We are all so excited for the upcoming school year! This summer, we have made lots of exciting progress on our projects in Ecuador and Honduras. Stayed tuned for project-specific updates!
In other news, BUILD: Latin America has changed its name. We are now Tufts International Development! Not only does this new name make the purpose of our work more clear, it opens the doors for students to propose new projects in other regions. Though our core focus remains Latin America, we want to be inclusive and supportive of all development projects that students are passionate about!
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*The original version of this article was published on the IGL website and can be found here. Once a year, members of IGL affiliated groups BUILD Latin America and Engineers Without Borders (EWB) come together to present the history and mission of their organizations, share the process of their program’s work, and elaborate on their current projects and the challenges and successes within them. BUILD Latin America is a student-led organization that aims to immerse students in the theory and practice of sustainable development specifically in Latin America. BUILD LA forms multi-year partnerships with NGO’s and other local community organizations throughout Latin America. BUILD members serve as year-long student consultants who work with organizations to support their marketing, outreach, website development, and fundraising efforts. Students shared their group structure noting that BUILD LA is divided into teams who organize to provide sustainable development for a specific developing community in Latin America, this year the two teams were based in Ecuador and Honduras. Each team is led by a consulting director, and the E-Board also includes event coordinators and an outreach director. The BUILD LA team based in Ecuador shared their project details and the challenges they faced as the project progressed. The team started with intense research on the educational needs in Ecuador. Next, they reached out to different prospective partner organizations, and decided to partner with Libraries without borders to implement the Koombook Program in Ecuador to bring portable digital libraries to isolated communities. After conducting a needs assessment of Ecuador's educational landscape, two team members traveled to Ecuador to formally introduce the program and demonstrate its technology. The original program plan shifted its focus due to the earthquake that destroyed 280 schools in Ecuador which intensified the need for sustainable development in the education field. Once the project details were finalized, the team started fundraising and matching campaigns to fund the project sustainably. The BUILD LA team based in Honduras focused on a more sustainable health care program. The Action for Education (AcE) team is working primarily to advance AcE's nursing school project, Trinidad School of Nursing (TSN) to benefit the community's overall public health and increase access to health education. Students noted that a key part of the nursing school is the community health seminar program, in which each student receives training in conducting community health education, and once per month will return to their respective villages or neighborhoods in Trinidad and conduct community health seminars. BUILD LA students tackled social media and began spreading the word on twitter to raise awareness for the project. Tufts Engineers Without Borders (EWB) is a student led Tufts University chapter of a larger national organization with more than 600 projects operating in 42 countries. The organization designs and implements sustainable engineering projects in developing communities. EWB usually takes on projects in Africa and Latin America and divides their members into roles according to project region. The team members are currently working on projects in small communities in Malawi and Nicaragua. The team members noted that their projects operate on a 3 step process: assess, implement, and monitor. The students working in Malawi noted their pre-assessment work which includes research of water access, culture and language in Malawi prior to their first assessment trip in August. They noted how under EWB instructions, the community must contribute 5% to the project, whether that be manual labor, skilled labor, or financial assistance to the project. Through their research they found that this particular village had built a plethora of brick structures, and EWB projects could utilize that technique to encourage community contribution. The team operating a project in Nicaragua noted that they are in the midst of a crowdfunding campaign to fund students to travel to Nicaragua to do their initial assessment trip in order to better analyze the needs to water access and the most appropriate solutions given the immediate climate and culture. An integral part to EWB’s goal to be accessible to all students is that students never have to pay to travel to do research, the funds are always gathered through fundraising or grants. Students from both clubs had the opportunity to learn strategies and share successful tips and tricks with one another. Both shared strategies on how to fundraise in engaging ways to help both spread awareness of these issues on campus, and to get people to donate. Both clubs also often hold events on campus featuring speakers with a range of experiences to educate the Tufts community on issues of sustainability and development around the world. In the middle of April, BUILD Latin America hosted a workshop for its members on non-profit marketing with Professor Gail Bambrick, who teaches an Ex-College class on Social Marketing. Bambrick is a former Senior Marketing Communications Writer at Tufts, where she focused on strategic planning around Tufts' identity and messaging in online, print, and web communications. During the workshop, Professor Bambrick shared different strategies and ways we can approach our marketing campaigns and showed us examples of diverse advertisements for social causes. She also gave us advice on how to create messages that will resonate with our audiences and more likely generate results. We also had time at the end for our teams to ask her specific questions on our marketing campaigns and benefit from her suggestions.
BUILD Latin America has been partnering with Libraries Without Borders (LWB) for over a year on a project that seeks to implement e-libraries in rural and earthquake-affected areas in Ecuador. In June 2017, five students will travel to Ecuador to implement two trial programs with a local NGO. On Sunday, April 29th, seven BUILD members participated in a workshop with Allister Chang, LWB's executive director. As students prepare for their summer trip to Ecuador, Allister trained the team on how to utilize the e-library technology as a means of effecting change in communities, as well as how to confront cultural shocks when implementing social programs in Ecuador and other foreign countries. The purpose of the workshop was for LWB to empower students and teach them skills relevant to project management and responsible social work. In the past, Latin America has been a victim of Western globalization, however in the last half century, Latin America has taken its economy into its own hands. Economic success recently has been great for the overall quality of life in Latin America, but it has lead to major inequalities between the wealthy and poor. These discrepancies in income manifest themselves particularly harshly in health care. The high level of inequality has led to a social structure that resembles a pyramid, with most of the people at the bottom, and the very wealthy few at the top. An individual’s access to health care corresponds inversely to this pyramid. The top part of the pyramid has the most access to health care, while the bottom base has the least.
The urban and rural populations also fit into this pyramid system. The wealthy tend to live in cities, and so there is a disproportionate concentration of health care professionals here. The rural population does not have ready access to health care. In fact, 21% of the entire population of Latin America cannot access health because of geographic reasons. [i] There has been a push for universal health care in the past decade in many Latin American countries; however, rural populations are still so physically far from hospitals or medical professionals, while 30% of the population cannot afford health care[ii], even if they are close to a hospital. Another problem that this region is facing is very differing needs for each country. Many professionals approach Latin American as a homogenous region where “one size fits all” in terms of health care. These countries, though, are all at different stages of development and have varying traditions that lead to very different health issues. For example, respiratory health in Peru is a major issue because of pollution and the social habit of smoking[iii]. As previously “developing” countries have become more “developed”, the health issues have also changed. There used to be high levels of infectious and acute diseases, but as the economy has become more stable, there are more health issues associated with globalization like diabetes and hypertension. This transition to new health issues is another problem that Latin American countries that are developing faster than others will need to contend with in the future. Despite the stark differences in need between countries, the one common thread seems to be which subpopulations are most adversely affected by the health care systems: women and indigenous populations. A health care report put out by Tulane and UNICEF explore the ways that each of these populations are losing out with the current health care systems in Latin America. The first indicator of gender inequality in health care is the birth rate of Latin America. This region has the highest birth rate in the world, stemming from the lack of access to contraceptives and opportunities for girls. The sale and distribution of contraceptives are literally forbidden in Honduras. Poor rural girls also do not have access to good schools, and in turn, end up dropping out to work in order to provide an alternate income for their families. These girls get pregnant earlier than urban girls who have better education prospects. Because of the dismal availability of health resources in rural areas, mothers and children are both at greater risk for complications. In countries such as Haiti, Honduras, and Peru, caesarian sections are given in less than 10% of births[iv], despite the fact that there is a greater need for them to protect the mother and child. This relates back to the access that wealthy families have compared to poor. In Latin America, there is a 41% difference in the utilization of a skilled birth attendant between wealthy and poor[v]. There is also limited access to post natal care in rural settings putting babies at risk for health complications further down the line. To make matters worse, a lot of babies in rural areas are never registered at birth and so have a hard time accessing health care later on. This is a vicious cycle that is unique to the rural poor. The problems with indigenous populations are a lot more challenging to quantify. This is because most countries do no bother collecting data from these populations and lot of the countries that do, collect the data only collect from the head of the household. However, it is not an unfounded conclusion that indigenous populations receive less access to healthcare. The Americas in general have a horrendous track record of abusing the indigenous populations. From Hernan Cortes and Christopher Columbus, to the Trail of Tears, to systematic destruction of native tribes in Brazil, and most recently the attempted pipeline at Standing Rock, indigenous populations in the Western hemisphere have constantly been subjected to mistreatment and attack. The abuse of indigenous populations in the health care industry manifests themselves in many different ways. For starters, there is no effort made to accommodate cultural differences between the mainstream culture of that population and the indigenous population. This can be simply refusing to find translators to make up for the language differences. In many cases, this leads to a misdiagnosis of health issues for the indigenous patient. Many health care providers are sometimes less subtle in their discrimination and flat out deny or ignore indigenous patients. Even if they traveled long distances to the closest hospital, ill or pregnant patients are often denied from entering. Sometimes if these patients make it inside, they are worse off than if they were denied. Doctors have been known to subject their indigenous patients to verbal and physical abuse. They sometimes publicly humiliate or shame them for certain medial problems. Other times, they hit their patients or deny them pain medication. Action for Education is working to ameliorate some of the health care problems facing Honduras in particular. With their newest project, they are building a nursing school in the rural setting of Trinidad. The students who are selected to attend this school have to pay very minimal tuition, if any at all. In return, they are expected to work in rural areas for two years after graduation. The tendency for nurses and other health care professionals is to move to big cities after graduating to earn more money. Action for Education is hoping to slightly combat this problem by offering an incentive to stay local. This school will have an amazing impact once completed. The students will be given a great education and prospects for future employment. The local communities will also have access to health care, something that would have been a lot more challenging to come by without this school. This new school will be one small step in fixing Latin America’s issue with health care, however there is still so much to be done in Honduras and across the region. The best way to level the playing field and abolish discrimination is by spreading education. Tolerance and acceptance stem from a well-rounded education. Education is also able to open so many doors for students to earn a better way of life for themselves and their families. The work that Action for Education and other similar organizations are doing is the first step. [i] Ramirez, Jorge Alejandro Garcia. "These are the 5 health challenges facing Latin America." World Economic Forum. N.p., 16 June 2016. Web. [ii] Ramirez, Jorge Alejandro Garcia. "These are the 5 health challenges facing Latin America." World Economic Forum. N.p., 16 June 2016. Web. [iii] "Brightspot: Health Care in Latin America." WorldCity Inc. N.p., 22 Nov. 2016. Web. [iv] Health Equity Report 2016: Analysis of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health inequities in Latin America and the Caribbean to inform policymaking. Rep. Panama City: United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, 2016. Print. [v] Health Equity Report 2016: Analysis of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health inequities in Latin America and the Caribbean to inform policymaking. Rep. Panama City: United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, 2016. Print. Under Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations declared that “Everyone has the right to education.”[1] In developed countries, this right is easily afforded to citizens. However, in many developing countries such as Honduras, it remains a challenge to access quality education. Almost 25% of Honduran children do not receive education in any capacity,[2] and this is in large part due to factors such as location, funding, and lack of government support.
In order to provide some background on the Honduran education system, it can be thought of as relatively similar to that in the United States. From ages seven to thirteen, students attend primary school. This education is free, and is the only time education is compulsory in Honduras. After primary school, students can attend secondary ciclo común, or general high school.[3] This lasts for three years, until the student turns fifteen--at which time they can choose to pursue academic or vocational secondary education. Finally, if students complete their secondary education, at age eighteen they might go on to attend one of the eleven universities in Honduras.[4] While education is mandatory for children ages seven to thirteen, it is often impossible for students to attend school. In 2010, the Honduran Commission of Human Rights found that around 220,000 people in Honduras (about ten percent of the population between the ages of five and seventeen) did not have access to education.[5] 75.3 percent of these people lived in rural areas.[6] What’s more, less than 32 percent of students who are able to attend primary school actually graduate without repeating one or more grades.[7] This is because many of the children who do have a primary school in their area must walk for several hours each way to attend school. Under these conditions, it can be difficult for students to attend school every single school day, and practically impossible for them to keep up with curriculum. Although 90 percent of students enroll in primary school, more than half of them drop out before graduating, and only one third of those who do make it through primary school attend secondary school.[8] This is in large part due to the fact that secondary schools are only located in cities. In addition, students who graduate secondary school with hopes of attending college must move to one of the three cities in which Honduras's universities are located: Tegucigalpa, San Pedro Sula or Comayagüela.[9] For students who do have access to education, the public school system is not guaranteed to give them a consistent and structured education. The government is never up to date with teachers’ paychecks. In response, the teacher’s union often declares strike and suspends classes because they refuse to recognize the government’s education policies until they are paid.[10] During these times, even students who have a school near them don’t have teachers to keep it open. Although the government regulates the curriculum, syllabi, and textbooks of all schools in the country,[11] most schools do not have funding to buy all the materials they need.[12] Often, that responsibility falls to parents and members of the community who are not necessarily equipped to handle that responsibility. Unfortunately, private schools are not much better. Many families see private schools as a symbol of social class, and will pay to send their children there rather than to a public school.[13] However, in Honduras, private schools are often institutions set out to make money, and the quality of education can be even worse than that of a public school’s. Action for Education is working directly with rural community leaders within Honduras to break down some of these hurdles and make education more accessible to everyone. AcE’s first project, the Juan Orlando Hernandez Public School in San Pedro Sula, has over 350 students enrolled in expense-free primary and secondary education. AcE is now partnered with an established public nursing school, and is working to expand their existing program to Trinidad, a nearby town with few career building opportunities. AcE also works to provide proper educational materials for the schools, and scholarships to students who wish to attend. Though these and future projects, Action for Education aims to bring quality primary, secondary, and technical education to more people, while avoiding the issues associated with Honduran for-profit private institutions. It is too difficult for people in developing countries to access the basic human right of education. Action for Education is trying to fix that by finding solutions to Honduras's current schooling problems, through the creation of educational opportunities in rural communities that will promote long-term sustainable development. [1] "United Nations. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human- rights/. [2],"Action for Education | Home." Action4Education. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://www.action4 education.org/why-education. [3] "Education System in Honduras." Classbase. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://www.classbase.com/ Countries/Honduras/Education-System. [4] Ibid. [5] Cotza, Lorena. "Improving education standards in Honduras: A long road ahead." The Guardian. June 10, 2013. Accessed February 21, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/ 2013/jun/06/education-standards-honduras. [6] Ibid. [7] “Education System in Honduras." Classbase. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://www.classbase.com/ Countries/Honduras/Education-System. [8] "Honduras - Educational System-overview." StateUniversity.com. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/607/Honduras-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html. [9] "Education System in Honduras." Classbase. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://www.classbase.com/ Countries/Honduras/Education-System. [10] Rius, Jorge Gallardo. "The Education Crisis in Honduras." Honduras Weekly. January 18, 2010. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://www.hondurasweekly.com/editorial/item/10206-the-education- crisis-in-honduras. [11] "Honduras - Educational System-overview." StateUniversity.com. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/607/Honduras-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html [12] Cotza, Lorena. "Improving education standards in Honduras: A long road ahead." The Guardian. June 10, 2013. Accessed February 21, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/ 2013/jun/06/education-standards-honduras. [13] "Honduras - Educational System-overview." StateUniversity.com. Accessed February 21, 2017. http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/607/Honduras-EDUCATIONAL-SYSTEM-OVERVIEW.html. ACCION is a nonprofit in Cambridge that seeks to enable access to financial services worldwide. In December, BUILD LA co-hosted a speaker event with Students Helping Honduras. We heard from David Firth Bard, manager of institutional partnerships at Accion, who spoke about Accion's model and roots in Latin America, as well as gave overviews of financial inclusion in both Ecuador and Honduras, sites of BUILD's projects. He also spoke in detail of how Accion differs from other leading micro finance organizations such as Kiva through its Center for Financial Inclusion in DC and emphasis on network partnerships. David also comes from a religious studies background, so he also spoke about the connection between his divinity school studies to his financial services provision career. In October, 2016 BUILD Latin America cosponsored an event with BUILD India to host Laurence Simon, who is a prof of int’l development at Brandeis. He worked in LA in the 70s and 80s (with the social educator in Brazil, Paulo Freire), and has since worked with Google Foundation, UNDP, and the World Bank. His current research pertains more to social structure in South Asia (such as caste systems in India, Sri Lanka). Click here to find out more about Laurence Simon and his research. Topics covered at the discussion involved the ethics of outsiders working in the field of sustainable development, including social, political, and historical roots of poverty throughout South Asian and Latin American regions. One of the topics that resonated most with BUILD India’s mission was the discussion of castes and discrimination as a large, underlying factor in, and contributing factor to, the continued prevalence of poverty. The examination of the psychological and historical role that caste system has played historically and currently plays in India provided an elucidating perspective. Understanding castes culturally and historically is imperative in achieving the goal of working to combat poverty and the lack of sustainable development in many areas of India. Dr. Simon’s reframing of the development world into industrialized and non-industrialized nations especially resonated with BUILD Latin America members. This characterization brings to light the structures put in place that have stifled developing nations, whether it is through the economic holds of factories and trade or the intricate social system, such as the caste system in India. This is a more objective framing of development that is less demeaning than using the language of "developed", which plays into the discussions among BUILD Latin America members with regards analyzing our roles in the world of international development while maintaining the respect and dignity of all people and countries. Year in Review BUILD Latin America In 2015-16, BUILD Latin America adopted a new organizational model and formed student consulting partnerships with NGOs in Latin America. This model enabled student members to productively contribute to the work of organizations throughout the year and gain valuable skills at the same time. As in previous years, BUILD hosted speaker events and planned a Global Engagement Trip to allow student consultants to expand their experience beyond their work on the consulting teams. In the 2015-16 year, BUILD Latin America partnered with four organizations: Escalera, Human Connections, Libraries Without Borders, and La Comunidad que Construimos. Human Connections runs educational tourism programs that connect tourists and students with the organization’s clients to foster positive intercultural connections and increase the sales of clients’ products. The organization also hosts English and financial literacy classes for artisans and vendors and provides consulting services to small businesses in the area. The main project for BUILD’s partnership with Human Connections was planning, promoting, and recruiting for the spring break Global Engagement Trip to Ecuador focused on microfinance for Tufts students. BUILD also worked on additional projects for Human Connections to enhance its networking capabilities and online presence. BUILD’s partnership with Human Connections was led by Juan David Núñez Hurtado and Nitya Agrawal. La Comunidad, while no longer operational, was a small nonprofit based in Trujillo, Peru, which worked with community members in two different neighborhoods in the city to run an after-school program. These programs intended to help children build self-esteem by putting them in positions of power as teachers of their own culture. BUILD’s partnership with La Comunidad was led by Ana Vanessa Ploumpis, and focused on recruitment, research, and marketing, in an attempt to increase the number of skilled volunteers for La Comunidad and find better online platforms for La Comunidad to network. Escalera is a non-profit organization based in one of the poorest states in Mexico, Chiapas, and works on promoting education through project designs aimed at system-wide change. In the fall, Consulting Director Jimena Sanchez led the BUILD-Escalera team in researching and reaching out to potential corporate sponsors for Escalera. During the 2016 spring semester, Ana Sofia Amieva-Wang led the BUILD team in assisting Escalera with their re-branding as they transitioned into focusing on their “Reach” program. In spring 2016, BUILD Executive Board member Juan David Núñez Hurtado created a new partnership with Libraries Without Borders, one of the leading NGOs working in knowledge and culture-based development in the world and supporting libraries in developing countries. The team spent the semester working on a project to implement digital library programs in isolated communities in the Andean Region in Ecuador. Libraries Without Borders has developed the Koombook, a digital server with portable educational resources that can be accessed without internet connection. During the spring semester and summer, the team conducted a needs assessment and identified promising NGO projects that could benefit from a Koombook program. During August 20-27, two members of our team will travel to Ecuador in order to consolidate partnerships with organizations and determine the course of the final project. BUILD also hosted several speaker events throughout the year to foster economic development education in the Tufts community, including a talk with Escalera’s executive director Molly Fisher, a discussion panel on ethics for international work, and a talk with Fletcher professor Lawrence Krohn on macroeconomic issues in Latin America. In addition to our work throughout the academic year, many BUILD members plan to spend their summer working in the field of development, in Latin America and elsewhere. To name just a few, Mia Ellis will be in Tanzania conducting research on entrepreneurship in the informal sector, Marianna Marques will spend time in Honduras doing research and development work with education non-profit Action for Education, Ana-Sofia Amieva-Wang will be working with Puente, a migrant worker resource center in California, and Cristina da Gama and Nitya Agrawal will travel to Ecuador to solidify partnerships and advance plans for implementation of the Koombook program. In April, BUILD and Latin America Committee collaborated to meet with Economist Larry Krohn, a Professor of Practice of International Economics at the Fletcher School, and a specialist in Latin America and global macroeconomy. He spoke about his work in Latin America and macroeconomics, and specifically his path to working as a chief economist (focusing on Latin America) at banks such as Lehman Brothers, UBS, DLJ, ING, and Standard Bank, as well as macroeconomic issues in Latin America, the political economy and business conditions in Latin America, and the economic implications of recent earthquake in Ecuador. |
Past EventsThese are some of the great events BUILD: Latin America members have participated in or scheduled during the school year! |