7th Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Lomas de San José Water Project

Record of Event pg 1 of 3
7th Mtg of the SMA Midday Rotary Lomas de San José Water Project

Where: Lomas de San José Community, at the church
When: Friday 29.01.10 (scheduled for 4pm start, started 4.35pm)
Who: Enrique Orvañanos & Laura Stewart (Rotary), Benigno (Cedesa), 3 men & 12 women from the community attended (along with 6 kids & 2dogs!)
(the 3 men left during the meeting, with no interest)
Purpose: to begin planning of the next stages of this project. The demonstration build, & creation of work groups.

We arrived on time at 4pm, & a few people were there, we decided to wait longer.

A few more people arrived including 3 new faces, people who were passing & called to join in.

At 4.35pm, despite the small numbers, we decided to begin.

Item 1. Introductions
We all introduced ourselves & explained why we were there.

We met the 3 new men attending, 1 had a come as he was interested to see what it was about, he had a cistern already, so didn’t stay, one has no space for a cistern.

Item 2 Difference between an assembly & a meeting
This is the usual beginning of the meeting, reiteration of difference between a meeting & an assembly, as an incentive to organise bigger attendance.

Item 3 appointment of a co-ordinator & a records taker
Benigno reiterated these 2 roles & Carmen was appointed co-ordinator, & Cristina Record taker (Angelika had bought the notes from previous meetings as well as the “list” of people interested in participating.

Item 4 Description of the process & of working in groups
For the new people, Benigno described how the construction of the cisterns would take place, that working in groups was essential, & that there was 39 on original list & that groups of 8 had been decided back in June.

Item 5 revised list of participants
At the previous meeting it had been raised that there were people on the list that didn’t even have a building on their land, & who had gone on the list thinking they might be able to get a cistern in future, when their building was complete.

The attendees of the previous meeting had been tasked with visiting the families on the list & revising the list to be actual families with space & a building in place already, whose roof could be used to catch water for the cistern.

Angelika said there were now 30 people on the list.
The role was called, & there were several people at today’s meeting that were not on the list, & many more not attending today’s meeting, despite being told that attendance of the meetings was compulsory if they wished to be included in the project.

Item 6 How to proceed, with lack of participation
Enrique, Benigno & Laura discussed how to proceed in this situation, ie with an obvious lack of interest or motivation in this community. There are many factors to be considered

Record of Event pg 2 of 2

1. There is only a core few regularly attending the meetings, approx 4 have been at all meetings, others are coming & going, & new people showing up & not coming again.
2. We have a commitment to the four who regularly attend
3. It takes as many resources (financial/time & energy) to organise for a few families as it does for 30.
4. We have many communities in need of this project, who are demonstrating their willingness (at least at the early stages) should we split this project?
5. Is it too early for this community, do they need more time to organise themselves? Are they actually capable of organising themselves?
6. This is a semi urban community, without unity, it will take a lot of work to first create unity & some sense of “community” here, they are essentially a cluster of houses living in close proximity rather than a community with roots & history in the area (like the other project sites)
7. We came to this community offering the project, they did not come to us seeking it, we have other communities that have come to us.
8. Normally the bi product of these projects is to assist communities to become organised, & to build community spirit it will pose an additional challenge here.

Item 7 – insufficient numbers to define the project yet.
We explained the issues we discussed, & although this meeting was to be the definitive list of people to be involved in the project, there were still insufficient to set a date for demonstration demo build days, & to begin to seriously plan & organise the next steps.

We asked if they needed more time to speak with their neighbours & the people on the list to get a bigger group together & agreed to meet again in 2 wks. We told them the next assembly was the LAST chance.

We asked again if there was a better time for people to meet, more discussion on this topic again, this time it was decided that Saturday is a better day, & after much back and forth, about day, time & location was ultimately agreed

Funny things that happened...
The men (all 3 of them) slowly sloped off, one by one, when they thought we weren’t watching.
Carmen – the woman that was appointed co-ordinator, suddenly ran off mid sentence, I turned to see her climbing on the bus & driving away. It took a while for people to realise the co-ordinator had gone, & it turned out her husband was getting paid, & if she wasn’t there at the time, she would not see any of the money & he would head off to the cantina!
There was the usual pre-requisite dog fight, dispersed with a shower of stones!

Item 8 – visit to Enrique’s house
Enrique invited the remaining women at the meeting to see the cistern he has built on his property, & also to see a demonstration of a solar oven his employee’s daughter has created as part of a project Enrique has been working on.

We all piled into cars & headed to Enrique’s property.
I had to leave before they tasted the food cooking in the solar oven & then rang to apologise & to give them a laugh, told Enrique to tell them I had to go as I had the same situation as Carmen. (I really just had to pick up my kids!)

I left at 6.05pm
Next Lomas Assembly Saturday 13th Feb at 5pm in front of the Church