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. Click to view slideshow.Click to view slideshow.

Dark View Falls: DVF is one of the touristic attractions in St. Vincent & we live 50minutes walk to the falls. Recently the EU have been allocating some funds to upgrade the standards site in order to attract make St. Vincent a major destination for cruise ship tourists as the main destinations have so far been Barbados, Trinidad & Tobago just name these. St. Vincent still remains one of the most preserved Islands in the West Indies & the government of SVG is seeking to preserve it’s natural beauty for Echo-Tourism.

Dark View Lower Falls

Unveilling of Board

On the left the Minster of Tourism Mr. Glen Beache & on his Right is the Minister of Communication & Technology & the representative of the North Leeward zone (includes RVA) unveilling the board of launching of the DVRF with some on lookers.

There were over a 100 participants in during inauguration which lasted almost 3 hrs. In the meantime…

A young folk from the Chateaubelair Police Youth Club gave is a free style thrilling tune for the launching after which various VIPs gave mor speeches.

A taste of Caribbean Coconut Juice

We were chilling around & having to taste our 1st coconut juice while meeting some other guests.

2nd new bridge leading to falls, also designed for people on wheel chairs

Jogging to Falls: As part of our training, we have to keep fit as we might face some certain challenges at the project. In this case, we often jog to the falls & enjoy the peace.

Pools for children to Inaugural Speech from DVRF

They built a bigger pool below the falls for children as well as adult to relax. We learnt there are 5 falls if we go further, however the closest 2nd fall is about 30ft high from this one. Very few have attempted to go to the 3 falls as it would take some good hours of hiking to get (3+hrs)

Looking towards
Nov.Ecuador.Team.09

We (ecuador.team) have been offering after school lessons to some children in the nearby community (Fitzhughes). The aim of this lessons is to improve the English proficiency as well as help out with home works especially in Arithmetic from grade 1 – 6.

Grade 1 - 3

Grade - 6 Maths Lessons

With the help of one lovely lady, we could use a former dance hall to organize the lessons to the pupils. On the right, Sam, Maria & Eunyoung giving Arithmetic lessons to Grades 1 – 3 while Anna & Karina does same for Grades 4  – 6.

Schedule: Organize these classes twice a week, every Wednesdays & Fridays with an average of 27 regular participants who all come with their books & pensils ready to consume what we have to share.

Interestingly, in the text books of the higher grade pupils, some vocabularies are made in the dialect which comes to make us understand why most caribbeans still have lots of dialect in their English. Not withstanding, we are hoping to move on with our reading & writing lessons & hopefully to improve their english vocabulary before we leave for Ecuador.

Games: After lessons which runs maximum of 30 mins for younger grades & 40 for older grades for concentration, we move on to do games to refresh their minds & for relaxation which is a very useful learning process when working with children in the Caribbean as they are very energetic & very bold when it comes to display their talents. Some games are recreational while others are just for the sake to help them release the energy like relay race just to mention these.

Reading & Understanding Comprehension

Relay Race

Read out Loud Practice

Open the Basket game

Challenges: We must admit it ‘s not that easy to work with of the children smetimes either becasue, some loose concentration faster than other & we have to keep motivating them to remain focused in the lessons or take them out not to distract the others. Some other times some few ones just come to accopany their peers or even some young adults girls who might be showing/telling the younger ones the answers to the questions we ask them.These are some ills that we have to constantly deal with but not on regular bases as somedays everything seems relatively ok.

Looking towards
Nov.Ecuador.Team.09

poem from monica

Gustavo's Art

a special evening event where many secret talents were uncovered.

Monica presented a deeply touching poem written by herself some time ago. This evening was great fun and we enjoyed discovering new talents of the people we live together with. There were various performances of poem, art, music and baking. This kind of culture evening is a good idea to bring to people Africa and Ecuador too.

Joao & Maria playing American Pie

Szilvia(left) & Stina(right) singing MONEY.MONEY.MONEY... ABBA

Dwarfs Merry Christmas singers

It was an exiting night of best wishes & cheers & looking forward for more evenings as such.

Happy New Year & Best Wishes 2010

Ecuador.Nov.Team.009

Any of a large number of natural and synthetic materials, including manure and nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium compounds, spread on or worked into soil to increase its capacity to support plant growth.

Making of an Organic Fertilizer/Manure.

As many other teams before, we are in a new learning experience on garden farming & have been improving our knowhow on growing vegetable but most notably how to make composting more efficient & convinient for the environment.f

collecting horse sheet to make liquid fertilizer

liquid in final process allowed for 8 to 10 weeks

Here we are collecting horse sheet with some fresh lawn grass to put in a sack for the liquid manure. It is a very simple one we are making but read more int the following link: http://www.optimallyag.com/

After the 8 – 10 weeks, we shall stir up the liquid to get all it’s chemical component well mix before we spread on the vegetables we planted. Look forward for the harvest…

rvateams.nov.2009

Ecuador Team November 2009

Maria (philippine), Eunyoung (South Korea), Sam & Anna (Australia) & Karina (Holland).

We are already halve way our training now & are looking forward for more challenges…

rvateams.09

Preparing beds for planting

Once every 6 weeks in the programme, we do an intensive building weekend action. During these actions we renovate & build new things at the school. Part of the last

Coretin up rooting the stumps in our garden area

Momentarily break from heavy rain fall

action was finish & plant in our newly cleared area for garden farming. We got help from some members of the march team team as well as the Action team in reaching our goal. As our programme relatively shorter to the Africa programme, we wanted to plant as soon as possible & see the vegetables grow before we leave for Ecuador.

Indeed, it’s hard work but we are committed to our course to learn & to teach others to be self sufficient with food

Cucumber transplanting row

(vegetables).

Plants

Roman(Austria) transplanting Cucumbers to newly prepared beds

After we finished preparing the soil, we planted started our 6 crop rotation system which was slightly different from that of the previous farm. We planted, Carrots, Raddish, Pumpkin, Corn, Transplanted Cocumbers & Corn…

Michelly(Brazil making line to sow carrot seeds

Chihiru(Japan) & Andrea(Ecuador) preparing more beds

somuch fun in team work...

rva.ecuador.pioneer.team.09

Farmers Bingo Party Begins

Here at RVA we have 15 employees in both farm, mentainance & administration. We

Introduction (participants & workers)

started an annual tradition of organizing some special events with all our employees & their families. Saturday 25th was the 3rd of it’s kind since our arrival here since January 2007. The previous two was good as we learnt but this was far most the best as everyone actively took part in organizing this special night for our farmers.

Some arrived around 15:00 to start the cooking. It was special caribbean dish as we not too used to, we therefore invited them to come & share with us what they like eating best. Most of the things they used to cook are very low cost as we have them around our environment like Coconuts, Bread Fruit, Dasheen leaves to make what is called Kalalou Soup which is one of the most famous traditional dish, not just in St. Vincent but in Caribbean as a whole. We are not used to now can we cook it but one thing for sure, it was finished before the party ended that night.

Pitaya Flower Polynating

Taste of Caribbean dish (Dumplin)

Jesper also had a ground tour with the farmers on an Pitaya polynating activity. They

Salt fish special...

farmers planted it but have never seen when the flowers blossom as it only  happens at night & they are all home after work. So, Jesper took this opportunity to show them what is done before the produce comes fourth(Pitaya Fruit).

Bingo Game

We did the introduction game between the farmers & the participants & the last long awaiting moment came which was the Bingo. There were a variety of items on the desk available for the famers(families), could win from. Together with the participants, we played & everyone won somethings that night ranging from multi-gadget hand tool, face caps, T-Shirts, Sports pants amongst other items. The farmers were so happy & were very active in the game.

Jesper demonstrating how to polynate Pitaya flowers

We crowned the night with some chicken BBQ…

Bingo game with Maria(left), Micey(centre & grand son)

RVA.Ecuador.Pioneer.Team.09

wk.30

Magna(Brazil) Polynating Pitaya flowers which just blossom

Our 2nd article on Pitaya.

The last time we shared on the fruit. This time we explain how the fruit process goes thru

Jesper(Denmark) polynating flower

in a few lines.

Pitaya has the Worlds’ biggest flowers & the blossom once once a night & die. So, in order to obtain the Pitaya fruit, we must go every night to check them out & polynate the flowers to later on produce the Pitaya fruit.

More Pitaya article on this link: http://pitaya.foodlywise.com/

RVA.Pioneer.Ecuador.Team.09

Pitaya Flowers Blossom

Chicken House

Intro’

Food safety has become and increasingly important issue for all sectors of the poultry industry. For eggs, the food safety focus has been on bacteria, especially Salmonella species, which cause human illness. To promote safety, a growing number of egg producing companies are adopting egg quality assurance programs, which

stipulate actions for all aspects of egg production to reduce the risk of egg becoming contaminated with harmful bacteria.

What a Beautiful Day outside for 1st Time after 8 weeks Indoors...

We have just bought Laying Chicken Flocks:The laying cycle of a chicken flock usually covers a span of about 12 months. Egg productionbegins when the birds reach about 18-22 weeks of age, depending on the breed and season. Flockproduction rises sharply and reaches a peak of about 90%, 6-8 weeks later. Production thengradually declines to about 65% after 12 months of lay. A typical production curve for a layingflock, sho

wing changes in the level of egg production and in egg weight, over time, is given in link: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/LyraEDISServlet?command=getImageDetail&image_soid=IMAGE%20PS:PS029F1&document_soid=PS029&document_version=32769

Just wondering around our new house

Egg Production at RVA:

We have just started our Chicken Egg Production with 10 Laying Chickens. We already had 2 Creole(local) chicken male(cork) & female(hen) which has been given us an average of an egg on daily bases since the 7th of June 2009. You do the count…

Our laying Chickens are 6 weeks old (20^th June 09). We initially had them inside as they are young & tender until we built a house for them. We have almost finished the house & moved them out now as their shit was beginning to sting so bad. Now, they are in an airy newly built house all alive & healthy so far. The chickens have 8 more weeks or 2 months to start laying their 1st eggs.

Chicken House:
We built the chicken  house on a former weather station post. All other materials used to construct the house is re-used. We got some galvanized roofing sheets from Franklin our Tour Guide to finish

the roofing of the house. Here’s what our Chicken house look like now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BADGGZUOUY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Frichmondvaleacademy.org%2FArticle.asp%3FTxtID%3D864%26SubMenuItemID%3D385%26MenuItemID%3D58&feature=player_embedded

foto time

We like it our here... couldn't ask for more than this

Chicken House Side View

Conclusion:
We are spending approximately 4800EC per year on Eggs for our Academy. If our chicken production succeeds as planned, we would produce at least between 70 – 80 eggs a week & cut the cost of eggs to 3/4. This is the initial phase, but we are optimistic it will work. By this means, we shall also introduce this concepts to many of the 25 per couple families we will be expecting to work with in Ecuador as either Income Generating or Self Sufficiency protein.

Look out for updates…

respects!
rva.ecuador.pioneer.team.2009