FSD's Experience Catapulted James' Career in Sustainable Community Development

FSD’s International Internship Programs attract an impressively diverse range of participants from around the globe, but undoubtedly the common thread among our Intern alumni is that once they start on the path to sustainable community development, they never stop. James Sarria is an alumnus of two FSD trips, and an exemplar of how our alumni continue to make a lasting difference in every community they touch.

James first volunteered with FSD in 2007 through UC Berkeley’s DeCal Global Service Trip to Nicaragua. He returned to Argentina as a co-organizer of the trip, facilitating the semester-long DeCal course on sustainable development issues in South America. Today James is the Stanford Site Director of the Summer Math and Science Honors (SMASH) Academy, a 3-year 5-week summer math and science enrichment program that is free of cost for high-achieving, first generation high school students of color. The SMASH Academy provides resources to help level the playing field so these students have the same opportunity to achieve success in higher education as their peers in non-marginalized communities.

Working with over 100 students throughout the SF Bay Area requires James to keep a global perspective in mind, and he credits FSD with helping him foster a cross-cultural understanding as well as a passion for service and volunteerism at a young age: “What FSD creates is an opportunity for passionate, ideal and young scholars to experience what can’t be replicated in a classroom. FSD supported my desire to connect with people that are just like me, but just happen to live in another part of the world.” James fondly remembers his Argentinean host family as his favorite part of his trip, and acknowledges that this “importance of local knowledge of the FSD trip mirrors the importance to have local people managing sustainable development projects."

James continues to travel and engage in the international community, recently returning from a month in Bangladesh where he lived with a local family and worked in Lawachara National Park on service trips including reforestation and eco-tourism. In his professional and personal life, James carries the lessons he learned on his FSD trips with him, remarking: “We are all living on the same planet, using her resources and ultimately decisions I make in the US have significant, direct and immediate impact on the lives of people that we may never meet”. FSD is thrilled that interns such as James continue to be the change they wish to see in the world long after they have returned from their internship abroad.

FSD Support Tola Coop Partners with Awarded Grants

FSD was recently awarded a grant from Caridad Partners, a Bay Area women’s philanthropic giving circle, to support our ongoing community cooperatives initiative in Tola, Nicaragua. The grant funds three community cooperatives:

1) Cooperativo de servicios de consumo Mujeres, esperanza y fe sells sundries, food product staples, and other goods at affordable prices and targeting women consumers—and is starting a revolving loan program;

2) Cooperativo Textil Vestuario de Limon, a textile/sewing cooperative, provides quality, low-cost uniforms for local schoolchildren; and

3) Grupo Genesis, a bakery cooperative, is the first female-led enterprise in the Tola region now providing fresh-baked goods locally.

The cooperative initiative is a key driver to stimulating community leadership—and the local economy—in a greatly underserved region of Latin America’s second poorest country. Catalyzing community development since 1995, FSD is leading this region through a community mobilization, skills and leadership development movement.

The cooperative initiative started with a 40-hour training covering government regulations, accounting basics, coop governance, and group dynamics, and FSD is continuing to support the groups through a three-phase plan. The groups have also taken part in a business plan creation workshop and are now receiving ongoing project support as FSD connects the coops to its existing partners in similar fields. The grants will support continued leadership, business and personal development training, and market analysis and capital expansion plans. Over 400 people are estimated to benefit directly from the grant due to the increased income generated by the coops.

FSD and Partner Building a Home for HIV+ Orphans in Jodhpur

According to the United Nations Population Fund, close to 2.4 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in India. Unfortunately, the social stigma of being HIV positive is so great that people living with the disease suffer both economically and socially. In Jodhpur, one of FSD’s community partners is addressing HIV in the community. Jodhpur Network of People Living with HIV Sansthan, or JNP+, seeks to address denial, stigma, and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS through advocacy. In 2010, FSD Intern Sophia Davis partnered with JNP+ to start the BAL BASERA Holistic Child Care Home in Jodhpur.

With additional funding from an FSD Traveling Giving Circle, the home had its official inauguration in August of 2010. This November, Sophia revisited JNP+ and BAL BASERA and was excited to see how much the home has expanded since 2010. The home serves 23 children who are living with HIV, providing them with daily medicine, food and schooling—and even providing the opportunity to attend cultural activities.

Of her experience, Sophia writes: “It was remarkable and humbling to see how much growth has taken place since 2010 and the true love and dedication the JNP+ staff has for the children…The location they are currently situated in is a spacious facility and the children are receiving the resources they need to have a sustained livelihood for a prosperous future, even when affected with HIV.”

We are proud of the fine advocacy work of partner JNP+ and look forward to seeing continued growth of the facility in the coming years.

FSD's Partner Exerting Influence on Key Issues in Nicaragua

With the support of FSD Intern Diana McKeage, microfinance partner, Association for Equitable Economic Development (Alternativa) is using collaboration and communication to bolster development efforts among organizations in Masaya, Nicaragua. Alternativa won an FSD grant for $739 to facilitate three collaborative forums on community development issues in the area. Alternativa will bring together 10 local development organizations for three forums to discuss the following themes, respectfully: 1) export consortia and associative work, 2) influence of public policy, and 3) child labor.

Local development organizations came together for a similar conference “Problems and Perspectives of Local Development” in Masaya in January 2011, and progress made will be reviewed in the upcoming forums. While the conference of 2011 worked with $5,000 in donated seed money, a goal of these new forums is to develop projects and initiatives requiring no foreign funding, such as educational programs or proposals to the municipal government. This reflects an alignment and shared vision of Alternativa and FSD to promote locally sustained programs.

Alternativa is a well-known development organization in the Masaya community that offers micro-credit programs and capacity-building workshops. They firmly believe that multilateral communication between organizations dedicated to community development is essential to their progress. In a country like Nicaragua, where 46.2% of the population lives at or below the poverty line, this type of coordination can make a huge impact on the methods and outcomes of development projects. Alternativa is a longstanding FSD partner and has received numerous grants for their outstanding work, including a grant from a $72,000 microfinance program funded by The Rotary Fund and administrated by FSD that is starting up sustainable community banks to provide low-income communities access to critical capital for income generation and poverty alleviation.

FSD Award-winning Grass-root Partners in India- JBF & Rupayan Sansthan

On December 5th, two of FSD’s community partners in India were presented with state-level Dalmia Awards, which honor work in water conservation and the environment. Rajasthani Governor Margaret Alva presented the awards to Kanupriya Harish of Jal Bhagirathi Foundation (JBF) and Kuldeep Kothari of the “Arna-Jharna” museum, operated by Rupayan Sansthan. Ms. Alva commended their use of community initiatives in the conservation of water and the environment, emphasizing the importance of community-based action as a supplement to government assistance. This prestigious honor awards a first prize of Rs. 1,00,000 in cash and eight consolation prizes of Rs. 11,000.

FSD partner Jal Bhagirathi Foundation was honored with the top prize in recognition of its scientific methods for water supply and its campaign highlighting the local issue of pasture land, check-dams and boundaries of agricultural fields. Since 2002, JBF has worked to implement community-based approaches to water management that improve the access of local communities while increasing participation and representation of women and disadvantaged groups. Ms. Alva echoed these goals at the awards ceremony, calling for an end to the traditional practice of women traveling long distances to retrieve water and advocating the supply of water through taps in each house.

We are equally proud to announce that Rupayan Sansthan was awarded a consolation prize for their work on the conservation and discovery of the oral history of Rajasthan through the ‘Arna-Jharna’ museum. Since their establishment in 1960, Rupayan Sansthan has researched and archived folk tales and folk songs to promote the richness of the Rajasthani language and indigenous knowledge. The museum not only showcases their collection but, in the words of Kuldeep Kothari, “celebrates the traditional knowledge systems of the desert linking everyday cultural practices to larger ecological concerns which reflect through its unique design and architecture done by local people.” The facility itself collects rainwater in a stone quarry-turned-reservoir, supporting ethno-medicinal plants and staple crops that now cover the surrounding mountains. The museum space has been covered with greenery and is a habitat for birds and animals in a celebration of desert life.

The extraordinary efforts of these two partner organizations truly embody Governor Alva’s message at the awards ceremony. She emphasized the need for a collective effort by government agencies, civil society and voluntary groups to ensure availability of drinking water for the next generation. While she urged government employees to take interest in public welfare, tree plantation, the construction of toilets and agricultural techniques, she called upon the villagers to not depend solely on the government for water supply and take up community-based solutions to these problems.