34th Event of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Los Torres

Record of Event pg 1 of 5
34th Event of the SMA Midday Rotary Water Project Los Torres

Where: Los Torres (Chucha´s house) & pre-meeting in the car on the way!
When: 20.1.10 11am – 3.00pm
Who: Chela & Holly, (Cedesa), Laura & Elena (San Miguel Midday) + visitor Kerry from near Dolores Hidalgo, + Los Torres people 31 women, 5 men + about 10 small kids, + Annamaria & Erica from Vivienda de Arriba, & Saul Juarez from Capadrilla.

Grab a cup of coffee, this is another long report…

Purpose:
Planning session for phase III, discuss proposed workshops, reschedule bee project planning session, Water education day at the school or not?,

We arrived at 12.05 – & with greetings & introductions etc, kicked off the meeting at 12.30.

1st Item
Holly & Chela wrote up the agenda we had discussed on the way in the car.
Introductions were made, & people were welcomed.
Chela gave thanks to everyone for their continuing involvement in the development of their community, & re-iterated we have been working together for a year now, & have achieved a lot. She thanked people for their energy & for making a difference.

Chela invited Elena to give the “moment of inspiration”, Elena mentioned not everything is easy, not everyone is perfect but we are all growing.

Chela called for proposals for Co-ordinator & records taker for today’s meeting, after discussion & voting Anamaria (from Vivienda de Arriba) was voted co-ordinator, & Maria de Jesus (not the delegada, the woman who works in Montecillo de Nieto), records taker.

Kerry (a proposed new Rotarian) introduced herself & explained she has the same problems with water in her community & thanked them for having her there today.

2nd Item
Ana called for additional items to add to the agenda, the issue of the road was added.
The roll was called.

3rd Item
Holly apologised for cancelling the planned traspatio workshop & bee project planning session on the 13th Jan. We were unable to go because of the rain, & we tried to contact the delegada Chucha but were unable to get through on her phone.

Holly asked for other contact phone numbers in Los Torres, Rafael Cruz 415 100 9482, Holly also got Ofelia’s number.

4th Item
Water education day or not. The San Miguel Community Fund grant for the 3 cisterns at the school, included an amount to fund staffing of a water education event at the primary school. This has been re-scheduled many times mainly due to a lack of time!

Chela said the purpose of the info day was to explain to the kids the importance of water conservation, contamination etc. & asked for input, do they still want to go ahead or not?

Guillermo thinks it’s a good idea because there are cisterns at the school as well as in the homes & especially important for the kids who’s families have chosen not to participate in the project.

Alejandro thinks it’s the responsibility of the parents, especially the mum, to impart this info daily.

Concha asked what they – as a community would have to do?
We said talk to the Teachers & arrange a time/day when we could do the mini workshop, info day.



Pg 2 of 5
Holly suggested the community, as part of the info day, could research the history of water issues in their region. She suggested interviewing the older people in the community for descriptions of what they did for water in their day.

The subject “History of Water in this Region” will be presented during the info. day. The parents will interview their parents etc, One of the older women said her family used to get water from the river that is now dry. The Rio Damien or Rio San Marcus is a tributary that feeds into the Rio Laja (or it did when there was water in it!).

The event should be in the morning, Format - the history & general information on the topic of water.

Action: A commission was created, Guillermo, Dania Torres (VdA), Lucia Gonzalez, Saul Juarez (Capadrillo), Ana (VdA), Concha, Chucha. The older ones will interview, the younger ones will write up the notes.

Action: Ofelia & Elena Ramirez & Leova Barranca will ask the Maestra for a suitable time on 5th March. & report back at next LT assembly

Item 5: Traspatio Workshop, reschedule
Chela re-iterated the purpose of traspatios, ie to grow your own food, for nutrition & financial benefits. Veges, fruits, chickens etc.

After much discussion it was decided:
the 1st Wednesday of each month @ 12 midday (Starting Feb 3rd) will be for ongoing traspatio workshops.

The 3rd Wednesday of each month @ 12 midday (Starting Feb) will be for Health workshop.

The 4th Wednesday of each month @ 12 midday will be for Community Assembly.

I gave the community the packets of seeds Patricia Schacke had kindly donated. They discussed what they were, & Chucha now has them for the Traspatio workshop.

Kerry also spoke at length about seeds she has & what she has been doing at her house, she began to talk about bio-diversity etc.

I cut short Kerry’s speech & explained in our role in the Assemblies, as facilitator it is important to stick to the agenda. The community is working with Chela & Cedesa, & on a pre-arranged program.

This is a tricky point, all previous visitors have been very respectful & observant of the process, & spoken only when invited to do so & so this has not been an issue before.

While Kerry is very well meaning, & potentially knowledgeable in many areas, we are not the trainers. Too many words from too many sources dilute the information, & cloud the points. It is not about the quantity of information, but the quality. The community is sitting for many hours in the hot sun, & have other things they could be doing. We need to keep it on topic & on plan.

We have been working hard as a tight group to keep the integrity of the project, & must be very cautious about who is allowed to visit, it should be stressed these are working meetings & not simply an opportunity for voyeurism. We need to ride the fine line between promoting the projects & their successes, & allowing the projects to continue productively without interference.

I will ask our Board for guidance on this.

Item 6 Bee workshop
Members of the Ann Arbor Rotary Club have offered to look at a proposal for a micro-business opportunity if we can design one for the Los Torres Community. Chela has suggested bee keeping as an ideal small business. A project planning session was postponed due to rain on the 13th Jan.

There was more discussion about bees & their products, & benefits.



Pg 3 of 5
Honey is much healthier than sugar, it is important in the development of health & immunity, only need a wild area away from people for keeping bees. The bees in Mexico used to be less aggressive but have been “Africanised” & so need to be further away from housing.

There are now more people interested, who would like to be added to the previous list.
Fabiana, Elena, Caretina, Maria Soria, Mariana, Aurelia, Chucha, Maya, Carolina, Juana, Patricia, Carmela + the women on the first list.

Chela suggested they work in small groups from 5-10 per group.
The first workshop will be on the 10th March, with Bee project continuing on the 2nd Wednesday of each month from then on.

Item 7 Construction groups for Phase III

The 3 groups were re-iterated, leaders were voted, in “bold”
Group 1
Marta Maya, Veronica Alvarado, Patricia Nolesco, Alejandro Alvarado, Piedad Soria, Filomena Ferrer, Lucia Gonzalez (Consuelo Huerta, Alejandro Gonzalez)

Group 2
Dulce Martinez, Maribel Ferrer, Jose Cruz, Cristina, Elena Ramirez, Juana Soria, Ma de Jesus Rodriguez

Group 3
Aurelia Fajardo, Josefina Barranca, Sabina Ramirez, Maria Fajardo, Rosa Barranca, Nicolasa Agredo, Caritina Ramirez. (Jose Alvarado)

Someone raised the 3 people to receive plastic tinaco’s (see italics added above)
Chela raised the question of Solidarity, who from the previous phases would be prepared to volunteer to help this group.

Alejandro asked for help, he said they had learnt for free, & asked who could return the favour.

Concha, pointed out the cistern construction at the school was supposedly the train the trainer for those in the 3rd phase, & that many of them were too lazy to attend, or even bring those working a drink of water, & why should anyone help them? (good point!)

Fabiana volunteered with her husband, as did Ofelia (for her husband Primo), & Guillermo.

It was reiterated that the people who need help should come to them, & not vice versa. If in doubt ask.

Benigno will be there to help also. (through a miscommunication, it was thought during this meeting there was no funding for technical assistance in the budget, but later, after the meeting confirmed there is more than sufficient to ensure Benigno, & or the Expert Crew in LT, are able to be paid to assist with the technical spec.s, purchase of materials, distribution issues etc.

In retrospect though, it was an interesting exercise to gauge the willingness to help others from the other phases.

Chela mentioned the groups need to meet & discuss
Where are you going to plan & when?
Where to put the materials, - need to co-ordinate within the group
2 materials lists, one for upper & one for lower community.

Action: need to measure the qty of piping each family needs.

When will the money for the materials be available?
I said in approx. 1 month. (yikes!)



Pg 4 of 5
Item 8 Donations of Clothes
I had about 4 bags of clothes to donate, last time I donated to one family to share & was not sure how much was shared. I asked for Chela’s advice as to how to distribute. Not to be seen as charity, & handouts is important to me.

Chela suggested we donate the clothes to the whole community & that a mini tienda of clothes is created. With the items to be sold at an agreed upon price & the funds to go to the community for anything that arises.

The meeting was very happy about this, Concha & Leova volunteered, the price of 5 pesos was agreed, & the shop essentially opened immediately, with a frenzy of shopping.

Item 9 the Road
Since everyone was busy “shopping” & the meeting was already long, it was decided to make this the first item on the agenda for the next assembly.

Item 10 Saul Juarez – Capadrilla
After the meeting had ended, Saul approached us, he was the young man (22 yrs old) who had attended the previous assembly. Amazingly he also rang Elena to check whether the 13th Jan Traspatio workshop was to be cancelled because of the rain…

He is a very bright, interested young man, (currently unemployed) he comes from a community about ½ hr drive from Los Torres, he rode his bike to the meeting. During the meetings he was very respectful, but also participated fully, answered questions when others couldn’t, remembered facts from the previous meeting we’d forgotten, & had also done a survey of his community to find out who was interested in being involved in a project such as Los Torres.

• Capadrilla - his community has approx. 64 families,
• 22 families were interested (with what he told them)
• They have family wells, shared between about 5 – 8 families,
• The wells are approx. 12-15 mtrs deep
• The water is contaminated, not tested, but lots of damaged teeth evident in the kids, & others
• They are very close to Vivienda de Abajo, another community.

We explained the lengthy process involved in seeking & receiving funding through Rotary, but that we are also looking at different options.

This kid is a shining star, he has turned up at the assemblies of his own accord, under his own steam, & was taking photos on his camera (probably to help explain to his community), he is very interested in all topics, & extremely polite, shaking hands with everyone, & waiting his turn (until the end of the 3 hr meeting) to talk.

He spent time talking to Anamaria from Vivienda de Arriba, another shining star, from Vivienda de Arriba. These guys have excellent & very obvious leadership skills.

Saul asked to come with us to Montecillo de Nieto, where we were headed after the meeting, to see the cistern being built at the Kinder there.

He rode with his bike in the back of Chela’s pickup, he opened & closed the doors for us!! When we arrived at MdN, he promptly started taking photos with his phone, & shaking hands & introducing himself to this bunch of people, he was asking questions & again shook hands & said goodbye.

He is going to attend the traspatio & Health workshops & said he may even come to Lomas on Saturday for our Assembly there, (but he didn’t know where this community is)…

Item 11 Anamaria Ramirez – Vivienda de Arriba
Anamaria is also very enthusiastic, bright & participates fully. She did a beautiful job of co-ordinating a long & complex meeting today.

She bought with her another young woman Erica, & they described the water situation in VdA again for us.


Pg 5 of 5
They share a municipal well with 2 other communities, Tierra Blanca & Espejo.
This water is piped to each household, but is often not available, & when it is, it is often black & greasy! Definitely not drinkable.

Another woman from Tierra Blanca (more than 100 families in Tierra Blanca)– Julia was also visiting & echoed the comments above.

We will be visiting VdA on the 10th Feb so will find out more then.

A challenge for us all – how can we find development funding to be able to pay these young stars to stay in their communities & assist with their community’s development? They are too good to lose to some menial paying job, lifting buckets of concrete or cleaning people’s floors.

They have shown huge initiative turning up to 3 meetings over 3 months, & not just sitting listening, but actively participating & greatly assisting the process.

Cedesa is in the early stages of planning a “camposino university” with the aim to teach people in the communities how to promote development in those communities. These guys would be A+ students, if only the university was already in place, & there was some form of compensation to allow them to stay in their communities…food for thought!


Dates to remember:

• Traspatio Workshop 3rd Feb 12 midday
• Health Workshop 17th Feb 12 midday
• Next Assembly 24th Feb 12 midday
• Visit to Cruz del Palmar, & Vivienda de Arriba 10th Feb. 11am & 3pm
• Proposed Water Info Day 5th March.(time to be advised re mtg with Teacher)
• Bee project 1st workshop 10th March 12 midday


These records were made by Laura Stewart (San Miguel Midday RC – Community Service Committee)