July 2000

Goats for Guatemala

A one-time gift from a contributor is making it possible to start a women's income producing activity in Chichicastenango, Guatemala. Plans are underway for a small animal project using a popular development strategy of purchasing cows, pigs, goats, or sheep-one male and various females. Each project participant commits to breed her animal and return the first female offspring to the organization to be given to another member. Subsequent births are hers to keep to expand her herd or to sell. The Guatemala project is in final planning stages and will be operational before the end of the year.

New Co-partners' Web Site

Donna Breslin was one of Co-partners' earliest contributors. When she heard about the activity she spontaneously sent a check and has been a loyal contributor ever since. This year she made a contribution of volunteer time worth hundreds of dollars by developing a Co-partners' web site. Finishing touches are still being made, but you can check out the progress at www.copartners.org. When finished the site will be listed with philanthropic search engines that will help the organization expand its base of contributors.

Scholarship Recipient Completes Studies, School Postpones Graduation

Co-partners supports almost twenty transportation scholarships for rural students at the 5th to 8th grade level, but even with this type of support very few rural girls continue to high school. If a family can educate only one child it is almost always a male. Pressures for early motherhood and contributions to family income halt girls' education. LNE member Delmi Garcia did make it to high school, but a combination of administrative inertia and a leadership change have prevented her from receiving her diploma. Unfortunately educational institutions are often as much a hindrance as a help to aspiring students.

Delmi came to the attention of Co-partners' volunteers when she organized and costumed eight children from her community to perform a traditional dance for the organization's Christmas program. Her initiative and success with the children made it clear that she had talent for teaching and inspired establishment of the Co-partners' scholarship program. For Delmi, funding was not the only hurdle. Her family also had to be converted to the idea of further study, but as she persevered they gradually did come to support her aspiration.

Now after four years of faithful class attendance, an untimely change in school leadership has resulted in the postponement of graduation for Delmi and her classmates. Graduation was supposed to be in March and then in June. It still hasn't happened and a whole class of students has lost the opportunity to continue to higher education this year. Co-partners' advisors will be meeting in the coming week with Ministry of Education officials to try to resolve the impasse. This capricious abuse of power by an official is sadly typical of the barriers that impede individuals in developing countries from improving their lives.

Annual Visit

Additional Advisors to be sought during Annual Visit Co-partners' chairperson, Archer Heinzen, will make an annual supervisory visit to La Nueva Esperanza in October. A primary goal for the visit will be recruitment of additional local advisors. During La Nueva Esperanza's initial years the program was supported by two to six international and Salvadoran volunteer-advisors at each meeting. When the international volunteers left El Salvador they were not replaced, but the high level of organizational functioning and the dedication of the Salvadoran volunteers assured that the program would continue.

Esperanza members, with the support of two Salvadoran volunteers, sustained membership for three years, but this year, with the relocation of another volunteer-advisor, attendance began to drop. Regular attendance for tailoring and dressmaking classes has stabilized at about 30 members, a little more than 1/3 of the original membership. To return LNE to it's former functioning more outside input is needed. Individuals who can provide it will be identified and oriented in October.

Interest in Central American Tour?

Taking contributors on a trip is a popular strategy for increasing interest in international development. Groups visit project sites but also take in important tourist locations. Co-partners plans to sponsor a trip in 2002. It will include Guatemala and El Salvador, with trips to Joya de Ceren, a pre-Colombian site buried by a volcanic eruption (Don't think Pompeii. No mosaics!) and Tikal. Anybody interested?

Co-partners of Campesinas Board of Directors

Chairperson: Archer Heinzen, Alexandria, VA

Secretary/Treas.: Julia Gonzalez, Gaithersburg, MD

Board Members:

Phoebe Lansdale, Washington, DC

Glynne Leonard, Falls Church, VA

Pilar Lecarios, Lima, Peru

Gloria Martel, San Salvador, El Salvador

Rosa Irma Mendoza, San Salvador, El Salvador

Teresa Rodriguez de Sarroca, Rome, Italy

La Nueva Esperanza (New Hope) Board of Directors

President: Rosa Flores

Vice President: chita Rodriguez

Secretary: Anriana Dinora Rivas

Treasurer: Gloribel Mendoza