Peru Residential 2011

During the last two weeks of the Peru residential, lecturers from the Jacob Burns Film Center, Holen Kahn and Theresa Dawson, instructed students how to use film to evoke positive community change. Students ventured out on the streets of Cusco to film each others' stories. One student group featured, Jackie Robertson, a Ministry of Human Services worker from Guyana. In her group's video, Jackie highlighted women's empowerment by talking to a local Cusco woman about her exeriences with empowerment and how it can change society. With passion, Jackie articulated that "when you empower a woman, you empower  the hands that rock the world." Through this simple line, Jackie provoked not only all-around class applause but inspiration and a voice for women's empowerment.

Food and water security is in many ways different from each other rather than it being compatible. Farming in Peru is unique because of its agro-ecological factors. Out of 105 agro-ecological zones in the world, Peru has 85 of them. This is really an opportunity for this hill-bound country where there are 100 types of potatos grown in different areas of Peru and people have indigenious knowledge where to grow what types of crops. We explored the different types of farming systems in the Food and Water Security course presented by Dan and Sheila McKean during this residential.

In this class, we also discussed different types of Irrigation systems in Peru.  The irrigation systems in Peru are not comparable with any other country as they dont use single drops of ground or surface water. On the contrary, in my country of Bangladesh, irrigation mostly depends on ground and surface water use.

Trekking around Namche Bazar, Nepal

German Montevilla-Vargas, a former class 09 Future Generations´ Graduate School student trekking in Nepal with Dr. Mike Richlin, who now is the Dean of the School.

Ajmal Shirzai, a student from Afghanistan with a community lady in Municipalidad Distrital de Pitumarca, Valle del Ausangate, Cuzco, Perú.

I suggest to the Future Generations Graduate School students in Peru Residential, to learn the following words:  Buenos dias, Good Morning. Buenas tardes, Good afternoon. Buenas noches, Good evening.

Que es el desayuno para hoy? What about for breakfast today?

Que es el almuerzo para Hoy? What about for lunch today?

Que es la cena para hoy? What about for dinner today?

During this ceremony we understood how strong relations have been built between the Future Generations and Governmental staff in this region!  Hospitality was showed by Regional Government to us during this event; I found that the government here supports the  Future Generations Graduate School residential program. 

After two days we have found our photos and news in Ministry of Public Health website that indicates the good indicator of strong support and partnership between regional government and Future Generation office here in Peru.

On March 8th we visited Kotosh Temple, which tell us the 3000 years old history of Huanuco and known a religious society.

My Practicum Project

After a series of consultations, Prof. Daniel Taylor advised me to merge my practicum project with Dr. Arwal (a student of Afghanistan).This change is proposed due to analysis of term-II research finding and the similarity of research topics on local governance issues. My research project during practicum in term-II was reforming local governance in Afghanistan by empowering community development council at the village level and Dr. Arwal’s practicum was on empowering Community Based Health Institutions. The new research topic is on “Strengthening Coordination Among Local Self Governance Institutions." The underlying theory of change is "Poor coordination /synergy exists at the ministerial as well as at grassroots levels".

We had a very productive week (28th Feb - 5th March).  The residential program started by visiting National Archeology and Anthropology Museum of Peru to understand the history and culture of Peru.  We also learned the Development Strategy of Peru for 21st Century as well as the formation and empowerment of CLAS (Local Health Administration Committees) which are private, non-profit civil associations and receive public funds to administer primary health-care services.  The Growing to Scale class was started by explaining the complexities of social change theory and the complex context of social change.  It focuses on failure of tradition development approaches due to global dyanmaices and complex adaptive system , (a) global climate changes (natural systems under massive change), (b) population growth (6 million population growing to 9 million), and (c) world economy favoring the wealthy.  The international development approach

Today, my venerated colleagues and I were treated to a very special and intellectually appetizing presentation by Dr Francisco Sagasti (PHD Special sciences). Dr Sagasti who wrote the book entitled “Development Strategies for the 21st Century: the case of Peru” espoused the importance of democratic governance, development strategies and institutional reforms in addressing sustainable development.  His animated deportment and passion for what he believes in was awe-inspiring and extremely encouraging which made him quite engaging as one would imagine. His development work in Peru is significantly complimentary to the majority of our community contexts; as a consequence, there was a greater significance to what he offered.

In true Future Generations fashion, we find ourselves in a Peruvian haven attending our first classes during the month long residential, in a place called Casa ANTINCHIK in Pachacamac- about 25km outside of Lima. The glorious backdrop does more than provide an (often) unfortunate reminder that many of our classmates live in regions not seen to be as peaceful and willing for dialogue as this place, though it does do that at times. Our attention is drawn to this model community, with our locally grown homemade meals and a generous team from Future Generations Peru sharing their country and their skills. Yet, simultaneously, our attention is also on the reality of a graduate program like this with classmates who are unable to attend this residential due to country conflict, finances, visa barriers and the like. It’s fitting, then, that today we focused so much on the barriers to change...

Afghan student Ajmal Shirzai presentation

Bienvenidos en Peru!  The Future Generations Graduate School students  in the MA in Applied Community Change and Conservation have just arrived for their Term III residential.  Kicking off the residential is Daniel Taylor’s course "Going to Scale with Community Development".  Students from Bangladesh, Guyana, Tanzania, Bolivia, Canada, and the U.S. are learning from each other’s expertise and experience, from the professor, and from the involvement of Future Generations-Peru in developing a nation-wide program of community participation in health management.