Characato hoy, día de activitades mañana!

On my rented TRECK, riding over dirt and cobble stone roads I gazed at the farms in this unique city with combined rural and agricultural land use. I was in the traditional district of Characato. The farms here look like green steps in the middle of the desert, and the cows seem to enjoy this arrangement—they don’t have to bend down. Well those cows don’t know what they’re missing because I was delighted to get opportunity for a physical challenge. The route wasn’t REALLY tough though, but when I climb Misty (5 825m) or Chachani (6 075m) I’ll get all I’m asking for and more. I hear I’ll be clinging on to cactuses for my life, followed by dethorning sessions with my fellow climbers. I can’t wait!!

Tomorrow, I have arranged an activity day to evaluate the new AIESEC members who want to participate in the project. A full day of creative learning and evaluations awaits (as well as a trip to the pueblos jovenes in Yura). Now, it’s off to draft the partnership between CEDER and AIESEC Arequipa en español.

Meeting with the president of CEDER!

Well I had a meeting with three members of my team and the president of CEDER, Oscar A. Ordeñez Salazar. Could it have gone better? CEDER wants to become AIESEC Arequipa’s long-term partner!! We now have to draft the details of this partnership, so we’re starting a working group in the Local Chapter of AIESEC Arequipa to do this. This partnership strengthens the social aspect of AIESEC Arequipa. As a whole, there are many developmental internships on the InsightXP database, and AIESECers frequently run social projects. Therefore, a long term partnership with CEDER expands @Arequipa’s LC into this important component of AIESEC.

I have more pics at the same place now: http://www.flickr.com/photos/85825965@N00/

Muy ocupado hoy!

I felt another brief update would be nice for today. Aside from watching the excitement of watching the goalie of France leave his net, I also made my own AIESEC business card today with the help of Beto--while learning how to use yet another software, Macromedia Freehand. Vera--Project Manager. I like the sound of that :) Now I have AIESEC mail too: vera.rocca@aiesec.net!

I also droped of an invitation to Cecilia from CEDER to speak at the conference for newbies about the importance of sustainability in development which will help AIESEC imbue a social consciousness its new members. Cecilia also called me today and we have a meeting with the top director of CEDER tomorrow, Oscar!

When I was writing a looooong update email to the team to promote good communication, I came across this quote that I'd like to share:

"The secret message communicated to most young people today by the society around them is that they are not needed, that the society will run itself quite nicely until they - at some distant point in the future - will take over the reigns. Yet the fact is that the society is not running itself nicely... because the rest of us need all the energy, brains, imagination and talent that young people can bring to bear down on our difficulties. For society to attempt to solve its desperate problems without the full participation of even very young people is imbecile." - Alvin Toffler

So I'm off to listen to the plethora of Spanish music I bought today, finish a presentation for the AIESEC newbies, make an application for the ones that want to participate in this project and maybe finish my Spanish homework. Hmmm...sweet memories of MAC...so I'll turn up the tune I don't understand and trabajo muchos!!

I'll post a link to some new pics soon.

Okay, so that’s update on the project, and now here’s some other adventures had and planned:

I went to Forum, one of the nicest clubs I’ve ever been in. Apparently, it was profiled on a reality show that traveled to various clubs across the globe. With palm bridges and trees and a second floor that looks like a jungle lodge it has an awesome tropical look and feel. And after all that dancing the tradition is to party until the morning and eat Adobo (a traditional soup from pork). I haven’t been able to make it to these wee hours of the morning yet, but it will happen soon. I’ve got to build up the partying capacities.

Peruvian cuisine in general though is awesome, even if I’m not a fan of the national dish, Civiche (no matter how long raw fish sits in lemon, it’s not cooked to me:P). Other typical dishes are a great change from Canadian food—which I consistently explain pretty much doesn’t exist beyond the realms of Kraft Dinner, Poutine, maple syrup and peanut butter-jelly sandwiches. Well maybe I like the Peruvian food even more considering my lack of skill in the kitchen, and those convenient university student “meals” I grew accustomed to.

There are some things that I want to do when I get back to school aside from become insanely busy with AIESEC infosessions. That is, I want to write an article or two in the Silhouette (the school newspaper) about urban and rural poverty. For this article, I plan to visit the pueblos jovenes on the edges of the city, and go to Ayaviri to observe first hand a rural development project Eithel is working on. Briefly, his is a project with the objective of improving the livelihoods of dairy farmers in Ayaviri through various forms of support (financial, political and technological). Right now, he’s beginning a research proposal that’s being entered into a contest for more funding. Muy chevere y es un proyecto muy necesario!

And on a final note, Monday, I was witness to protests in the street over free trade (that’s the pic). Farmers are worried their livelihoods will be ruined through subsidized US agricultural products dumped onto their market, and some people may end up suffering from patent laws that are ratified by loosing access to cheap life-saving medicines (there are 76 000 Peruvians with HIV/AIDS that depend on cheap retrovirals). Oxfam, these protestors, and MSF (Medecines san Frontiers), are just three groups that are opposed to this move. On the other hand, from the upper-middle class people I’ve talked with, they don’t seem to have as many concerns over it. Also there’s the argument that a lot of the protesting might have an ideological, anti-US, anti-capitalist component. I agree that is probably a factor, but can you blame these poor people. Just look at the history of US involvement in Latin America!
Even being here, it’s hard to understand the reality. However, I’m trying to make time to understand this situation because one of Oxfam’s arguments is that sustainable development will be undermined because the government will have decreased negotiating capacities with companies. In other words, the government will find it difficult to impose environmental regulations and get companies to give back meaningfully to their communities. The TLC is the current macroeconomic context my project will be affected by. In a way it reminds me of the power of macroeconomic reforms on the lives of people. What I am wondering is if one macroeconomic decision can undermine the effects of NGOs and governments to invest in their poor populations. What I will say is that surely there are vulnerable groups that the government better have an extraordinary plan for that they will remain committed to if the TLC (Free Trade Agreement en español) goes into effect. So far I only see that vulnerable people are being thrown some money: Agricultural Minister Manuel Manrique says $36 million will be gong to agriculture sectors during the first year the trade deal goes into effect.
Here’s the Oxfam document on the TLC: http://www.citizenstrade.org/pdf/oxfam_perufactsheet.pdf , here’s an article from the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5125852.stm and here’s CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/06/28/peru.trade.ap/index.html

So much has happened and I have shared so little. I am sorry. It’s about time for an update here! My time here is amazing and now I’ve become very busy. Yo tengo muchos metas (I have many goals here). First of all, el proyectos. The planning is getting really exciting. The team and I have come up with a document that describes our project, but it’s not final. We have an ambitious idea to contribute to the sustainable development of Arequipa and invest in youth, but we have needed more direction. After assessing our strengths and weaknesses and coming up with an initial networking strategy to explore opportunities for ourselves, we are flying forward. We’re playing tag with CEDER still, but we’ve met with CICA (a department in la Universidad Catolica that formulates and runs social projects). They told us we need to be more concrete with our plan in terms of a time line and a budget. For our sake, we know this is necessary but we have special challenges in doing this. Unique to our organization, is the dependence on the external environment for our project (for example trainees being willing to come to Arequipa, and the companies and NGOs we seek partners with). However, the incredible news—well the first piece of incredible news—is that we have a superstar mentor, Percy Rodrigues. He has been the general manager for many companies in Arequipa and now he teaches at the university. He’s got a lot of experience and has agreed to be our mentor!!

This is a BIG deal—to have a mentor of such accomplishment, so now I have butterflies of excitement!! To put the icing on the cake, he’s going to give us a copy of his to-be published book on strategic management before it goes to the printers! It’s an incredible honor, and now I have a vast translating challenge ahead. I’m getting ready by translating newspaper articles. I can definitely say that reading Spanish is much easier than the listening, or speaking aspect. Already Percy has given us the contacts for two people who work with social projects that involve youth! We have muchos meetings on the way.

Okay, now here’s something else incredibly fantastic. Betoalonso (the Member Committee President for Peru in 2003-2004), and AIESECer that knows pretty much 1/3 of our network of 20 000 students and what seems like every fifth person on the streets of Arequipa has spoken with Arequipa’s Chamber of Commerce for us. The Chamber of Commerce was very interested in our ideas, and has suggested that we organize a conference in tandem with one planned for Peruvian artisans. This conference will be a gathering of NGOs and the artisans. There are no details at this point other than the basic idea that it would serve to unite various actors in the social sector, and serve as a place to introduce AIESEC. Truly, this is another great honour, to be invited to arrange a conference for NGOs. I can’t wait to have more detail. The chamber of commerce says we can have a meeting whenever we want to talk about this further. We will be approaching them after a few more meetings with Percy and the contacts he leads us to.

As a team our dynamics are improving. The commitment is increasing as the last two meetings were around 3 hours long and really late at night, but they were great! We have talked about the strengths and weaknesses of our team and project and came up with strategies for enhancing the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses. For example, we need more human resources, so we will make a presentation to new members at a conference for them this Sunday and then initiate an interview process. We also identified the threats and opportunities, but we need more strategic planning to develop a longer term strategy for these areas. We’re well on our way though. Motivation is key, and the progress of the project has increased the team motivation I sense. What also helps is if all the members of the team know each others goals and how they relate to the project. We’re all now more sensitive to each other. It is a great exercise.