Community Analysis Meeting

July 12th

Yesterday I facilitated my Community Analysis meeting.  The purpose of the meeting was to tell the community members about tve work I’ve been doing for the first three months, dicuss environmental issues that we’ve recognized are a threat to the community’s resources, and facilitate a conversation over the projects that we want to work together on during the rest of my service.   The meeting went pretty well overall.  It was well attended, there were a decent amount of citizens of Piedras Gordas, all of the teachers from the school came, multiple representatives from ANAM attended, as well as my boss who helped me organize and facilitate the meeting.  It got off to a little bit of a rough start.  It was obvious to me that the way I was presenting the information was not as engaging as I had hoped, so I decided to cut short the presentation I had planned.  After that everything moved in a more positive direction. The attendees participated much more in the discussions, and we were able to have a number of very productive conversations. 

We played a game that explained to them the information I had gathered about the history, environment, and culture of the area.  The game also gave them the opportunity to fill the gaps in knowledge on these subjects.  After the game we broke down into groups and a drew maps of Piedras Gordas that highlighted environmental resources in the commuity, environmental threats, and services and/or practices that don’t currently exist in the community but that we would like to have in the future.    Drawing the maps worked out to be a great way to tranistion into a discussion about the types of projects we would like to work on together.  It turned out that every group identified different environmental resources in the community, but they all believed that the biggest threat to those resources is the lack of proper waste management.  As each group presented their map I explained why I believe some of these issues exist, and how we can organize ourselves to address these issues.  At the end of the meeting I talked about additional projects I am interested in working on, and how we can organize ourselves to successfully begin a waste management project. I also used the meeting to talk about additional projects I am interested in working on, such as continuing to teach environmental and computer literacy classes to students and adults, start an environmental youth group, and build “eco-stoves.”

The next day I spoke with few community members who provided me with very positive feedback about the meeting.  I was pleased to hear that not only did they think it was useful, and enjoyable, but also there were members of the community that showed up and participated who normally do not attend community events. 

Next week I’m eaded to In Service Training.  It will be two weeks of intensive training to teac us various skills, tat will opefull elp us and our communit members work on te projects we’ve discussed during our Community Analysis meetings.  I’m especially excited to learn more about ow to set up a successful recycling project,  different ecostove models, and various activities I can do wit yout groups in Piedras Gordas.  I’m oping tat wen I return to my community in tree weeks I will ave learned lots of tings tat will be beneficial for my community members.