Chacocente Revisited

by Janet Gee

Derrick and I were in Santa Teresa in January 2006 when we interviewed Alma Susana Chavez and Marlon Palacio Morales, two local graduates who were interested in becoming facilitators for the Sister City Project. Since the Board appointed them in February 2006, as part-time project organizers and developers, we have been in regular email contact with them as SCP and they worked on existing programs and initiated new ideas to support the villages of the impoverished Chacocente Wildlife Refuge. Alma’s training had been focused on environmental issues while Marlon’s background was agricultural development. They were both anxious to use their local knowledge and skills to improve the social, health and educational conditions in the area.

Our return visit this January one year later, was rewarding because we could see clearly how our facilitators have developed in confidence and in knowledge of the conditions faced in the communities. During our visits with them, we could see how they are respected and have organized the work to educate and enable the villagers to help themselves.

Our visit included a meeting with Doctor Quintanilla who works out of a clinic in La Pita, a community some 30 to 60 minutes by motorcycle from the Refuge communities we help. Although the Ministry of Health has provided him with a clinic, he is mainly funded by a European source. For a monthly stipend from us, he has begun to train volunteer community members in basic health care, midwifery and birth control. In addition, he will visit each community once a month to see those patients unable to walk or ride a horse to visit his clinic. We will also pay something to reduce the cost of the medications needed in the villages. In his training program, he will include knowledge of natural as well as “modern” medicines and we hope that many of the health promoters from our natural medicine programs will receive this training from the Doctor. In this way, there will be a three-way partnership - professional expertise from the Doctor, volunteer and self-help from the communities, and economic support from you, the SCP donors.
Dr. Quintanilla examines an unwilling patient.

In Education, with your donations, we have continued to provide school supplies for all the students in the village schools. This is a very real need for the families who generally live on less than $1 a day. We are also giving financial help for a school meal program which is an added incentive to attend school. Families have asked us to help them provide post sixth grade education in their areas. At present, those who have the ability and desire to continue on have great financial and logistical problems with doing this. During a recent trip to Mexico, Derrick and I saw “Telesecundaria”, a distance learning high school program in action. Later, at the Ministry of Education in Managua, we discussed the possibility of introducing this into the Chacocente area. We learned that they had already piloted the program but felt it was inappropriate for their national situation. However, there are other possibilities and the Ortega government is talking about making rural education a priority. Marlon and Alma will continue to monitor this situation and we have put money aside for secondary education to use when the situation becomes clearer. We believe that with the SCP presence in the area and regular meetings with the local Ministry of Education representative, we can continue to raise awareness about the need to provide good teaching and accountability in places that are often overlooked. By helping to build schools, providing schools supplies, monitoring the teaching, and encouraging families to send their children to school, we can offer more possibilities to the young people of the area.

We continue to support the sewing and agricultural projects. Sewing will probably not be a significant income generator for the families because of the cheap imports and used clothing in the local markets. However, it is a popular activity and it also forms a useful part of subsistence living and personal growth and pride. We plan to continue the agricultural program, at least until we have fulfilled our obligations to those in our current three-year project, because there are valuable environmental, health and educational benefits. Producers outside the project can now see the advantages of not slashing and burning as well as the benefits of contour farming and the use of green manures.

A highlight of the visit was witnessing the first honey harvest carried out by the new Beekeeping Co-op. SCP had financed this project together with Fauna and Flora International (FFI), a UK based environmental organization. The members were very excited about the results, and they should now be able to develop the project from within by building their own hives and creating their own bee colonies. We will help with a little funding and Marlon will monitor progress. It is hoped this will become an income producing business with marketing being done in coordination with another regional co-op.
The first honey harvest: uncapping the comb before extracting honey
Wherever we traveled in the town of Santa Teresa or the Chacocente Reserve, we were warmly greeted and thanked for our support. SCP does not have the enormous financial resources of an international U.N. backed organization, but we do have a twenty year track record, the trust of the Santa Teresa Mayor’s office and of the communities we support. They trust us to do what we promise in the name of all of you who donate to this venture, Your interest and support is very much appreciated and needed. On behalf of the municipality of Santa Teresa de Carazo, we thank you.