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Burro Festival |
Burros on parade
By Tatiana Tylosky
Burros and kids, kids and burros: get ready to for a lively, fun-filled day at the third annual Burro Festival. First, 16 boys and their male burros compete in the Championship Burro Race, the burros bucking, braying or quietly concentrating as their owners race them down the soccer field. Then about 20 lively female burras, dressed in original costumes, will be led, pushed and cajoled to participate in the hilarious “Best of Burro” Parade and Pageant.
Enter the Burro Photo Contest! Submit your two best “burro and kid” photos to edit@atencionsanmiguel.org by April 4; you may see your winning photo in Atención and help create FINO’s (Fundación Internaciónal de Niños Olvidados) first Burro Calendar (for 2010).
All the children in the Burro Festival compete for a book donated by San Miguel’s Libros El Tecolote and for the grand prize, a trip to Xote, the local water park. Registered burros will each get a carrot—a rarity in the campo—to feast on.
Following the Burro event, a delicious Mexican comida, prepared by the women of this small community, will be served under tents on the school grounds. The children in FINO’s “Leadership through Language” scholarship program will display their English skills and show their hand-crafted art to the guests. There is also a raffle for work by local artisans and donated jewelry, paintings and other “burro-facts.”
Proceeds go to FINO to support the “Leadership through Language” program, which aims to prepare children to continue their education beyond the sixth grade. Volunteers teach leadership, English and computer skills, and the children have full access to FINO’s bilingual library. FINO thanks the volunteers, children, teachers, members of the community, sponsors and guests for their participation in the festival.
Last minute ticket sales at Casa Papel, Mesones 57 or at Solutions, Recreo 11. Tickets are 395 pesos per person for adults, which includes transportation, the Burro Festival and comida. More information, contact us at finoac@gmail.com or visit www.finomex.org.
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| Volunteer Fair and Conference brings together full-time, part-time, future residents, and broad swath of nonprofits | |
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Foundation Center and the San Miguel Project receive great reviews
By Alexis White
Canadian resident Jacqueline Winters is a retired executive director of a nonprofit naturalist organization and served on the boards of several arts and education nonprofits in her hometown. She is looking to help out in San Miguel, where she spends four months of the year. Retired University of Toronto Professor of Preventative Medicine Dr. Robert Langford moved to San Miguel a year ago. He has just completed his home and is ready to roll up his sleeves for the sake of San Miguel children with medical needs.
A former Cape Cod, Massachusetts resident now living in San Miguel wants to learn more about nonprofit volunteer opportunities because his interests run the gamut from the arts to helping alleviate poverty. And a woman from Boston, Massachusetts, whose career in the nonprofit world was dedicated to the education of children at risk, is thinking about retiring to San Miguel but needs to know that there will be a place for her in the world of volunteerism.
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These people were among the many who attended last week’s 2nd Annual Volunteer Fair and Conference. The two-day event was sponsored by The San Miguel Project (SMP) in cooperation with the University of Texas/Pan American and the Biblioteca Pública. |
Among more than 30 nonprofits that showcased their activities were total-community service organizations such as the Cruz Roja Asociación, the Cuerpo de Bomberos of San Miguel, the Lions Club, and the Rotary Club/Midday.
The scope of the Fair’s participants was broad, covering the protection of animals, family issues such as pregnancy and violence, the education of deaf children, feeding the hungry, building homes for those with makeshift shelters, providing free or low-cost medical and dental care to low-income children, providing micro-financing (small business loans) for sanmiguelenses of limited resources seeking to start businesses, promoting literary arts and cultural exchanges, and so much more.
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A highlight of the Fair was the Foundation Center database tutorial sessions offered to nonprofit representatives. Known as the Foundation Directory Online, this database is the leading resource for finding funding sources in the United States, and contains information on over 96,000 foundations and corporate donors, many of which give grants to nonprofits located around the world, including Mexico. |
The Directory Online is available through two dedicated computers and represents a cooperative effort by The San Miguel Project, the University of Texas/Pan American, and the Biblioteca, where the technology is located. By answering a series of questions that help tailor its research request, a nonprofit can find specific funding opportunities and apply for these grants.
Among those who took the tutorial was Pat Harding, president of Jovenes Adelante. “What a great benefit this is to the community!” she declared. “We will most definitely use the database. In fact, our grant team already has met to start planning where and how to focus our efforts so we can move forward with identifying promising grantors,” she added.
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Another Fair highlight was the visual presentation of the SMP website (www.thesanmiguelproject.org) that gave the audience a look at the nonprofit interactive calendar, one of many features. |
This was of special interest to the gathering as nonprofits often are faced with making event decisions months, even a year or more, in advance without knowing if there will be major conflicts. Realizing the benefits, including discounts to professional nonprofit workshops, and potential of The SMP, a number of organizations already have become members ($300 pesos per year). Roger Hinds of Mujeres en Cambio called The San Miguel Project “a wonderful idea that can only improve the performance of San Miguel’s nonprofit community.”
Via Orgánica was a first time Fair participant that discovered multiple benefits. Rose Welch found the experience very valuable. “Via Orgánica made some great connections with producers, organic supporters, and many people in the San Miguel community who strongly believe in the importance of eating locally grown, organic food,” she said.
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Another newcomer was Waldorf San Miguel. “We had no expectations coming in,” said Waldorf parent and school representative Roger Jones, “but our first visitors, not even parents, scheduled campus tours because they’re so interested in helping. We networked with several organizations, including El Charco del Ingenio, and hope to develop stronger ties and find ways in which we can help each other. We’re very excited about all that has come out of these two days for us, and look forward to next year.” |
This year, a number of San Miguel high school students served as junior Fair volunteers, and it was a learning experience for all of them. They discovered the world of nonprofit organizations and the possibilities of meeting their “servicio social” obligations in a meaningful way. Giovanni D’Andrea, a teenager from Austin visiting his grand parents, enjoyed participating and also offered some comments. “I am looking forward to helping during vacations, but think that future Fairs should look for ways to bring in more of the public.” His opinion was echoed by local students, who advised the organizers to use the radio and display posters around town. “We agree,” said Ali Zerriffi of The San Miguel Project,” and next year hope to actively engage these young people in hands-on aspects of marketing, which is an essential nonprofit tool.”
Approximately 140,000 people live within the Municipality of San Miguel de Allende, and there are somewhere between 60 and 100 nonprofit organizations serving the population. Many find the ratio extraordinary. As Gregory Diamant, president of the Biblioteca observed: “Relative to population, San Miguel arguably has the greatest concentration of nonprofit organizations in the world. We were very excited to have hosted this second annual Fair, and look forward to the increasing success of The San Miguel Project and all our essential nonprofits.”
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Lavender Project Visit Rancho La Colorado Mon, Mar 30, 9am El Charco del Ingenio Fábrica La Aurora (meet) 100 pesos, members 70 pesos |
Living with lavender
By Jeanine Ralston and Naomi Zerriffi
In a pueblo in the central mountains of Mexico, the people can smell their independence. In a field surrounded by nopal cactus, each one looking like a collection of Mickey Mouse ears, are 2,000 fat lavender plants, which fill the country air with their famous aroma. This scent may be able to solve the problem that afflicts not just Rancho La Colorada (population 1,000), but so many pueblos across Mexico—the problem of the missing men and lost opportunities.
With almost all of the young and middle-aged men in town gone to the States looking for work (and maybe sending money back), Rancho La Colorado feels like a women’s commune. Until two years ago, these women and a few old men were supporting themselves through subsistence farming.
Now St. Anthony’s Alliance, a US nonprofit, is helping the pueblo become self-sufficient. Many townspeople can earn money through cottage industries—soap-making, sewing sachet bags—associated with lavender. Many men now working in the States eventually may be able to afford to stay at home.—Jeannie Ralston, author of The Unlik ly Lavender Queen
Three cottage industries have sprung up in La Colorada: Azul Lavanda, an artisan soap cooperative and Azucenas de Joaquin. Azul Lavanda now cultivates four acres of organic lavender. Their fresh flowers, wreaths and bouquets are sold in local markets and they are beginning to produce the lucrative organic lavender oil prized in aromatherapy, perfumes, soaps and lotions.
One woman learned to make artisan soap from fresh lavender and other organic, local ingredients. She enlisted five other women in a cooperative and the group has been so successful in just one year that they are in negotiations with a large hotel to provide their amenities and spa products
Azucenas de Joaquin, a fledgling sewing cooperative, found a demand for handcrafted sachet bags, embroidered eye pillows, baskets and other handicrafts.
The Botanical Garden is organizing a visit to the Lavender Project in Rancho La Colorado. In 2005, the board of St. Anthony’s Alliance came to this little village and saw a possibility for growing a perfect value-added crop. In 2006, a local farmer spent time in Idaho learning to grow lavender and a young lady interned in New Mexico to learn how to make products from the lavender.The Lavender Project includes a community center where soybeans are dried and transformed into breakfast donuts and milk for the children of the Rancho, a sewing room, computer room, clinic and library. We will visit the fields, see how the lavender is grown, cut, dried and processed. In the Bodega we will see the finished products and we will visit the community center as well.
Since it takes an hour to drive there, we will meet in the parking lot of Fábrica La Aurora and leave from there at 9am. We will car pool. Bring a hat, water and good walking shoes. Reservations required: nzerriffi@yahoo.com. The cost is 70 pesos for members of the botanical garden, 100 pesos for the general public.
Products from the Lavender Project are available in El Charco’s gift shop.
Visit www.thelavenderproject.com/
or email mariarebora@hotmail.com
for more information on the Lavender Project.
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Los Ricos children have big ambitions
By Dianne Walta Hart
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When Lucha first started teaching at Rancho Los Ricos de Abajo 20 years ago, few parents could read or write. For their children, education ended with sixth grade. Now, many children walk an hour to Atotonilco’s secondary school. |
In part, this is probably a result of Mexico’s Oportunidades program in which, every two months, the government gives cash to poor families who keep their children in school. Designed to change behaviors as well as to help people, the program includes such obligations as keeping the streets clean and attending meetings.
While its influence on the numbers appears to be positive, in Lucha’s eyes Oportunidades has also created problems. When, as required, she reports attendance, the mothers whose children’s attendance hasn’t been perfect are annoyed with her. When some parents fail to go to the required meetings, other parents turn them in.
Lucha isn’t alone in her opinion; Moisés from the Atotonilco school calls Oportunidades a political and bureaucratic mess.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that scholarships given to sixth-grade graduates of the Los Ricos English program are important, too. According to Moisés, most of his students are unable to continue their education. Don’t tell that to the Los Ricos scholarship children—they plan to study medicine, law, architecture and gastronomy.
Unity through the school
Almost 20 years ago, Los Ricos’ harmony was shattered when two people were killed in an extended family disagreement. Since most of the residents are related, the scars remain to this day. In addition, Los Ricos residents have lost some of their provincial values.
Only a few have been to the US (according to Lucha, only 10 percent of the parents at a time are gone). But many have, in Lucha’s words, “gone out and seen a lot in recent years,” and they’ve changed in ways that she thinks are not always for the better.
Nevertheless, when rancho residents thought there was a chance that robbers might steal their school’s computers, they installed lights and patrolled the building, while those with houses close by said they’d fire their guns into the air if they saw something suspicious. Parents offered to help pay for new bathrooms and, a few weeks after a school library was opened, mothers showed up with a bookcase.
Progress pro and con
Los Ricos is still one of the poorest ranchos—its 350 people survive by working in the cornfields, making tortillas, toiling in the nearby brick factory, or selling snacks. Some residents go to Mexico City and a few head to the US. Still, the community’s houses, which sprawl over the hilltops and down into the ravines, have improved over the years.
But if today’s families are able to provide more material support for the school than before, there is less moral support for the teachers. When Lucha started, the community would bring her coffee on cold days, ask about teachers who were sick and support the teaching staff’s decisions. Today, there’s no morning coffee. When a teacher is sick, the parents’ first and only question is about the teacher’s replacement. And when Lucha has to talk to a family about a child’s behavior, she’s the one who’s criticized.
Lucha focuses on the children. She’s happiest when they learn to read—and since that happens several times a year, she says, she has many moments of joy. Not bad for a woman who wondered what she was getting herself into 20 years ago.
Los Ricos was initially turned down by Feed the Hungry, an organization that today feeds 4,000 children every school day out of its 35 kitchens. A year later, Feed the Hungry constructed the kitchen, hired two local cooks—both graduates of Lucha’s elementary school—and began serving daily meals in January 2005.
If you are interested in volunteering for or donating to Feed the Hungry, visit http://feedthehungrysma.org/.
To read more about Los Ricos de Abajo, click on “Our Kitchens¨ and, on the interactive map, click on “Los Ricos de Abajo” on the left of the gray area, above the blue presa.
Dianne Walta Hart is on the board of Feed the Hungry and helps with the English program in Los Ricos de Abajo.
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