Section: Community Telecentre Guanaba.net , Miscellaneous
Alexis: reflexions from a (guanaba-) roof
September 25, 2007
Reflections d (in English) and Alexis (Peace Corps volunteer) from the roof of Guanaba.Net - edited from a text that he wrote for the CP responsible .....
"I stand on the roof of our telecenter every day, smoking cigarettes I can not get the rid of, and look out at the town - A Few Thousand people sitting under tin roofs rust-red clustered in an hole Surrounded by mountain, With little connection to an outside working economy and little desire to have it Any Other Way. Taking it in, I usually can not focus on one thought But: this community is Completely unsustainable.
I suppose I Could see this "comfortable-scraping-by" continuing indefinitely, But The youth - Receiving a more EXTENSIVE education and Being Exposed to the outside world far more than one generation prior events - do not want to continue the work of Their parents .
Harvesting a family plot eleven months of coffee does not Provide enough to produce the Life They Want. Facing A Lack of Employment Opportunities feasible, They leave. Who could blame And them? Success Has Come to mean "getting out." And the future of this Community - So Many like others - is Being left to the least educated and least motivated. Looking out at this, I oftentimes think The Most Practical course of action is to phased evacuation, at least Then We Could Control Some exert over the tides of history, minimize the damage That Seems inevitable.
But Vicky and Yacine Have a vision. They see a community STI That Converts Into crops marmalades, liqueurs, packages of dried fruit, and works of art, the Entire enterprise - from processing to packaging to Cultivation and distribution - managed by a communitarian small business, selling products at Higher Than Many folds they're worth raw, instead of watching Them fall from a plant and rot on the ground, as is the status quo.
Given the dramatic and diverse environment of the Municipality and the richness of a traditional culture Threatened with extinction, They See an incredible Opportunity to Tap Into the newly forming and ever-growing market of ecotourists - Detailed enough to plan excursions to envision agricultural Into the hill , yola trips with local fishermen, the experience from mine to larimar necklace, and performances of parrot ripiao, and enough flexibility to allow for the immersive experience of staying with a family as well as Dominican lodging in a locally owned and run hotel-restaurant. In Demonstrating That the land and culture here has a tangible value - That people are willing to pay to experience - They Might events manage to Protect a fragile environment and renew a dying culture.
My project partners Also Realize The Importance of Incorporating These Processes Within a modern framework, Integrating information and communication technologies Into projects through "courses with sense of" which not only offer lessons in the operation of a computer and Its basic programs, But Also how the computer can be Used as a tool to run a small business or manage the workings of an organization. All the while, the housing telecenter These technologies Also Serves as a core for education, community planning, and more. The connectivity of the internet now Allows humans Beings to produce meaningful work and earn a substantial businesses living anywhere there's access to this comprehensive network, teaching young people to design web pages and advanced graphics might Prove profitable enough and interesting enough to impel Them to stay - an EQUALLY They deem Revolutionary project "tele-work." Vicky and Yacine imagine That society can live in Spite of our modern world of Consumption and not on account of it Merely, appropriating our technology to thrive outside of it, instead of Being Consumed by the need to consume the products of That technology.
This is not neo-leftist Some idle dream, But A plan in action with 3 years of Accomplishments. Over This Period, Have my project partners amassed a group of community leaders together That Consistently eat every time a meeting or a workshop is Called, In Some of the more astute community members, succeeded in imparting events they've That faith of Theirs - That what's coming Could be great, If They work hard enough for it. They Have Trained and guided three young to serve as a telecenter team, who manage daily self-sufficiently It Operations and work together to resolve problems When They Arise, instead of always expecting help from above, now serve as They Also Each instructors in the group- specific, practical courses the center offers. These young people as responsible as may be, Their dedication is a direct result of the continued insistence That They Are not mere Employees But A critical piece of something grander - infomediaries, they're called.
With the agricultural transformation project, my project partner and Effectively Have Organized outsourced VARIED Such workshops as "Perceptions of Gender" and "Biodiversity," the most recent ones Have community members Working with professionals to Establish the statutes That will Govern Their small business and exploring Which by the process to acquire legal Recognition as a cooperative. They Have Negotiated With The Internationally certified technical training organization INFOTEP to serve the projects by sending instructors from Barahona to teach months-long courses in accounting and organic agriculture-even managing to Fulfill INFOTEP's Requirement of a 25 student minimum, And That despite INFOTEP's Educational minimums as strict as approved high school 2nd year.
In the Midst of managing These projects, They Have just completed a six-month project in four months That Sought to link community information and global positioning coordinates Producing With The purpose of digital maps: Utilizing the work of community members, They oversaw a census of Entire lifted the community and generate enough data to maps on 53 variables as diverse as Income Generation, structure of residence, locations of trash piles, and incidences of the Most Common diseases from dengue to worms; They Brought Into These Saami community members the computer lab to generate and manipulate the maps Themselves, using a computer program so Specialized it required instruction by a cartographer from ONE, and They included the participation of Local Government by mounting a workshop on community planning in the council, led by one of Participation Citizen's foremost Experts on the subject - events getting the trustee to sign a contract of cooperation in Which I agrees to use the maps for future planning. And now, a trustee who at first wanted very little to do with my project partners, is soliciting help in putting together Their The Participatory budget required by law recently.
Listening to Vicky or speak Yacine About Taigüey's plans and actions, it Quickly Becomes Evident That This Project is Professionally Planned and Executed Professionally - but it's matched by an Also enormous, all-volunteer effort on Their part That goes mostly unseen. Here in La Cienaga, a project of The Most Ambitious order is not only met But Also With The intelligence required to create the passion Radically Different the reality it strives for. All of it still Seems to me like a long shot, But a well-played and a hard-Fought One That deserves as much help as is available.
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