How to Fund a Development Project
We conducted today's dig within the Santa Cruz city limits, as opposed to the usual rural community, for two main reasons. First, since import taxes are so high, one of the Canadian Missionaries used a friend's contacts to help him ship a "package" (a new flat screen TV) and have it slide through customs untouched, making the TV only cost about half the price that local businesses offer it. Thus, the Canadian owed his friend a favor. Water prices from the city's public water company run at about 20% of a manual laborer's monthly salary. The Canadian's friend wanted to drill his own well and forever avoid the expensive city water.
The second reason we decided to drill in the city is that the Mission had a visitor from their Canadian church associates back home and the Mission wanted to show off, in an accessible location, what it does best: drilling for water. This church representative, we'll call Steve, because I sadly already forgot his name. Steve represents over 60 churches with massive access to huge amounts of charity funds and the water project's organizers truly wanted to tap into this invaluable resource.
Danny, the head hauncho, the organization's coordinator, had previously tried development projects funded by NGOs and governmental grants. Instead of drafting tedious, and organization-specific proposals, Danny found that Churches were far less overreaching and that by establishing a church base, other congregations would easily use one following's recommendation as a valid form of vouching for him. This way, the water project only requires one overseeing organization and one set of book keeping and annual reports.
From my understanding, churches are also a great source of funding. The money flow works like this: church groups like to purge their souls and send charity money to distant places. These religious groups also send their kids on Mission trips to gain culture, help the needy, and convert during summers and vacations. These kids then work for free (the cheapest labor of all). When they return home, they boast about their experiences to everyone they know. As a church sponsored trip, this only strengthens the bonds between the Bolivian projects and the church, which then continues to send more kids after each successful trip. This ultimately equates to continued donations and loads more money, now embedding itself as a steady source of funding.
Although I've found the organizers of the Mission to be religious, they are no where near as fanatical as I had feared prior to my arrival. Danny is just another development geek like me and it turns out that he's impressively got a PHD in Development Anthropology. From prior projects he's worked on, I found that he's adopted Micro Lending's strategy of creating "group social capital." For work in distant villages, the water project leaves it's machines at home and only brings the manual operated drilling equipment. After digging a community well, Danny then leaves the drills with the community and creates Water Groups. These Water Groups are formed of various households with the intent on replicating the drilling to dig their own wells. They use their combined labor to construct these with help from the others in their Water Group.
The more I learn, the more impressed I am with the way the Mission's development projects are run. Thankfully, my initial worries about joining a Christian Mission are quickly fading. The minimal religious talk I've been surrounded by has been culturally entertaining above anything else. The organization does great things and I hope to continue to learn more from all the people involved.
The second reason we decided to drill in the city is that the Mission had a visitor from their Canadian church associates back home and the Mission wanted to show off, in an accessible location, what it does best: drilling for water. This church representative, we'll call Steve, because I sadly already forgot his name. Steve represents over 60 churches with massive access to huge amounts of charity funds and the water project's organizers truly wanted to tap into this invaluable resource.
Danny, the head hauncho, the organization's coordinator, had previously tried development projects funded by NGOs and governmental grants. Instead of drafting tedious, and organization-specific proposals, Danny found that Churches were far less overreaching and that by establishing a church base, other congregations would easily use one following's recommendation as a valid form of vouching for him. This way, the water project only requires one overseeing organization and one set of book keeping and annual reports.
From my understanding, churches are also a great source of funding. The money flow works like this: church groups like to purge their souls and send charity money to distant places. These religious groups also send their kids on Mission trips to gain culture, help the needy, and convert during summers and vacations. These kids then work for free (the cheapest labor of all). When they return home, they boast about their experiences to everyone they know. As a church sponsored trip, this only strengthens the bonds between the Bolivian projects and the church, which then continues to send more kids after each successful trip. This ultimately equates to continued donations and loads more money, now embedding itself as a steady source of funding.
Although I've found the organizers of the Mission to be religious, they are no where near as fanatical as I had feared prior to my arrival. Danny is just another development geek like me and it turns out that he's impressively got a PHD in Development Anthropology. From prior projects he's worked on, I found that he's adopted Micro Lending's strategy of creating "group social capital." For work in distant villages, the water project leaves it's machines at home and only brings the manual operated drilling equipment. After digging a community well, Danny then leaves the drills with the community and creates Water Groups. These Water Groups are formed of various households with the intent on replicating the drilling to dig their own wells. They use their combined labor to construct these with help from the others in their Water Group.
The more I learn, the more impressed I am with the way the Mission's development projects are run. Thankfully, my initial worries about joining a Christian Mission are quickly fading. The minimal religious talk I've been surrounded by has been culturally entertaining above anything else. The organization does great things and I hope to continue to learn more from all the people involved.
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