CAPDCalgary.org BLOG

In November of last year, ASODISPIE was still in their rented facilities. Twelve months later they have their own brand-new centre on a plot of land provided for their use by the municipality of Piedecuesta. They have done a tremendous job and deserve a lot of credit. They are grateful to those who helped them realize a 14 year-old dream: the mayor of Piedecuesta who made it possible for them to have the land on which to build, Carlos the engineer and construction manager, CAPD and the Ruitoque Rotary club for their financial assistance. The pictures below will give you a quick tour of the Centre followed by a few pictures of other activities. I hope you agree with me that they deserve a pat on the back and a hearty “CONGRATULATIONS”. Marlene

These two men made it happen: Henry the President (on the far side) and Oscar the treasurer.

Students coming for painting class descend from the bus funded by the Alberta Government and CAPD to walk up the access ramp.

This is a side view of the building.

A front view.

This hallway leads to physical, occupational and speech language therapy rooms. Notice the paintings on the walls painted by ASODISPIE members.

One of the therapy rooms. The therapy service is just in its initial phases. ASODISPIE has initiated the accreditation process to become a therapy clinic.

And, of course, they have accessible bathrooms with showers.

Would you believe they have a little duck pond with hens, roosters and ducks? The plan is to sell the eggs.

Lyrrobs, the administrator, returns a duckling to the pen so it can fight for a few morsels at feeding time.

As in past years, we constructed special seating for children with very special needs.

Our team worked efficiently on seating for two children.

The FANDIC dance troupe helped them celebrate a pre-inauguration.

And now it's time to say "so long", it has been a good day.

Their first priority is to renew their accreditation as a university practicum site. They hope to achieve this objective by the end of this year. Next year, they plan to become accredited as a health centre, which will allow them to sub-contract to various health insurers.

Their second priority is to put the bakery on a business footing. Mothers in charge of the bakery have begun taking baking courses at SENA, the technical institute, a first step to be followed by training in business management in the following year.

Below you will see pictures of the bakery and of physical therapy sessions with children, moms and a part-time therapist called Clara. You will also see pictures of a Sunday outing to The Chicamoacha Park, one of the newest parks built to celebrate the beauty of the river gorge and the history of Santander. This outing was a treat for all of us, but especially for our visitor from Pereira, Gilma, the coordinator of the new Green Light program there.

Wishing you best regards as we draw near to Christmas,

Marlene

The bakery is now located on the 2nd floor, in a kitchen dedicated to this purpose.

Today they made sweet buns.

They also make cheese bread, which is very popular.

Mom gives therapy to her daughter, a little cutie!

Clara works with a youngster with paint on his nose.

Our group, at the Chicamoacha Park entrance, is ready to have a great time.

Rocio, Green Light Coordinator, with Cristian, her son. Behind them the highway to Bogota stretches out to climb the mountain. The parking lot and park buildings are down below.

This sculpture tells the story of a peasant revolt against a Spanish tax law. Only half of the scuplture was captured by this picture.

The artist really captured the emotion on people's faces.

Our illustrious group poses in front of the mighty river gorge. And with this photo, we close our tale.

The Green Light Education Assistance program is currently active in rural and urban areas of Santander.  Rocio, the Green Light Coordinator, and I have traveled to the rural area with some frequency to meet with parents and students. It takes about 1.5 hours of travel on the highway, after which  we bump along unpaved roads eroded by heavy rains, to reach various schools. The pictures below will provide a glimpse of student activities as well as rural life.

In January 2012 the program will expand to Pereira, a city located in the coffee zone of Colombia, where 100 students from needy homes will enter the program.

After two years in Santander we are seeing the impact of this program. Children, who otherwise would face an uncertain future, are inspired to study hard, to complete their studies and to contribute to their communities.

We would like to acknowledge the financial support of the COLMED Foundation and to thank them on behalf of the students and their families.

Marlene

A glimpse of the scenery near Los Santos.

Pineapple is one of the crops grown there.

Tobacco is a more common crop.

This elderly man threads tobacco leaves...

...for hanging and drying.

A cook at a school restaurant stands proudly in front of a new fridge supplied by the municipality.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rocio talks to students at a rural school.

Students made posters and wrote letters of apreciation.

Can you guess that these two are brother and sister?

These young women will graduate this year. Some plan to continue studies at the technical and university level.

These special needs students started their studies 2 years ago. Their progress is impressive!

My 2 months in Monteria passed quickly and I’m grateful to the local Rotarians for all their efforts to get the project up and running properly.  They worked very hard to go through all the various phases while I was there to give them feedback.

Something that is becoming clearer every day is the importance of the preliminary hygiene and sensitization phase towards a successful project.   Sometimes it takes a few meetings for the people to capture the concepts and learn how to solve some of the issues.  Not everyone is interested.

In this photo you see a meeting of community members learning about the issues of diarrhoea and unsafe water and what exactly the filter might do for them.

Enadis on her motorcycle.

Hygiene training session in a church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our program has a mandatory training session and we have been fortunate enough to be able to hold these in the local church where it is dark enough to show a video and spacious enough to do interactive activities to reinforce hygiene lessons.  We even have a working filter beside the altar table! The ladies are always amazed when Enadis uses Glo Germ to show the importance of using soap when hand washing.

The Program now has approximately 230 filters built and media prepared. The filters and filter media are very high quality, thanks to the hard work and vigilance of a number of Rotarians and volunteers.

Here you see Enadis, the CAPD sponsored Programa Agua Sana Coordinator organizing the families to pick up their filters and take them to their homes.

Village life in rural Colombia can be tough. With several months of rainy season, transportation in and out of the village is reduced to walking, burro or if really lucky, a tractor and trailer.

Rural electrification is extensive and, judging by my experience in other parts, relatively reliable even during lightning storms.  Main roads are paved but as soon as you turn on to secondary roads you see that landowners have fenced up to the roadside, ostensibly to prevent other people from grazing cattle on the roadsides. But the fences prevent the municipality from installing ditches and, after the road has been levelled with a grader a few times, canals filled with rainwater are formed. There are no sewers in the village and septic tanks are non-existent. And how would one empty tanks if they had them? Some people have latrines and I have heard about an organization encouraging people to build latrines, but the high level of ground water in this area makes them a contaminant for ground water.

Vueltiao hat

I arrived in Monteria, Cordoba, home of Porro music and the Vueltiao hat, one week ago.  Monteria, a city of 380,000, is an agricultural and cattle ranching hub that is thriving judging by the new construction in progress – apartments, houses, commercial buildings, road repairs, and new parks. La Ronda, a park bordering the Sinu river for several kilometres, is a beautiful treasure that enhances the downtown area.

Wealthy people have ranches in the area, including past president Uribe and a famous sportsman by the name of Vallesteros.  On the other hand, small landholders have received threats from guerrilla and paramilitary groups and unscrupulous neighbours coveting their land, and have had to flee to the nearest city for safety and work, thus joining many other internal refugees scratching a living as squatters on the edge of towns and cities.

La Ronda Park

The countryside is very flat with a tendency to be swampy but, by digging many large drainage channels, landowners have improved their holdings for ranching and agriculture.  My Rotary friend has a farm with a couple hundred head of cattle and bales hay for use during the 4-5 months of dry season.  He also uses a system of pasture rotation developed in France where the cattle are in a pasture for only a day or two.  He proudly showed me his records on weight and milk production gains per cow. He is always looking for continuous improvement.

Colombia is blessed with an abundance of water, but much of that water is contaminated. For years I’ve suspected that flat areas, between the Andes Mountains and the Amazon and from the mountains to the Caribbean, would most benefit from household water treatment. Cordoba state has a number of large rivers crisscrossing through it and Monteria is situated about 30 minutes from the Caribbean.

Villagers learn about filtering water

One year ago, a Rotarian from Monteria got my cell phone number through the Rotary network and asked me to conduct a water filter construction workshop.  It did not work out in 2010 but in early 2011, I asked my Rotary contacts in southern Alberta if they still had funds for a filter project. I was pleasantly surprised to be able to put together $50,000 for a project.  These funds were supplemented by CAPD, who found a patron in the COLMED foundation to contract a person to work in parallel with the Monteria Rotarians. The long-term vision is to establish a continuing Colombian expertise in Biosand Filters that could be used in other parts of the country.  The Monteria Rotarians are enthusiastic about our project to provide 600 families with safe water and look forward to working with CAPD in developing a local “expert”.

Villagers, Rotarians and CAPD collaborate to bring safe water to families

After 9 months of planning, I am now on-site representing Rotary Club of Calgary South and CAPD.  Last Sunday I visited the site of the first phase of the project, a village of 300 families who obtain their water from shallow, contaminated wells and from local marshes.  They have a heavy load of parasite infestation, according to a local doctor, and laboratory results show significant biologic contamination. Filtration and disinfection should improve water to an acceptable quality for drinking, so I guess I am in the right place!

We are encouraged that donors have stepped forward to provide free or highly subsidized materials and steel molds.  Next week we will start interviewing for the CAPD technical expert position. Our goal is to have the project firmly on the rails by the time I leave at the end of October.

Bob