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

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