Crisis Management: with Victoriano

While we do not have program participants, we continue to work with our local community members. We stay engaged through WhatsApp, and most recently, we started a 14-day video campaign on crisis management to help provide some tips and comfort during this time.

The first topic we covered was on how to identify fake news to not create additional stress or false expectations. Other videos have included topics such as: avoiding panic, co-existing with your family while in quarantine, and how to continue with your routine. For our spanish speaking followers, you can watch all of the episodes below:

IOI Galapagos endemic and native garden project

(Marc Martorell – Conservation Department Coordinator)

In cooperation with the Galapagos National Park, IOI has designed and built a garden with native and endemic species of Isabela Island. The garden was built with local soil and used materials such as  volcanic rocks and gravel for delineations of flower beds, trails, and planters.

The main objective of the project is to set an example and create an educational tool for the community.  To that extent, phase two of the project will have a community outreach component. We are using our  eco-park to serve as a model for our green city gardens project, in which our staff and volunteers are reaching out to encourage and assist local families to establish gardens around their homes. 

Within this project we are planting several species that are currently growing in nurseries in the  highlands via our cooperation with the Galapagos National Park. These species are chosen depending on  their ability to adapt and survive in the coastal region.

In executing the project we had the help of students from the Fray Agustin de Azkunaga Highschool (within a project between the Ministry of Education of Ecuador and the Galapagos National Park) and students of the University of Miami as part of their service learning projects.

The main species we are choosing for the project are:

• Uva de playa – Scaveola plumieri

• Muyuyo – Cordia lutea

• Chala – Croton scouleri

• Pega-pega – Pisonia floribunda

• Verdolaga – Portulaca oleracea

• Nolana – Nolana galapagensis

• Cactus Opuntia– Cactaceae Opuntia

• Escalesia – Scalesia cordata

Radio Program

(Nuria Ladera – Social Development Department)

The head of our social development department, Nuria Ladera, attends to the mental and emotional wellbeing of our community. IOI proudly announces that Nuria now airs on Isabela radio with her own program “Tu voz guía” (Your Guiding Voice). The forty five to sixty minute program is produced weekly and airs on Thursday at nine in the morning and is rerun again on Tuesday mornings due to popular demand.

The program is meant for heads of families and parents at large to help them deal with common family issues and difficulties related to family life and parenting. A few common topics include: normal behaviors of children at specific ages, how to set limits and rules in the home, how to effectively communicate within the family, how to avoid drug use as well as aggressive behavior, how to build self-esteem of children and how to help them with their studies and place value on education or the importance respecting a set schedule for children (eating, sleeping, etc.).

The community is encouraged to call in making the show a highly interactive forum. The show is meant to be a form of conversation for the entire community in which they can call, text or message through Facebook to ask questions, give comments, share their own experiences, etc. Furthermore, the show receives input for topics of discussion from the public.

Coral Restoration, Cuba

Off the southern coast of the Isle of Youth live two species of coral that are on the critically endangered list. 

With the support of local experts and volunteers, we are committed to an ongoing effort to improve, monitor, and ultimately ensure coral reef health in this precious and ecologically diverse place.

Coral gardening is the process of cultivating coral fragments and planting them among struggling reefs. It has proven to be a successful and critical step toward large scale coral reef restoration and requires a great deal of support from IOI volunteers.

These coral gardening efforts are critical not only for the specific reefs they are supporting, but for the ecosystem as a whole, as coral reefs are nurseries to the world’s oceans. 

Coral reefs are also very important in socio-economics. “The value of coral reefs has been estimated at 30 billion U.S. dollars and perhaps as much as 172 billion U.S. dollars each year, providing food, protection of shorelines, jobs based on tourism, and even medicines.”

By teaming up with CariMar, pioneers of international marine research and conservation in Cuba, as well as local community members, we are actively participating in the restoration of this indispensable ecosystem.   

Visit our Volunteer Cuba page for more information.

Mujeres Con Futuro, Costa Rica

In partnership with Fundación Horizontes we have launched a new chapter of Mujeres con Futuro in our host community of El Jobo, Costa Rica. The three part program is designed to offer innovative and sustainable solutions that contribute to the reduction of poverty, exclusion, and unemployment for women in Costa Rica.

Mujeres Con Futuro is a program that supports 1,200 Costa Rican women each year in a two-step program. The program includes workshops and trainings and is split into two distinct phases:

Phase One (habilidades para la vida) is an empowerment program that enhances the participants’ confidence and skills to confront the numerous challenges of everyday life. Twenty-nine women of El Jobo completed this phase in Fall 2017. As a result, some graduates have started implementing what they learned on their own initiatives. For example, one woman started a restaurant and another opened a clothing store.

Phase Two (montando negocio) teaches the participants’ the basic skills required to start a business. The women are eager to learn the skills necessary to implement the ideas they generated in Phase One. Due to two major natural disasters that hit El Jobo in late 2017 and early 2018, funding is now short and IOI is currently fundraising in order to carry out Phase Two.

IOI is taking the profoundly relevant and critically important program one step further to include an additional phase:

Phase Three (micro-financiamiento) Sets up a business loan option through micro-financing and community banking for our participants who would otherwise not have access to credit due to lack of collateral. 

When it comes to empowering isolated communities to grow in sustainable ways, supporting the women tangibly and thoughtfully is key. In this sense, the Mujeres Con Futuro, Fundacion Horizontes, and IOI partnership is a quintessential part of our social development efforts in Costa Rica. IOI has a similar program in the Galapagos, Familias del Buen Vivir.

New Soccer Field

In agreement with the municipality of Isabela, IOI donated a synthetic grass multi-sport field valued at over $50,000 to the Jacinto Gordillo Elementary School. This, like the playground, is designed to provide a space for children to engage in sports – realistically mostly soccer- in a community setting. The field directly benefits 280 students and their families and construction was finished in February 2018. 
    
These additions to the local infrastructure, and future projects like them, are contributing to the social development of the island of Isabela, as well as to the health and education of the children who are growing up there.
 

Jacinto Gordillo Elementary School Playground 

For years, at Jacinto Gordillo Elementary School on Isabela island, students did not have a place to play during their lunch break. As a makeshift alternative to a secure, well-constructed playground, children would seek out and climb trees and often end up getting hurt. 

To address this, IOI organized a group of University of Miami students and professors to create a safe and fun “tire worm.” The “worm” is made from brightly painted, recycled tires that are set into the ground. 

As you can imagine, the addition has been a big hit. For the first time, Jacinto Gordillo Elementary School children have a designated place to run, climb, and play that is safe and right outside their classroom doors!