things take a lot of time to get accomplished because people here are often late, and tend to cancel meetings at the last second. Things just always seem to hinder quick progress here. For example, yesterday and today there has been a huge strike by the farmers, so all of the public transportation out of Piura has been closed down because roads are being blockaded. We have kind of been stranded here, so progress on this particular project has been slow.
Another project that some girls have been working on involves soccer. Girls soccer in Piura has been somewhat shut down in recent years because of a falling out with the national league, but the girls team at the National University of Piura is extremely talented. Because of the conflict, girls soccer is often overlooked here despite their talent. Since many of the girls here volunteering from the U.S. have played soccer their whole lives, they have decided to start a project to make the people more aware of the Peruvian girls´ talent. As white people, we are celebrities here in Piura. Wolf whistles and curious gazes follow us wherever we go. So, we with the encouragement of local soccer coaches here, we have set up a day when we will play the university team at the stadium. The plan is to advertise a ton, and to raise money and increase awareness. It will be really cool.
Unfortunately, soccer needs five players, and there are only four girls here who played soccer in highschool, so I will be the fifth player! Don´t get me wrong, I would love to improve at soccer, and I have been playing a lot since I got here, but I am nowhere close to the skill level of the other girls! Haha I guess what I lack in skill, I slightly make up for with hard work, though, because they tell me I´m actually not bad. Its really humbling, though, because I know I will be the worst player out there, playing in front of a large group of people, so I will definitely have to practice and work my heart out!!!! I´m absolutely terrified, but at least it will be exciting!
In other news, here are some classic Peruvian experiences that I have had:
-Everyone really does yell "hello" and stare, and choruses of "gringas, gringas, gringas!" follow us everywhere, as well as wolf whistles galore. Its funny, because people try to yell at us in English, but since we are all trying to work on our Spanish, we answer in Spanish. Its an interesting role reversal.
-One morning when we woke up, things were floating away on a couple inches of water that flooded the top level of our house where me and three other girls sleep. We scooped bowls- yes, it was deep enough to use BOWLS- full of water off the floor for over an hour. Luckily, though, the water had overflowed from our water tank, not the toilet!
-We went to an institute dance here (not everyone is LDS in our group, but 11 out of 13 are, and everyone decided to go). Literally EVERYONE was staring at us and FILMING us with their phones!! Don´t be surprised if I am now a star on youtube. I guess they thought we looked insane- a huge group of gringos dancing way too energetically to their strange mix of American pop, 70s, and 80s music, and Latino music. (Why they randomly listen to our 70s and 80s music, I have no idea, but I often hear "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" in random places.)
-I can never get used to cold showers- it just seems unnatural!
-Why in the world do we have to throw toilet paper in the garbage instead of the toilet??
-Everyone is about a foot shorter than me, I think.
-I ate goat my first day here.
-I am having withdrawals from the shocking lack of peanut butter here. I could also really use some pizza. The food here is great, though! Lots and lots of rice. And if you aren´t sure what something is before you eat it, its most likely going to be potatoes. They seem to pop up out of nowhere at every meal!
-Transportation is crazy! There are no lanes, no speed limits, and no seat belts unless you are in the front. One time, in a three wheeled mototaxi, a huge bus suddenly swerved into our lane and came straight at us! Our driver swerved off the road and started muttering what were probably Spanish swear words. It was exciting!
-I didn´t know it was possible to be both dustier AND more humid than Utah, but somehow Piura combines those two lovely qualities.
-I accidentally told some guys I love myself when I was trying to tell them I love basketball. ("Me encanto basquetbol.") It took me a second to realize what they were laughing at, but when I did, I was pretty embarrased. That is one of my greatest frustrations here- the language barrier. I just want to be able to talk to people, but I can´t! I am learning a ton, though, so hopefully by the end of my time here I will be able to say things that don´t make people start to laugh.
-The amount of littered trash everywhere shocks me, and the army of stray dogs that use it for food makes my heart hurt.
-We live in the top two stories of a little yellow house. The bottom floor is a little tienda owned by a family of 5. The parents, Mary Carmen and Pedro (I now know about 7,000 Pedros), and their three children Moises, Marcos, and Ismael, are the cutest little Peruvian family! We play soccer together in the dirt street in front of our house, Mary attempts to teach us how to Latin Dance and is extremely patient and great at speaking Spanish in a way that is more understandable to us, we help Mary with cleaning and with her kids when we have spare time, and a couple weekends ago we all went to the beach together. They are fantastic!
In closing, I just want to share the theme I chose for myself this summer to help me stay focused on what is really important. Its Mosiah 2:15-17:
"Yet my brethren, I have not done these things that I might boast, neither do I tell these things that thereby I might accuse you, but I tell you these things that ye may know that I can answer a clear conscience before God this day. Behold, I say unto you that because I said unto you that I have spent my days in your service, I do not desire to brag, for I have only been in the service of God. And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."
As long as I am humble and remain focused on the people here, and how I can serve them with the Lord´s help, I know that at least I will be a better person because of it. Even if I don´t really make a difference in anyone´s life, I know that they can make a difference in mine, and that by giving everything I have, I will improve as a child of God. An unknown person said "Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn." I have taken that to heart this summer, and I am going to do everything within my power to serve, or at least establish a habit of charity in my own life.
I hope everyone is doing well, and I would love to hear from you all via email at melaeaster@msn.com.
Have a great week!
Melanie
PS Sorry I am having a bit of trouble uploading pictures because of the poor computer quality here. I will try my best to post some as soon as possible!
UNIR
Soñar en Grande
(PS this is just the English version of the project proposals we are giving out)
Problem:
There is a low percentage of students in the Sechura area that persue higher education. This is partly due to a lack of exposure to the idea that university education is available and attainable. Education empowers individuals to improve their quality of life and can lead to stronger families and communities.
Goals:
Short Term- Provide mentors or role models for young students to inspire in them the desire to earn a higher education and to introduce children to the reality of receiving a university education.
Long Term- Empower individuals and families to change their station in life, improving the standard of living in the community.
Strategy:
Organize university students to commute to Vice once a week to mentor students for 1-2 hours. University students will be paried with 1-3 children in the fifth or sixth grade of primary school. University students will help with homework, encourage education, instill values, and build relationships with the children.
Sustainability Plan:
In order to make a difference, the program will need to continue through the years. To do this, we hope to work with a small group of dedicated university professors that can keep the project going. To encourage university student involvement, we are working to set up a program where the participating university students will receive a certificate from the university and a resolution from the Municipality for their service.
So this is the proposal for the project. We have begun to work with the National University of Piura, and have met several times with students there. The student we are in closest contact with helped to organize an engineering career fair in that area last year, so it gives me hope that we will be able to find students willing and able to participate in the program. We also heard from him that the university is trying to set up a service office to help the students become more involved in the community, kind of like the Y-Serve office at BYU. Things seem to be falling into place! We are holding a meeting with univrsity students next Wednesday- with the students we have already talked to and their friends, and we will be working to publicize the meeting on Monday and Tuesday by handing out flyers, so hopefully we will get a decent turnout!
I am still waiting to hear back from the NGO´s we are trying to work with for the Soilets. Unfortunately, this is just the culture in Peru. Most things take a lot of time to get accomplished because people here are often late, and tend to cancel meetings at the last second. Things just always seem to hinder quick progress here. For example, yesterday and today there has been a huge strike by the farmers, so all of the public transportation out of Piura has been closed down because roads are being blockaded. We have kind of been stranded here, so progress on this particular project has been slow.
Another project that some girls have been working on involves soccer. Girls soccer in Piura has been somewhat shut down in recent years because of a falling out with the national league, but the girls team at the National University of Piura is extremely talented. Because of the conflict, girls soccer is often overlooked here despite their talent. Since many of the girls here volunteering from the U.S. have played soccer their whole lives, they have decided to start a project to make the people more aware of the Peruvian girls´ talent. As white people, we are celebrities here in Piura. Wolf whistles and curious gazes follow us wherever we go. So, we with the encouragement of local soccer coaches here, we have set up a day when we will play the university team at the stadium. The plan is to advertise a ton, and to raise money and increase awareness. It will be really cool.
Unfortunately, soccer needs five players, and there are only four girls here who played soccer in highschool, so I will be the fifth player! Don´t get me wrong, I would love to improve at soccer, and I have been playing a lot since I got here, but I am nowhere close to the skill level of the other girls! Haha I guess what I lack in skill, I slightly make up for with hard work, though, because they tell me I´m actually not bad. Its really humbling, though, because I know I will be the worst player out there, playing in front of a large group of people, so I will definitely have to practice and work my heart out!!!! I´m absolutely terrified, but at least it will be exciting!
In other news, here are some classic Peruvian experiences that I have had:
-Everyone really does yell "hello" and stare, and choruses of "gringas, gringas, gringas!" follow us everywhere, as well as wolf whistles galore. Its funny, because people try to yell at us in English, but since we are all trying to work on our Spanish, we answer in Spanish. Its an interesting role reversal.
-One morning when we woke up, things were floating away on a couple inches of water that flooded the top level of our house where me and three other girls sleep. We scooped bowls- yes, it was deep enough to use BOWLS- full of water off the floor for over an hour. Luckily, though, the water had overflowed from our water tank, not the toilet!
-We went to an institute dance here (not everyone is LDS in our group, but 11 out of 13 are, and everyone decided to go). Literally EVERYONE was staring at us and FILMING us with their phones!! Don´t be surprised if I am now a star on youtube. I guess they thought we looked insane- a huge group of gringos dancing way too energetically to their strange mix of American pop, 70s, and 80s music, and Latino music. (Why they randomly listen to our 70s and 80s music, I have no idea, but I often hear "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" in random places.)
-I can never get used to cold showers- it just seems unnatural!
-Why in the world do we have to throw toilet paper in the garbage instead of the toilet??
-Everyone is about a foot shorter than me, I think.
-I ate goat my first day here.
-I am having withdrawals from the shocking lack of peanut butter here. I could also really use some pizza. The food here is great, though! Lots and lots of rice. And if you aren´t sure what something is before you eat it, its most likely going to be potatoes. They seem to pop up out of nowhere at every meal!
-Transportation is crazy! There are no lanes, no speed limits, and no seat belts unless you are in the front. One time, in a three wheeled mototaxi, a huge bus suddenly swerved into our lane and came straight at us! Our driver swerved off the road and started muttering what were probably Spanish swear words. It was exciting!
-I didn´t know it was possible to be both dustier AND more humid than Utah, but somehow Piura combines those two lovely qualities.
-I accidentally told some guys I love myself when I was trying to tell them I love basketball. ("Me encanto basquetbol.") It took me a second to realize what they were laughing at, but when I did, I was pretty embarrased. That is one of my greatest frustrations here- the language barrier. I just want to be able to talk to people, but I can´t! I am learning a ton, though, so hopefully by the end of my time here I will be able to say things that don´t make people start to laugh.
-The amount of littered trash everywhere shocks me, and the army of stray dogs that use it for food makes my heart hurt.
-We live in the top two stories of a little yellow house. The bottom floor is a little tienda owned by a family of 5. The parents, Mary Carmen and Pedro (I now know about 7,000 Pedros), and their three children Moises, Marcos, and Ismael, are the cutest little Peruvian family! We play soccer together in the dirt street in front of our house, Mary attempts to teach us how to Latin Dance and is extremely patient and great at speaking Spanish in a way that is more understandable to us, we help Mary with cleaning and with her kids when we have spare time, and a couple weekends ago we all went to the beach together. They are fantastic!
In closing, I just want to share the theme I chose for myself this summer to help me stay focused on what is really important. Its Mosiah 2:15-17:
"Yet my brethren, I have not done these things that I might boast, neither do I tell these things that thereby I might accuse you, but I tell you these things that ye may know that I can answer a clear conscience before God this day. Behold, I say unto you that because I said unto you that I have spent my days in your service, I do not desire to brag, for I have only been in the service of God. And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."
As long as I am humble and remain focused on the people here, and how I can serve them with the Lord´s help, I know that at least I will be a better person because of it. Even if I don´t really make a difference in anyone´s life, I know that they can make a difference in mine, and that by giving everything I have, I will improve as a child of God. An unknown person said "Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn." I have taken that to heart this summer, and I am going to do everything within my power to serve, or at least establish a habit of charity in my own life.
I hope everyone is doing well, and I would love to hear from you all via email at melaeaster@msn.com.
Have a great week!
Melanie
PS Sorry I am having a bit of trouble uploading pictures because of the poor computer quality here. I will try my best to post some as soon as possible!
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Education is Empowerment
This first week has been packed full of amazing, exciting experiences, and yet it has been pretty slow at the same time. I realized on Thursday that this program is like a mini Peace Corps experience: you start with a couple weeks of needs assessment in the area, and then design and implement programs based on those needs. Something most people don´t realize is the large amount of time that goes into research, interviews, meetings, planning, and then completely re-planning when further research shows the need is slightly different than originally viewed.
Week one has been mostly researching, analyzing, planning, and reassessing. I started out thinking only of Soilets- the project I was "assigned". We found an NGO in the area that deals with environmentally safe toilets in the poorest, mountainous area of the Piura region. They currently build toilets in these areas, and I´m excited to get a chance to further discuss their methods with them, and possibly come up with a design that combines their work with the Soilet waste treatment. The process of contacting this NGO has been slow, though, and during this process I have seen other needs in the community as well. I realized that coming in with a set project shouldn´t stop me from looking for other needs that are important as well.
On Thursday, we went to a close by city called Sechura and met with some Peace Corps volunteers and a psychologist. We went with the psychologist to a smaller town called Vice and listened as he gave lectures to school children and their mothers about domestic abuse. He was urging them to realize that they have rights and the power to change their situations.
While listening to him speak, I thought back to the other projects we have been researching and working on:
One project is in a shanty town called Ville Chulucanas. The people there moved down from the poor conditions in the mountains and occupied the area around Piura. It is a huge community where almost all of the "houses" are huts with dirt floors, woven reeds as walls, and a metal roof if they are lucky. This community has no electricity and no running water. They buy their water from a water truck that sometimes just doesn´t show up. It´s unrealiable and expensive. To install a water pipe line for running water, they need 5,000 soles. Since the people living there are impoverished, they don´t feel that they have the means or the abilities to help them earn the money themselves and pay for it. They asked if HELP International would give them the money they needed, but that is not HELP´s goal here. Our goal is to empower the people and work with locals to provide sustainable change. If we just gave them the money, they could get a pipe, but when the next problem came along, they would again look to others for aid instead of realizing their own potential. We are working to find a way to help them earn the money themselves.
Another project is with an artisan named Juana. She is skilled in weaving and has over 100 women working for her. However, to sell what they make, she has to work through someone else because she has no way to access the markets herself. Her products are successful, but she does not see the rewards of this success because the third party takes much of the profit. We are going to work on a way to get her an office and train her on the internet to help her run her own business.
The psychologist introduced us to another project as well. He is working to empower women. He holds lectures for the women of the community to attend. A large part of the doestic abuse problem is that the men feel justified because they earn the money, and the women feel helpless because they would have no means to try to escape- they have no skills, no education, and thus no money. He is trying to implement a women´s group where women can learn a skill and sell what they make. We plan to try to help him be more effective in his lectures, and help him find a way to sell what the women make.
Thinking of these projects while I listened to the psychologist speak to the students, I noticed a connection between all of the problems and projects- education. The psychologist said that only about 3 in 10 students continue to either a trade school or college after their initial schooling. He explained that this is because of the culture: kids don´t even consider college as an option- it doesn´t occur to them that they should, or that they could attend a university or trade school. Someone told me that when she asked a child what he wanted to be when he grew up, the child answered¨"a mototaxi driver". This illustrates this cultural effect.
So, I thought back to my own college experience, and rememberd a peer mentoring program at BYU where students from the university spend time with kids in elementary schools. I think that we could institute a program like that- a Big Brother/Big Sister campaign- here in Peru. Maybe interaction with the college students would give the kids a dream and a desire to persue their own education. If they received this education, it would empower them to make a change in their own lives and in the lives of those around them. This program could be a sustainable way to improve literacy and implant the idea of higher education in the minds of the young kids.
So this is my main dream for our work in Peru at the moment: we are going to try to start a program between one of the three universities in Piura with the school children in Sechura. If the program is successful, maybe the university students will even expand it to other schools and universities. I truly believe that if we work hard, this could make a sustainable difference in the standard of living here in Peru.
So that is the message for today: Education is Empowerment. Work hard in school, and recognize that you have rights and are more capable than you realize.
Thank you for your support. Please continue to pray for me and the people here in Peru.
-Melanie
Week one has been mostly researching, analyzing, planning, and reassessing. I started out thinking only of Soilets- the project I was "assigned". We found an NGO in the area that deals with environmentally safe toilets in the poorest, mountainous area of the Piura region. They currently build toilets in these areas, and I´m excited to get a chance to further discuss their methods with them, and possibly come up with a design that combines their work with the Soilet waste treatment. The process of contacting this NGO has been slow, though, and during this process I have seen other needs in the community as well. I realized that coming in with a set project shouldn´t stop me from looking for other needs that are important as well.
On Thursday, we went to a close by city called Sechura and met with some Peace Corps volunteers and a psychologist. We went with the psychologist to a smaller town called Vice and listened as he gave lectures to school children and their mothers about domestic abuse. He was urging them to realize that they have rights and the power to change their situations.
While listening to him speak, I thought back to the other projects we have been researching and working on:
One project is in a shanty town called Ville Chulucanas. The people there moved down from the poor conditions in the mountains and occupied the area around Piura. It is a huge community where almost all of the "houses" are huts with dirt floors, woven reeds as walls, and a metal roof if they are lucky. This community has no electricity and no running water. They buy their water from a water truck that sometimes just doesn´t show up. It´s unrealiable and expensive. To install a water pipe line for running water, they need 5,000 soles. Since the people living there are impoverished, they don´t feel that they have the means or the abilities to help them earn the money themselves and pay for it. They asked if HELP International would give them the money they needed, but that is not HELP´s goal here. Our goal is to empower the people and work with locals to provide sustainable change. If we just gave them the money, they could get a pipe, but when the next problem came along, they would again look to others for aid instead of realizing their own potential. We are working to find a way to help them earn the money themselves.
Another project is with an artisan named Juana. She is skilled in weaving and has over 100 women working for her. However, to sell what they make, she has to work through someone else because she has no way to access the markets herself. Her products are successful, but she does not see the rewards of this success because the third party takes much of the profit. We are going to work on a way to get her an office and train her on the internet to help her run her own business.
The psychologist introduced us to another project as well. He is working to empower women. He holds lectures for the women of the community to attend. A large part of the doestic abuse problem is that the men feel justified because they earn the money, and the women feel helpless because they would have no means to try to escape- they have no skills, no education, and thus no money. He is trying to implement a women´s group where women can learn a skill and sell what they make. We plan to try to help him be more effective in his lectures, and help him find a way to sell what the women make.
Thinking of these projects while I listened to the psychologist speak to the students, I noticed a connection between all of the problems and projects- education. The psychologist said that only about 3 in 10 students continue to either a trade school or college after their initial schooling. He explained that this is because of the culture: kids don´t even consider college as an option- it doesn´t occur to them that they should, or that they could attend a university or trade school. Someone told me that when she asked a child what he wanted to be when he grew up, the child answered¨"a mototaxi driver". This illustrates this cultural effect.
So, I thought back to my own college experience, and rememberd a peer mentoring program at BYU where students from the university spend time with kids in elementary schools. I think that we could institute a program like that- a Big Brother/Big Sister campaign- here in Peru. Maybe interaction with the college students would give the kids a dream and a desire to persue their own education. If they received this education, it would empower them to make a change in their own lives and in the lives of those around them. This program could be a sustainable way to improve literacy and implant the idea of higher education in the minds of the young kids.
So this is my main dream for our work in Peru at the moment: we are going to try to start a program between one of the three universities in Piura with the school children in Sechura. If the program is successful, maybe the university students will even expand it to other schools and universities. I truly believe that if we work hard, this could make a sustainable difference in the standard of living here in Peru.
So that is the message for today: Education is Empowerment. Work hard in school, and recognize that you have rights and are more capable than you realize.
Thank you for your support. Please continue to pray for me and the people here in Peru.
-Melanie
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
HELP Piura, Peru!
I am a sophomore at Brigham Young University (BYU) majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Within this major, the application that I am most interested in is humanitarian engineering. Because of this interest, I became involved in a club called Global Engineering Outreach (GEO) at BYU this year. Through this club, I went on a trip to a Navajo Indian Reservation in Southern Utah last October, where we helped build houses for elderly Navajos without homes and installed solar panels to power water pumps that could provide people with running water. I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent working on the reservation, and I felt that I had confirmed the purpose for my future career.
After researching all of the study abroad options offered at BYU, I realized that none of them exactly fit the path I wanted to take. I decided to look for a summer internship that would allow me to work in the field of humanitarian engineering. While I was searching online for opportunities, I received an email through GEO about an organization called HELP International that was looking for engineering interns to go to another country and build what they call Soilets. In many third world countries, there is no system for the disposal of human waste. More often than not, the waste ends up in the water source that the people use as drinking water. This lack of sanitation is the cause of many diseases and many deaths in these impoverished areas. The Soilet is an outhouse designed to filter the waste using natural materials and cement, and then decompose the waste using earthworms. For more information, there is a great video posted on help-international.org called "Saving the Earth with Earth Worms." This opportunity seemed like the perfect fit and an answer to my prayers.
So, I applied for and received the internship, and this summer I will be travelling to the distant land of Peru to a small community called Piura. I will be the project lead for the Soilets, and I will be in charge of convincing the NGOs in Peru to work with us, as well as acquiring supplies, funding, and finding people to help with the building. As a volunteer, I am paying my own way, and I am also paying a large amount for the project I am working on. My goal is to try to fundraise 2,000 dollars to help with this project. If you are willing and able to donate to this cause, please send a check to HELP International with my name on the memo line. Send to
HELP International
455 N. University Avenue #212
Provo, Utah 84601
I plan to keep this blog as current as possible throughout the summer- uploading pictures and updating on the project progress and the crazy adventures I'm sure I will have. Feel free to donate any time throughout the summer, and even if you are unable to give, I would really appreciate your prayers in behalf of me and my efforts in Piura.
Have a great summer!
-Melanie
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