A Year in the Life: Development Lessons from Long Way Home

If you ever wondered what impact interns have on their internship sites, and in turn on the local community, look no further than the example of Long Way Home in Guatemala.  The following is a letter from Mateo Paneitz of LWH outlining the achievements of 2007, lessons in culturally sensitive development work, and the groups priorities for 2008.

Photos of Long Way Home and Guatemala by Rosie Richards, intern

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“Long Way Hombres,
It has been a while since i have written an email reporting on our project, Parque Chimiya.  The reason that i haven’t written is because we had such a busy and productive 2007.

January: We installed water and electricity throughout the park through a grant with Engineers Without Borders.
February/March: We built a 50ft x 100ft concrete basketball court.  It took 8 guys all of february to dig the site out and in March we poured 500 bags of cement on four seperate pour days.  All done by hand all by volunteers.  It is our pride and joy!
April/May/June: We built an outdoor classroom which is part of the nature trail.  This area is used for demonstrations, meetings, workshops, theatre, and concerts.
June-September: We had 6 university interns in our program.  With this group we spent most of our time working with primary school kids.  The interns taught history, geology, math, science, soccer, basketball, and organic gardening all using the resource that is the park. These are also the months that we really made our Botanical garden a feature of the park rather than an eyesore.
September-November: We built a 100ft long x 6ft tall retaining wall at the entrance of the park.  This was by far the most difficult job undertaken.  River stone is realy really heavy and of course we mix all of our morter by hand.
December: We started about 10,000 pine saplings in bags in our tree nursery.  These trees are being cared for until the June rains when we will sell them for 1Q per tree.

Some attendance numbers:
Pre-2005: 50 people per year
2006: 9000 people
2007: 18,000 people
2008: 5000 people so far this year

The park is sustainable:  We earn enough money through the volunteer program to pay for the staff.  We earn enough income through entrance fees and micro enterprises to pay for the electricity bill, one full time caretaker, and several part-time jobs throughout the year.

Our initial idea for the park was to build sports programs for the youth.  Over the course of building the park and living in the community, we learned that doesn’t work in Guatemala because kids here go to work after school.  Youth sports programs are just not a luxury they can afford.  At the same time that the schools were not responding very well to the sports programs the same schools were using the park but in their own way.  So we have stepped back with the suggested programming and just let the people use the park how they want to.

For the development workers the park is a tremendous lesson.  As development workers we tend to think that Guatemalans should adapt to our projects….the park taught us to adapt the projects to the poor.  That is why as development workers we know the importance of living in the country we are serving.

The first three years of the park building was also a time to build and fortify LWH as a structured and organized non profit that provides a needed public service.  Our current Board of Directors is very involved with every aspect of LWH’s operations.  We have a Board development committee, a fundraising committee, a planning committee, and a budgeting committee.  This Board exists because you guys gave them something to manage.  When we started LWH and our C.A. endeavor our Board members were all starting law schools and MBA programs…by now we have an experienced professional Board of Directors capable of managing LWH various projects and programs.

In addition to the park we are:

Re-equiping, re-administrating, and eventually re-opening the public hospital.
Providing water for 2 villages (about 6000 people)
Providing water for urban Comalapa (about 20,000)
Providing improved cooking stoves
Providing volunteer jobs for 266 volunteers so far

In February 2005 a teacher from one of the schools in Comalapa invited me to teach at their school.  I started going to the school two days a week and they were coming to the park one day a week.  This school left a lasting impression on me and how i want to create sustainability in all of our projects.  Imagine a school for the poorest of the poor with no state funding.  The teachers had not been paid in six months, no electricity, no water, no chairs, and nobody at the school was complaining about anything.

Of course, this gets our project engines running.  How can we build a school and operate it that doesnt depend on state funds?  In the third world, the answer is charging the students a monthly fee.  So how do you get the poorest of the poor a good education?

First of all, there is no education in Comalapa past the 8th grade.  For a town of 39,000 that is a travesty.  Our idea is to create an educational instution that combines higher education, vocational technologies, appropriate technologies, conservation, micro enterprises, with the standard curriculum for students from K – High School.   Last week, after 9 months of searching, we found the perfect property for the school.  The property is close to town, visible from the park, just the right size, and just the right price.

All of our construction will be out of rammed earth tires and trash we collect in the schools so that every dime goes as far as it can and at the same time we can share these building tecniques with the community.

Sorry this email is soooo long….i just want to give the best explanation possible.

Once again, thank you a million times for your contribution to the park and to LWH´s overall development because of it.   If you have any questions or comments please let me know what you think.

Sincerely,

Mateo