Happy Birthday to the Peace Corps, Student Volunteers from New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) in Ghana, A profile of Globe Aware, and a short doc on New Orleans.
Evvy Struzynski, writing for The Gainesville Sun, profiled a group of women who traveled to Peru with Globe Aware for one week where they helped dig and build a well and teach children English.
The entire article is here, enjoy:
Water for San Pedro de Casta
Gainesville women ‘vacation’ in Andean town for a cause
Published: Saturday, October 29, 2011 at 6:01 a.m.
The ideal vacation is rarely one where water is a precious commodity. Resort destinations don’t usually advertise vacationers digging a well, educating school children and traveling on a treacherous, one-lane road in the only vehicle in the village. But for some, to sunbathe on a beach just doesn’t cut it.
Three Gainesville women recently returned from a “volunteer vacation” to San Pedro de Casta, Peru, where they worked in rustic conditions for one week helping dig and build a well and teaching children English.
But their work just scratched the surface, and on their return, the women decided to host a fundraiser for the 999 residents of the small village. “Bring Water to San Pedro de Casta” is scheduled from 7 to 10 p.m. Nov. 4 at the United Church of Gainesville.
Beth Karbe, an acupuncturist and herbalist, said she and her friends worked from dawn to dusk and stayed in a hotel with little water and no heat in the Andes Mountains.
“If you could call it a hotel, it was more like a building,” she said. “There were no showers and the toilet only flushed every three or four times.”
San Pedro de Casta, which is at an elevation of 12,000 feet, is only 50 miles east of Lima, Peru’s capital, but it takes 5 ½ hours to get there due to its remote location.
Karbe said she discovered the volunteer vacation after her first trip to Peru, where she traveled on her own to an orphanage that housed 50 young children. On her second trip in August, she traveled through Globe Aware, a U.S. based non-profit organization that arranges supervised volunteer vacations all over the world to “promote cultural awareness and sustainability,” according to its mission statement. This time she traveled with two other Gainesville women, Judy Keathley and Carol Barron.
About 30 percent of San Pedro’s residents are children, and about 80 percent of them are malnourished, according to Karbe. The lack of water means little grass for cows to feed on, which in turn causes the animals to fail to produce milk.
The absence of water creates other difficulties as well, such as sanitation.
Two members on the trip were sick with dysentery, and had to walk a mile to the well to get fresh water, said Barron, the director of construction for Alachua County Habitat for Humanity.
“It was primitive and very intense,” she said. “The people there that were 40 looked 65 because they’re so dehydrated.”
Barron said that for more than 50 percent of their trip there was no running water, and for the other half of the time the water was freezing.
Karbe said the now dry town was previously a lush plateau, but climate change and global warming has resulted in water becoming scarce.
Karbe said the women were unsatisfied with their progress by the end of the week and wanted to help more.
“As hard as we worked, we didn’t really accomplish that much.”
So to compensate, they’ve planned a fundraiser with a goal of raising $22,000 to bring an irrigation and water system to the town.
The “Bring Water to San Pedro” fundraiser includes wine and cheese, a silent auction and live performances of Peruvian music. Tickets cost $35, or for those who are unable to attend the event, a monetary donation can be sent electronically to the Bring Water to San Pedro de Casta Project at the Internet link, Globeaware.org/sponsor-volunteer-vacationer and enter “Bring Water to San Pedro” in the field.
The cost of the trip — not including airfare to Peru, which the women paid for themselves — covered food, guides, travel costs within the country, tools and their gift to the area — a water heater for the local school.
Karbe said there are no volunteers scheduled for travel to Peru for the next year, likely due to the rustic living conditions.
“Every time I turn the water on to brush my teeth, I’m grateful,” Karbe said.
Copyright © 2011 Gainesville.com
Globe Aware , a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) develops short-term volunteer programs in international environments that encourage people to immerse themselves in a unique way of giving back.
Globe Aware has been featured and profiled in numerous news outlets, among them: CNN, The New York Times, Business Week, NBC Today Show, NPR (National Public Radio), Newsweek, Budget Travel, Travel&Leisure Magazine, Men’s Fitness, Toronto Globe and Mail, and many others. Globe Aware has also been the subject of several major documentaries, among them a 9 part series titled Journeys of the Heart shot in high definition chronicling a group’s developments in our Care for Cusco program. This series, produced by Concrete Productions, runs on the Dish Network’s Equator Channel. Another documentary on Globe Aware was produced by Asterisk Productions called Vacations from the Heart which aired several times coast to coast in Canada on the Global Network and in the UK. Asterisk is a world renown production company with a special interest in social and environmental issues, for more on their inspiring work, see http://www.asterisk.bc.ca/.
Every activity in which we engage is intended to accomplish one of two things: promote cultural awareness and/or promote sustainability. For us the concept of cultural awareness means to recognize and appreciate the real beauties and real challenges of a culture, but not to change it. The concept of sustainability is to help others stand on their own two feet; to teach skills rather than reliance.
Chosen projects meet several key criteria: safe, culturally interesting, genuinely beneficial to a needy community, and involve significant interaction with the host community. Globe Aware reviews volunteer feedback on a weekly basis to incorporate changes, and continually meets with the communities to monitor and review projects. Simultaneously Globe Aware organizes several optional cultural excursions throughout every program, designed to highlight local culture in a way the typical tourist can rarely experience. The organization has no political or religious affiliation.
Volunteers help to empower the host communities in creating renewable, sustainable programs. While Globe Aware’s financial assistance benefits the community economically, it is actually the involvement and collaboration between the volunteers and community that is the greatest mutual benefit. Globe Aware is not a foundation that focuses on giving out charity, but rather an organization which focuses on creating self reliance.
We feel it is of supreme importance to respect the culture and heritage in which the volunteer is working. The goal is not for volunteers to change the host communities, but rather to help them in the needs that the host community has identified as important. Those who will enjoy the experience the most are those who bring an open mind and willingness to help. The natural, healthy exchange of ideas and opinions lead s to a mutual understanding of cultures.
Unlike a regular vacation, during which you may spend a good deal of time on a tourist bus and in lines at museums, our trips allow you to learn things such as how to cook local cuisine, sing with local school children, work side by side on local community projects. Few vacations provide a way to bond so closely with local cultures in so short a time. The experience will likely change how you see the world.
Together, Globe Aware’s founders have been arranging cultural missions for 15 years in developing nations and organizing volunteer missions since 2000. The first programs were run in Peru and Costa Rica, with several in Asia to follow.
indiaLocations are chosen based on a huge number of factors, but generally are communities that are safe, genuinely needy, organized (in terms of proper NGO status), with significant cultural differences from the typical North American lifestyle, and willing to accept our involvement. Our nonprofit status was recognized in 2003.
In addition to being granted not-for-profit status by the United States Internal Revenue Service, Globe Aware is also registered with The Texas State Attorney General’s Charities Bureau which is responsible for supervising the activity of charities to ensure that their funds are properly used.