Hola todos and welcome to the web log for our project in Chiapas over the summer 2007! For anyone that doesn’t know me, my name is Robin Lynch, and I am a recent graduate from the University of Texas at Austin in Civil Engineering. I am joined by Andrea French, who is also a recent graduate from UT in Mechanical Engineering. We are working on an ongoing project through the UT-chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW) with the indigenous community of Damasco and the newly started NGO of COPÍN.
To introduce the purpose for this blog, I don’t see this as a medium for my self-indulgent ramblings (although I’m sure they will slip out), but rather, I see this as a window into a process, the process of project design and community participation. I hope that everyone who views this blog will be able to understand the importance of community participation in community development projects such as this, as well as get a vision of the needs and wants of the community of Damasco. I also hope that this blog creates an atmosphere of dialog…even one of criticism (preferably of the constructive type). I do not plan on sugar coating any aspects of this project. Too often in development projects, failures are omitted and forgotten about…only to be repeated again. I hate be clichéd about this, but if we don’t learn from our failures, what good were they?
Damasco is an indigenous community of Tzotzil descent, close to the colonial city of San Cristóbal de Las Casas in central Chiapas. It consists of 71 families and was recently formed in 1994 when they were displaced from the Chamula area due to religious differences and the political turmoil of the time. They rely on subsidence agriculture of maize and beans and typically use open air defecation or unlined pit latrines that collapse in heavy rains. This lack of sanitation leads to the prevalence of vector-borne diseases as well as groundwater contamination.
This project was started by Alejandra (Alex), who works for CEAS, the state water commission that supplies piped water to rural communities such as Damasco. Alex had a growing frustration that while water was being provided, they failed to contribute enough resources to educational efforts, project follow-ups, or sanitation. She began the NGO COPÍN (Consultoría, Proyectos, e Investigacción) to address these frustrations. ESW-UT became involved when Greg Landreth, a former student and current project advisor, met Alex through an internship with the World Bank. The project then received funding through a generous donation from the Ann Campana Judge Foundation as well as the Austin office of Turner, Collie, and Braden. Using this money, ESW sent two interns the summer of 2005, UT Chemical Engineering student Amanda Cuéllar and Marie-Andreé Beaudoin from Université de Sherbrooke, to construct dry sanitation toilets. They successfully constructed 9 toilets, however there were frustrations that even though a participatory approach was used, the families were not as engaged as expected in working to build their toilets. The community had invited us to the community, but it was evident that the residents didn’t fully appreciate the need for sanitation as much as Alex or the interns did.
In response to the problems witnessed, ESW-UT established an informal class in collaboration with the organization Walking Together-USA in the Spring of 2007 to analyze the roots of poverty and oppression and how these must be understood before a project like this can be undertaken. In the class, we learned exactly what participation is and how important it is that the community members participate and empower themselves throughout the process. This summer, the intent will be to include participation in all aspects of the project. While this requires more effort, lots more time, and quite frankly, more headaches, we believe this to be the correct approach for development projects. Rather than approach the community already telling them what their problems are (i.e. lack of toilets), we will instead have the community identify what their needs are and how they wish to address them. While this obviously means less toilets will be built this summer, it hopefully will set in place a process in which the members of the community will continue on with improving their community long after Andrea and I have left.
I would like to end this first post with a Mexican popular folklore as told by Arturo Ornelas in the introduction to the book “Nurtured by Knowledge: Learning to do Participatory Action-Research”, edited by Susan E. Smith and Dennis G. Willms and Nancy A. Johnson. I thought this story was relevant to the mindset we hope to have throughout the project and I would also highly recommend reading this book for anyone interested in community development. ( In addition, we got to meet Arturo and Susan as part of the informal class we took!)
The Five Friends and Five Enemies
"One day while walking with an Indian friend, Malaquias, he told me the story of the five friends and the five enemies.
“The first enemy of human beings is fear. If you live in fear, you will live like a mouse in a dark corner and never see the light. Fear will become your enemy and you will never grow up. But if you are not afraid of the fear you will have, then you can live in light, and fear becomes your friend.
“If fear is your friend, then you are able to look around you with clarity. But if you think that you can see all things clearly, then you are really blind, and clarity becomes your enemy. If, however, you strive to see clearly, then clarity becomes your friend.
“If fear is your friend and you can see clearly, then you will have power. But if you keep power to yourself, you will become weaker and weaker. If, however, you share the power, you will become strong and power will be your friend.
“If fear is your friend, you see clearly, and you share power, then you will be wise. But if you think you have all the wisdom, then in reality you are ignorant, and wisdom will be your enemy. If, however, you admit that you do not know everything, answers will come to you and wisdom will be your friend.
“If fear is your friend, you see clearly, you share power, and you have wisdom, then you will meet old age. But if you sit, doing nothing and denying your history, then old age will be your enemy. If, however, you meet old age with grace, having met fear, seeing with clarity, sharing power, and making wisdom your friend, then you will live forever.”
