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Another World is Possible

I am often asked how well the solar ovens being built in the CASEP programs in Central America are being accepted. We have analyzed our 10,000-visit database and have a somewhat scientifically positive answer.  When the introduction protocol is well applied, the acceptance rate is very high.  But the photograph here I think gives an answer that goes well beyond our immediate goals of simple oven use. 

At the recent Condega, Nicaragua solar oven construction workshop the daughter of one of the women building her oven was copying what she saw her mother doing.  She is using a traditional man’s tool, and I would like to think that she will grow up thinking that it’s just as natural for her to use it.  For me that hammer is a symbol of the empowerment that women in the CASEP program experience and that we seek to encourage.  I believe that we will see the really significant results of this in the next generation.  Teaching by example is such a powerful process.

The women’s leadership development component of our work got a real boost during January’s annual coordination meeting this year in Guatemala.  The details of the next year’s program were worked out and an inspired vision statement came out of the group process.  Although perhaps it sounds better in Spanish, I want to share it with you in English.  It is the Central American women’s own vision for their future:

“By 2010, the leadership program will be a force of Central American women leaders connected with solar ovens and other projects that have risen from CASEP.  These women, possessing a high level of empowerment, will be part of citizen action, generators of social and community change; becoming a school of both realized and continuing formation toward the goal of a better quality of life for new generations”

Powerful stuff, but don’t think they won’t do it.  I am constantly amazed by what these women are already doing.  They just need our support to level the playing field. 

Not only in Central America, but here in Charlottesville important things are happening.    In the spring, Alyson Ball joined us as a volunteer consultant.  She has had a distinguished career with well known international telecommunications companies in marketing and management, and with Finca International, the micro-loan organization that started in Guatemala and now operates world-wide.  Her world experience and perspective brings a level of professionalism to CASEP that I have only dreamed of.  She is guiding the long overdue writing of our operations manual. 

Tom Cogill is well known to many of us as the superb photographer who took the amazing pictures in northern Guatemala several years ago. Tom spent two weeks in Chuachinup this spring living with a family and taking photographs of our oven construction workshop and family life there.  You will have a chance to see these beautiful photographs in the future.

Sarah Frazer, a University of Richmond rising-junior and Charlottesville native, is working here as a summer volunteer before a year abroad in Mexico and Brazil on the way to a career in international development.  Her energy and wisdom have energized our work here.

Amanda Hooker, after a year of shuttling back and forth between Central America and Charlottesville, starts as the coordinator of the Nicaraguan CASEP program in May.  She fills a difficult post, but one that has great new potential due to her careful preparation and impressive courage.

Katherine Bittner, recent graduate from the University of Richmond in International Studies with a concentration in Latin America, will join Amanda in September as a long term volunteer to support the new group of dynamic women in Condega.

       All of these talented people are dedicated to the World Social Forum slogan: “Another World is Possible”.  Please join them with your financial support of CASEP.  We all need to contribute if this is really going to happen.

Life Project in Progress

By Sarah Frazer, CASEP intern summer 2005

Recently, over a solar cooked lunch, Bill asked me how, at my age of only 21 years, I had developed the social and political conscience, which drives me to projects such as CASEP.  I would like to offer my answer to that question as the best way to introduce myself and my involvement with the project.

After graduating high school, I embarked on a four-month adventure to central Mexico, where I would study, travel, and discover the country’s cultural treasures.  But along with the many treasures, I discovered the unsettling reality of social, economic, and political poverty.…While wondering at the injustice of inequality within Mexican society, my own country’s government wielded its super powers and invaded Iraq.Suddenly, I became uncomfortably aware that as an “American,” I stood isolated from the rest of the world.  I began not only to understand the ways in which my country’s actions affected the rest of the world, but also to feel frustrated at my life of excesses back home and the self-serving ignorance that accompanied it.

Upon returning home, I decided to major in International Studies and Spanish at the University of Richmond, where I am now a rising junior and study with professors native to and specializing in Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, Brazil, Sierra Leone, Yemen, and Tibet.  Towards the end of my first year I was called to travel again, this time to Honduras as part of a three-week experiential learning course on rural development and social justice.  Without entirely understanding the urgency I felt, I applied immediately.

Honduras was a truly transforming experience for me.  We spent a week in urban Tegucigalpa, hosted by the international non-governmental organization Heifer Project, visiting local human rights offices to discuss their current projects and the challenges of Honduran political reality.  We spent the remainder of our time touring rural Heifer Project communities and meeting with local organizations and grassroots women’s groups, debating approaches to sustainable and gender development. 

Two things that really stood out during those visits were the power of the community and the strength of the women.  However, what impressed me most of all was this incredible human connection, the ability of people, regardless of language, background, or current circumstance to relate to one another and work together towards a common vision.  To see and feel both the simplicity and monumentality of that connection is what time and time again brought tears to my eyes, and what I now recognize as the life-blood of CASEP.

I no longer feel on the outside of the issues that affect my world.  By establishing these connections, between countries, communities, and most importantly people, I create a bond, which defies political, economic, and geographic boundaries.  It is only through working together that we can begin to bridge the material, historical and psychological divide that estranges the first and third worlds.  In helping CASEP develop their women’s leadership program this summer I hope to empower Central American women leaders to do just that.  I plan to accompany Bill to Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras in mid-July and continue making connections, forging bonds, and influencing reality towards a more sustainable future for us all!

Leadership from Solar Ovens

By Alyson Ball, volunteer

 I am amazed that so much can be accomplished with solar ovens.  I don’t mean just the range of food that can be cooked in a solar oven, nor that there is less deforestation when fire wood is not required, nor that there is less harm to the lungs and eyes of entire families when solar ovens are used.

What amazes me is the program that Bill has carefully designed and modified over the last decade provides meaningful change for poor women – and it all starts with solar ovens.   Similar to a micro-credit operation (where I previously was a volunteer) CASEP’s program seeks out women who are willing to work in groups for a purpose – in this case to build solar ovens.  They promise to build, use and maintain the ovens and to return one if they neglect to use it.    

      Groups also elect officers and carefully manage the process so that the project is successfully completed within budget and on time.  This, as you know, is an unusual opportunity.  Some poor Central American women do not have much involvement with groups outside the home.  Typically, during the oven-building sessions, strong and lasting bonds often form among the women.                                                   

      Here, I think, is where the interesting part begins – and it’s where CASEP differs from most solar oven projects.  Now that the CASEP women have tasted success, they are poised to work on other quality-of-life projects.  Their officers and members can decide to address literacy, nutrition, water, or deforestation in their villages.  They raise their own funds and manage additional projects, while they use and maintain the solar ovens

    But, quality-of-life projects were not enough for Bill.  In addition to the projects selected by the groups, there is optional leadership training.  Groups can opt to work together through two courses of leadership training.  Workbooks are provided as a study guide and facilitators lead discussions among these women.   The women share ideas about women’s rights, domestic abuse, women’s place in society, etc.  Self-images improve.  Eventually, some women can be selected for individualized leadership support from the CASEP organization.  This can be in the form of a scholarship to learn to read, to pursue a formal education, to manage a part of a project, to counsel, etc.  The women are encouraged to move forward as far as they’d like – whether they want to be leaders in the home, the church, the local community, or they want to seek paid employment.

From solar ovens to leadership – that’s an amazing accomplishment, wouldn’t you say?

Nicaragua Update

By Amanda Hooker, Nicaraguan Coordinator

Witnessing the changes on the farm has been very heartening.  A new team of women have started doing all the manual farm work, taking the place of a previously all male labor staff.  The four new local women work on the farm and the medicinal plant garden six hours in the morning before mid-day, leaving the rest of the day to attend the needs of their families or to take part in other activities at the center.  The dedication and harmony the women are cultivating along with the crops is transforming the atmosphere of the center into one of service and cooperation.

Along with the renewed focus to make the Centro Girasoles an outreach center to the women of the community, our team members have decided to designate one of our offices as a PROFAMILIA clinic.  PROFAMILIA is a non-governmental organization that promotes the integral well being of the Nicaraguan family with an emphasis on sexual and reproductive health, and methods of family planning to some of the most socially marginalized areas of the country.   Our office will distribute contraceptive products and potentially serve as a site for trained PROFAMILIA clinicians to offer reproductive health exams.  Trained members of our staff will provide educational outreach and follow-up to our neighbors in La Reforma.  Working with PROFAMILIA, we have helped facilitate three programs in Club Juvenil—a series of self-esteem workshops aimed at training young people to be healthy and self-respecting while creating their own positive futures and promoting the same for their group of peers.

Nicaragua’s solar oven program is also excited about the new addition of the women of Condega to the CASEP team.  Ten ovens were constructed by ten vibrant women in January at the Casa de Cultura in Condega.  The project was a cooperation between the Sister City project of Bend, Oregon and Condega, and was the culmination of several years of discussion and anticipation between Bill Lankford and Tim Jefferies of Bend, Oregon.  The project was funded by contributions from the Trinity Episcopal Church of Bend.  The church’s delegation was able to observe the dynamism of the women of the construction workshop firsthand during their delegation’s annual visit led by Rev. Bill Ellis and Rick Negus.  The local news station gave much attention to the workshop, helping promote the appropriate use and benefits of solar energy in their community.  

The ten women of the construction workshop are now in the process of forming a leadership program beginning with a series of training workshops geared to raise self esteem and self-worth and build an awareness of their rights and importance as active agents, not just in their homes, but in their communities.  The women will be combining the leadership program with their continued interest in widening the solar oven project and developing additional projects to better the quality of life in their community.  From the very beginning, these women have been examples of CASEP’s goal to promote a leadership style of solidarity and service and to be a breath of new hope to our country’s project.  As they continue to develop as a group, they will help our organization bring more opportunities to more women and their families in Condega.

Pictures of Leadership

By Tom CogilIn March, I spent two weeks in Guatemala trying to get a handle on how might use images to tell people about CASEP.   With the help and guidance of Laura Koch, I observed workshops, got to know the promoters and some of the participants, and took many photographs.  It was confusing at first – so many new names and faces and relationships.  More confusing was trying to match this with my previous experiences of Guatemala, and trying to match my expectations of the project with what I saw face to face.               

  I had expected to find a program where Guatemalans were being aided toward a very specific goal by American know-how and generosity.  While this is true to some extent, what I saw was Guatemalans helping each other.    I saw people making the most of limited resources, teaching each other new skills, and constantly looking to improve each other's lives.                  

Petrona lives just outside of Santo Tomas la Union, with her husband, three daughters, and a large extended family. She is the promoter of workshops in the area.  After feeding her family in the morning, she rides in the back of a pick up truck 10 miles to the workshop in progress in Chuachinup. Eventually a dozen women show up.  Petrona discusses the overall progress with them, outlines the day's goals, and then starts to work.  Women watch her to learn the tasks, then imitate her and learn how best to hold a screwdriver, when to attach the hinges, how to use a plane on the edge of a board (and to save the shavings for insulation). Occasionally they imitate each other, then Petrona comes over and sets them straight again. Eventually they all get it, and Petrona goes on to measuring and marking materials for the next step.  After a while there is a break for lunch, then back to work. There is usually talking and laughing and children running around.  The pace is never frenetic, but I noticed Petrona never stops working.

              One day, mid-afternoon, Petrona and a couple of women wandered over to the porch and sat.  One by one the rest of the women joined them and Petrona proceeded to play a taped lecture on domestic violence.  She paused it occasionally, translated it from Spanish to Quiche, opened a discussion, then eventually returned to the recording.   In short, whether showing someone how to use a measuring tape or how to talk openly about personal problems, Petrona's manner of leadership was quiet and understated. It struck me that a more dramatic style of leadership would probably have been intimidating and counterproductive.              

I never asked Petrona why she does this work.  Certainly the income helps.  Clearly she feels pride in doing a job well. I imagine that if I had asked her she would have thought about it a long time.  Thought about the ovens, the workshops, the constructive changes she was helping women make in their lives, and then she would have shrugged and said, "Because I have daughters." 

               I think I have found that handle now.  I will simply tell the stories, in words and pictures, of a few of the women involved in CASEP, women like Petrona.  That should be enough.  I hope to return to Guatemala in August to continue my work on this project.   

Volunteer House in Honduras

The dream of having a volunteer’s house at our center in Orocuina, Honduras was finally fulfilled in July, 2005. Kristen Melby from Minnesota will be its first occupant for at least the next year. There is space for additional short or long term volunteers to work with the wonderful women who make up our program there.

If you would like to contribute to our work here as a volunteer, please send a letter of interest to our office in Virginia.