The craziest week yet!

ProHabitat is a happenin´ place and by that I mean that there is never a dearth of things going on in the wild little office of ours! And it ends up that this was my week to go crazy with activities. We all have our turn, I guess, and my turn doesn´t come nearly as often as the others, so I consider myself lucky. The staff was also incredibly supportive of me this week, which was absolutely both necessary and wonderful.

Just for a little background since I realized recently that I never really provided an brief picture of what the organization does. Small details like that would help... So basically, La Fundación ProHabitat is a non profit with a focus on assisting and accompanying people in the department of Cochabamba with securing a right to dignified home. Many people in this region, and all throughout Bolivia for that matter, continue to live in huts and adobe homes without basic services like water, electricity, and plumbing. The Foundation enters communities only when asked, both rural and peri-urban (like the Southern Zone of Cocha), to provide assistance in a variety of ways depending on what´s requested - that could be credit for building or improving the home, plumbing workshops, capacitation workshops for the community leaders, practical workshops on health and hygiene, assistance in advocating for the right to basic services, or facilitating youth groups! It´s a team of 10 at FPH and they do a TON of good around these parts!

The part I´m mainly working in, with youth groups, began for two reasons. First of all, FPH was struggling to find, encourage, and train competent and reliable leaders for many communities while they also noticed youth just peaking in the windows of community meetings, without a space to participate. In order to capacitate the next generation of community leaders and provide a positive outlet for the youth, FPH solicited funds from OXFAM-GB and here we are! So, my main project is to conduct a participatory evaluation at the end of year one and this week held the majority of my info gathering workshops, which were a bit chaotic, but successful overall (I sure hope!). Here´s hoping that we gathered the information needed to move forward proving impacts and assessing needed improvements. The hit was definitely the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies I whipped up as a thank you:) The kids are convinced that I could open a very successful line of cookies and some even offerred to work for me!

My other project with some of the grant funds I have is to increase food security in one particular community through the planting of fruit trees. This is what I´m really passionate about since this community is a good way from fresh fruits and vegetables and many families also have few resources to afford such foods on a regular basis. After some complications, we´ll finally be buying and planting the first round of plum, peach, pomegranate, and grapes this coming Thursday! I´ll be sure to post photos of this. Depending on funding and the agreement we come to with the promatores (promoters) of family gardens in this community, there may also be a partnership between the youth group and the promotores to plant the main road in the community with fruit trees. We all agree it would be beautiful, but we have to figure out how to make it sustainable... We just have to agree on who is going to water and care for them to ensure they are protected and that the community uses the fruit. My hope is that a core group of youth from our group will be interested in taking this on...! Updates to come on this for sure.

Alright, well this kid is off for the first pedicure of her life after a stressful week! I hope you are well and I look forward to hearing stories from your life soon! Be well!