Bird watching activity

One of the focuses of the Healthy Living project is the economic development component and thus, we have been particularly concentrated on this aspect over the last few days. Our most recent activity is going on the bird watching hike in Bella Maria to get more insights and ideas on the feasibility of ecotourism.

We were accompanied with Don Wilmar, an NGO staff in Cariamanga who works in communication and empowerment of the youth in the area. Don Wilmar explained that he saw part of the group’s goal was to have youth from the town and communities interact and learn from each other, and to use this communication to transfer awareness of rights and responsibilities children and students have as citizens in order to cultivate education and citizenship amongst themselves. We then met with Don Dionisio, the guide, who took us on the tour with members of ornithological club at the school of Bella Maria. On the tour, students were enthralled with the video camera and conducted several interviews and statements with the members of the communications group.

Although the tour was designated for bird watching, there were great views of the mountains and ravines below on the trail as it ascended up a hill, as well as a mostly intact dry tropical forest and its natural vegetation, including el ceibo and other flowering plants. We saw a few parakeets and a bright gold bird that all the students from Bella Maria identified as a margarita. After coming back to Bella Maria, we went to the school in Chaquizca to work out logistics of a project of perimeter fencing as well as meetings for tourism research and a meeting of the water committee that will be held tomorrow. We then went to a house in Guara where Claudia interviewed its owner about practices that he implemented that might prevent chagas vectors from being in his house. 

 

Working hard while playing like a child

The past few days I have reconnected with my childhood by helping children reconnect with their communities’ folklore and narrative. I’ve been working on the story-telling and participatory sketching activities, and it has been a blast. When I came last year I collected stories from the communities’ elders   and then transcribed them. Initially these stories were meant to be used as part of our community based tourism strategy but somewhere down the road we decided to have the children from this community.

For this activities we brought an illustrated album built with the typed stories and the children’s illustrations and we did a critical dialogue activity using the morals and lessons from each of the stories in a discussion with the children. Then we had another participatory sketching activity, where we asked the children to draw a story about what the characters from the stories should have done and how things would have been different if they had acted better. munities illustrate the stories. In the pilot activity they seemed to be having a lot of fun, and they seem to be very engaged with the stories, so we decided this was an awesome activity to incorporate into our education and culture initiative.

 The schools’ teachers were very enthusiastic about these activities since, as one of them stated, “they help the kids create and reflect at the same time, instead of reading and memorizing things” and all of them said they would be interested in incorporating this kind of activity into their curriculum. I’d  like to pretend to be a very noble person and say I’m working hard to make a difference , but truth to be told I’m just having fun . Gosh I’m so lucky! I get to play like a little kid and call it a work day 😉

Written and photo by Lily Acevedo

Healthy Living Team – First day in the field

In Chaquizca

We woke up to a chilly, misty Andean morning to begin our first full day of research in the communities. We left Cariamanga for Chaquizca, where we arrived at the school and then split into our different groups to do our designated activities. Lily conducted her activity at the school for her project on local stories. She had all thirty students illustrate responses to the stories that they had compiled the year before as they split into groups and collaborated with each other, using crayons and colored pencils to draw their responses to stories such as La paloma llora and El conejo y el zorro. Lily talked to the teachers who had positive responses to the concept of involving local stories in the curriculum for it inspires critical thinking and pride in their communities.

Claudia, Ing. Darwin and I visited two houses in Chaquizca that had consistently tested negative for the presence of Chagas vectors to see if there are common characteristics to their houses that inhibits the vectors from having a presence in their houses. Our first visit was with a man who lived next to the school named Don Alberto. He seemed very aware of the need to prevent against Chagas disease as he fumigates his house regularly and cleans it daily. We then went in the truck to a community on the edge of Chaquizca going back towards the highway. There we met Don José and his family, who were in the process of making a dulce block locally called panela, which is made out of sugar cane that he grows on his property. The process seemed similar to making maple syrup, a large fire is made below large trays where the liquid caña juice is placed in order for it to condense. When it is sufficiently thick, the liquid is placed in block molds to cool. Don José said that the blocks, along with other crops that he cultivates are taken to the ferías libres held in Cariamanga on Sundays. Don José and his family were also very aware of the need to prevent the presence of vectors in their household, claiming that they fumigate the house regularly, keep animals outside of the house and go to the doctor or other place to be taken care of when they feel sick.

Claudia and Susan working with community

Miks, Guillermo and Susan went to the house of Don Fernando, a large landholder in the community of Chaquizca. They went on a long drive through the land and met up with him in an orange grove on his property. According to Miks, they ate the best oranges that photosynthesis has ever produced they talked about his impressions of the community and the project. He emphasized that education was important for the community and also that he was interested in giving legal status to the farmers who lived on his land.

Written by Coner Tong

Photo by Susan Pomar Queirolo

Summer Foreign Correspondence for Office of Education Aboard

Lily Acevedo, a Development Team member and participant in Tropical Disease Institute summer program in Ecuador, has become one of Summer Foreign Correspondents for Office of Education Aboard at Ohio University. Follow their blog and read our correspondence articles for OEA. The first article by Lily has been published here:

http://oueduabroad.wordpress.com/2012/06/19/reclaiming-our-world-through-sharing-it-with-othersa-few-notes-on-the-saraguro-peoples-community-based-tourism-model/ 

Healthy Living Project – An Initiative against Chagas disease

The Healthy Living Project is a long-term initiative that aims to support the socioeconomic development of rural communities affected by Chagas disease in the province of Loja in southern Ecuador. With a holistic approach, this public health strategy looks to prevent the transmission of Chagas and other diseases “associated with poverty” by facilitating participatory processes of human development that are sustainable and sustained by the people involved.

The Healthy Living Initiative is actually working in Southern Ecuador, specifically with the communities of Guara, Bella Maria, and Chaquizhca, in Calvas County, Loja province. All of these communities were highly affected by the presence of chinchorros (insect vectors of Chagas disease).

Over the last 10 years, Dr. Grijalva, Director of Tropical Disease Institute at Ohio University, has been working constantly on the initiative against Chagas disease as well as Healthy Living project, which include the organization of study aboard program for students of multidisciplinary backgrounds. There have been hundreds of students coming to Loja province and working on the field with the communities in both scientific and social researches. The project has been so far involving with six components of health, security, housing, education, and economic development.  The comprehensive and community-involved perspectives are the main factors contributing to the effectiveness and exhaustiveness of the project.

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