Project Design and Management Conference

A couple of weeks ago my contact Basilio and I traveled to Atyra, Paraguay for a conference with Peace Corps.  The conference was held in a BEAUTIFUL church camp facility which had amazing accommodations and all local and fresh food.  This conference is one of two that I have to bring a contact to; the other one is in August.  The week was all about how to identify possible projects in our communities, and steps needed to plan and design a successful project.  For many of us PCVs it started out as a review from what we learned in training but for our contacts many of the ideas were very new to them.  PC did a great job taking us through step by step on project design and management.  The conference was completely in Guarani and Spanish and although I didn’t know everything that was said I am beginning to feel a lot more comfortable with my language level.  It was great for them to see all of the work that we as PCV have already done in site interviewing families and students and great to just be able to work together to create a plan.  Also Basilio was excited because many of the things he learned about planning and management he will now also be able to use as the director of the school. 

At the end of the week we went home with many different lists, schedules, and goals to begin to start a project in my community.  The project that my community is interested in is more trees to plant, with deforestation being seen as a major problem in my community.  So from that we saw that there isn’t a tree nursery close to our site so we decided that a possible project would be to create a tree nursery in the school with help from students, teachers, community members, and parents with the end goal of distributing the trees to people that want them in the community.  So at this point we are still in the planning stage.  I am trying to do a lot of reading on tree nurseries, even though I do have a forestry degree I can honestly say that I have never grown a tree from a seed so I am eager to learn more about the entire process.  Will be keeping you all posted on the results and I know this will be my long term project here is site so I am just trying to take it one step at a time.  

The following four pictures are of the facility with beautiful grounds and chapel.  

This is a picture of my contact Basilio and I standing in front of all the work we did.  The last night we had time to go around and look at everyone’s ideas and plans to see if we could use that in our projects.  The two most common themes of projects were trash management and reforestation.

The three pictures below are of some of the beautiful art they had hanging around the facility. 

One morning before we left we all went and toured an agriculture research center and learned about the facilities they have there and the research they are conducting.  They have many great resources that are available to us.

This is a picture of some of the research they are doing with insects and some of the traps they use for their studies.

This was just a huge Eucalyptus tree that was brought down in a recent storm that took out the electrical line as well.

This is an area where they do research on different varieties of strawberry plants.

Just a beautiful nativity scene that was just one of hundreds they had through the grounds.  (This picture is for you mom!)

Basilio and I with our certificates to show that we successfully completed the class!

Just a huge beetle I found one evening outside.

Now I am back in site for a while and starting to get some projects off the ground and finishing up all of my interviews with each family.  Part of our community needs assessment is writing up a large paper (in Spanish) that shows everything from a map of where our community is located to history of the community.  It also includes a lot of information about the school, agriculture, economics, results of my interviews, and possible projects.  This is something that I have been working on for months now and will be finishing up soon. 

I have also started teaching an English and Conservation class on Sunday afternoons in my house and the first week I had 6 students and this week I had 16 show up so I guess they had fun and wanted to bring their friends along.  Still working on my garden, we have had on and off rain now for about a month which makes working in the garden a little difficult but I am trying my best.  I have a lot of transplants that are ready to go into the ground but still working on making all my raised beds.  We are officially into winter here now which still just feels so weird to be cold in June but luckily it hasn't gotten too cold yet, everyone says July and August is the worst, so I guess I will just have to wait and see.