Travel, research and study.
DRH means Traveling Folk High School so learning trough travel, living with the local population, sharing their lives and experiences is part of the process. This is one of the elements on the Fight Poverty Program, and a very important one.
The travel plan is done by the Team Leader together with the participants. After some research a topic is chosen, then with further study and investigation the points to be researched within the topic are detailed; the studies and investigation are planned.
At this point each participant needs to formulate a hypothesis regarding the topic that was chosen. Part of the study and investigation of the Poverty Fighter (PF) will be to confirm or deny his or hers hypotheses. This is a very important step because after the travel period the PF besides making an individual report of the studies and investigation he or she will have to prepare a presentation that will be done at the project about the results of the hypothesis investigation, if it was confirmed or denied and why; a People’s Exam will take place.
The next step is to plan the travel itself; where we will be going, what locations are relevant for our investigation, what places we go first, what will be our route. To finalize how we get there, what means of transportation are available and are the best for us; the best one do not necessarily means the fastest, more comfortable or cheapest but the one that, besides being safe, we can benefit most of (e.g. which will give us the best chance to get in contact with people).
We have the topic and the travel planned but we still have to find out where we stay. The idea is live together with the local population so we try to find out if it is possible. If we can find out good if not we will try when we get there, that is our aim.
To finalize we prepare the budget and put it all together, the travel plans to present to everyone at the school. Some changes may still have to be made due to ideas and comments given but we are now ready to go.
We are the third Fight Poverty Team to Ecuador and we will be departing on June. The topic was already decided and it was an interesting process because we wanted to study and investigate something different, something that was not commonly chosen and was not much looked at. Normally people tend to choose something that you can find a lot of information about on the internet or something that is a common topic; street children, health problems, education, poverty, indigenous population for example. We where analyzing the indigenous population issue when something came up and got everyone excited about.
What came up during our research? The Afro Ecuadorians, the descendent of the slaves brought during the colonization period. Why? Because we read and listen a lot about the Incas, what was done to them by the colonizers and how is their life today, about the tribes in the Amazon region and what is happening to them because of the oil exploration, about the mestizos, but we find very little about the Afro Ecuadorians. They are also part of Ecuador’s history, of its culture, its development, today’s economy, life and face the same or similar problems.
We are now in the process of detailing the investigation and planning the route. We are researching and studying about the topic; history, costumes, culture, life, problems they face. We are very fortunate because we are having a good assistance from two members of the Africa Team, Diego and Evelyn, from Ecuador. After that how we travel, where we stay, the budget.
We are very excited about the travel and deep into the topic. The knowledge acquired during this period will be very important and helpful to the DI’s, the Project as well as for Humana Ecuador.
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