Where: Steps of new church, under the shade of the big tree.
When: March 30th 2011 2.10pm – 3.40
Who: Holly, Saul, Chela, Jesus (Cedesa) Laura (Rotary)+ 53 adults & 5 kids.
Purpose: to begin the project planning for the cisterns to be constructed in this community with the Rotary Global Grant 25397 as well as a combined donation of $9k (details of donating clubs listed below).
Background: we have been working with this community for almost a year now, first visited in May 2010, but many representatives came to assemblies in other communities before that.
We have managed to achieve funding for this project through the generous grant of Rotary & this is the first planning meeting re the project, to determine who will receive cisterns & begin the planning process.
Item 1 – re the previous meeting this morning the Sanitaria 2 (health dept) has agreed to provide pap smears & mammograms to all women in Tierra Blanca over 35. We began this meeting dividing the women into groups of 10 who would visit on scheduled dates. Jesus arranged this & took the lists of names.
Item 2 – Planning the cisterns project
The global grant 25397 is for 50 cisterns in total, 28 for this community of Tierra Blanca & 22 for the community of Juan Gonzalez.
Also available, thanks to 2 separate direct donations is US$7k from Port Lavaca Tex RC & $2k from New Braumfels Tex RC, we will combine these donations to provide $9k for a total of 14 cisterns.
Altogether in this community there will be 42 cisterns available + 1 tinaco (plastic tank) – this divides into 2 pilot cisterns (1 provided by the GG & one provided by the $9k donatin) & 40 individual family cisterns.
We began by talking about the numbers of cisterns we have funding for, & then the roll was called, listing all of those present/absent. 35 people on the list were present.
One woman was absent & it was discussed as to whether she was eligible or not, it was decided she would receive a cistern since she has been participating fully up until now.
Cata (president of the consejo) mentioned that if you are going to allow people in the project who are absent then you need to take responsibility to fully inform them of the events of the meeting they missed.
There was a discussion between the community about a previous meeting Tierra Blanca had held without us, several people complained of not being informed, & different methods of informing the community were discussed, including the possibility of a notice board, which people would have to view themselves, this was discounted as it has not worked in other communities, possibly because of low literacy rates…We need to work out how we can involve everyone in the assemblies that are regarding the health of the community, “some people didn’t even want to take 5 minutes to complete the census we did”
Chela asked how are we going to animate everyone? Talk to your neighbours, constantly mention the issues & see if you can encourage people to come to the meetings, put up notices…
There are others in the meeting not on the list +5 , & one person to receive a tinaco (small water tank – as she is elderly & cant participate as well & we don’t have enough funding for a cistern for her).
The decision process as to who was eligible & who were not, was based on the previous participation in the project up until now. It was a little contentious as some people complained of not being informed of previous meetings. A solution to this was agreed – the first 2 people on the list will advise everyone else on the list of the next meeting, then the next 2 on the list & so on.
It was decided that there would be 5 groups of 8 families working together.
The groups were decided & listed, to include 2 leaders/co-ordinator, 2 abaniles.
Next came the decision as to where to do the pilot cistern builds.
There was discussion about the kinder (30kids) v Primaria (approx. 95kids) v Secondaria (approx. 55 kids).
Although Saul mentioned the younger the children are the more affected they are by the contaminants it was decided to do them at the Primaria & the Secondaria.
Saul then called our supplier Talego to confirm if they had materials in time for the pilots to begin on Monday 4.4.11 (the community was very keen to start asap), Talego confirmed. So pilots were confirmed to begin on Monday.
Next was to decide which groups would work on which pilot, it was split 20/20 (+ 1 tinaco person),
They all agreed to start at 9am & work to 5pm each day.
Saul described the list of tools they would need to bring with them, including wheel barrows, ladders, sifting frames buckets etc, & someone was arranged to bring a grinder to make the gancho/hooks for the wire weaving process.
Everyone left happy & in high spirits looking forward to beginning on Monday!!
Next meeting: 4.4.11 @ Primary School at 9am to begin the 2 pilots.
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