Productividad y Vivienda is the area of Proyecto Horizonte that promotes the local economy and supports local enterprises, aiming to stimulate growth, creating jobs and improving living conditions. In previous years, the main focus has been the women’s group Tantakuna (which means ´together´in Quechua). This group focused on three areas: artisan workshop, a bakery, and kiosks next to the school selling snacks. In addition the women could join English and computer classes.

The approach of Productividad y Vivienda is based on the concept of motivating the local residents, training them and then guiding them in small steps to self sufficiency:  the women producing and selling artisan products, relied heavily on Johan and Anne from Proyecto Horizonte to sell their products abroad via the online shop. Now that sales have been established and exporting products became a routine, the objective is to to hand over more responsibility to manage the group to the women. Going foreard they shall organize their training in areas like business management, internal leadership, administration.

The groups running the kiosks are, compared to previous years, almost independent of Proyecto Horizonte.

This year we would like to open up to other local microenterprise groups and offer business guidance to improve productivity and increase income. Another plan for 2013 is to create a directory of products and services for the community of Ushpa-Ushpa, as the only communication in place currently is word of mouth. This way, when people in the community need a product or service, they might even be able to find the support locally. This would be a faster alternative than finding someone in the city and the leakage of money out of the local economy would be reduced.

Another area which is covered by Productividad y Vivienda is helping people improve housing and living conditions. In the past we have had help from organisations such as SODIS, which provided an architecht to give households planning, quotes and microloans to build toilets in homes. However, so far, the residents prioritized other work, such as walls around their houses, over toilets.

We need to work harder and be more creative to change the priorities

One of the key items for success is to have sufficient funds to help the start-up companies and to provide them with training, materials, equipment and expertise, is capital. We have steered clear of offering microloans to facilitate construction as there are enough micro lenders available to borrowers. We prefer that people get creative rent or share tools and products rather than acquiring them with a loan. Another way of promoting housing improvement without bearing large risks is being the middle man and facilitate communication between people seeking help with construction and organisations offering financial and architechtural asistance.

In summary, we expect that 2013 will see a lot of improvements in the area of Productividad y Vivienda; more independence to the women of Tantakuna, more communication between local enterprises and new support and developments for housing improvements.

Recent OTB meeting

On Sunday 10th March, Proyecto Horizonte staff met with their neighbors, the OTB of Mineros San Juan, in particular the Tunari group. We invited the members of the community to take part in an activity in which they drew a map of their area and analyzed their current living situation. Various members concluded that security in the area is a very important issue in the area as the sports court acted as a meeting point for several youth who use it for negative activities. The fact that the community themselves recognized security as being a problem is a big breakthrough!

We also spoke about how we have successfully attacked the topic of rubbish in the area through community cleaning activities; by organizing families to clean the football pitch and the park we have made them more aware of the cleanliness of their own homes.

Another issue raised was that, with work commitments and the difficulties they have, there is a great deal of importance in improving their capacities and learning more about using a computer, the internet, etc. and they suggested having lessons scheduled to allow them to work and study at the same time.

In conclusion, the representative of the group encouraged the women to get qualifications or take courses on bakery, textiles and other activities that, not only would be useful inside their homes, but would also allow them to generate an income, thus they could learn through the different services offered by Proyecto Horizonte.

We organized a youth night in Ushpa-Ushpa last Friday 8th March. This was the first big event in the community entirely for youth but hopefully to be followed by many more, because it was a success!

In Ushpa Ushpa there’s a problem with youth gangs, violence and drug abuse, which leads to the vicious circle of social exclusion and poverty. In Proyecto Horizonte we offer the youth alternative activities  through our sports and arts programs to prevent these problems. This event was aimed at reaching out to youth that are not currently involved in  our activities and find what activities they are interested in.

With this aim, we tried something we have never done before. An event, at night, open to the public with various expositions of talents.  The event was carried out together with 2 other organizations from Cochabamba called Performing Life and Educar es Fiesta. Performing Life’s work is aimed for children and youth working and living in the streets to create better futures for them through arts. They empower youth by teaching them performing arts and productive skills to avoid drug abuse and street life while improving their economic wellbeing.

The young artists of Performing Life had made a show including circus, hip hop dancing and music performances to introduce performing arts to youth of Uspha-Uspha, and Educar es Fiesta brought us a stilts workshop, which frightened a few younger kids! There was also bongo drumming, a rock singer and a lot of dancing that broke down the divide between the kids from different schools. There was an anime exposition  where there was also a drawing competition. Burgers, fries and sausages were provided by this year’s graduating class, to raise money for their end of year trip. Approximately 250 youngsters came to join the event.

We had an information desk and conducted interviews with the youth. We now have 150 responses  on what they want us to offer. Most popular is dancing followed by guitar and singing lessons.

So the night was a success and now in Proyecto Horizonte we will start developing the new ideas into action and hopefully soon can start new projects for the youth of Uspha-Uspha.

Yesterday there was another presentation for the local community, this time about HIV/AIDS, put together by students from the Andres Bello Institute and the health clinic staff. There were informative posters, presentations and a video about the subject, to which about 30 people attended, mostly mothers with their young children. Although Bolivia’s HIV rate is lower than many other Latin-American countries, there are still 1,000 known deaths a year from the disease, and the more awareness of it there is, the more likely it is to decrease. We also gave out free HIV tests and information leaflets. Hopefully we have made a difference!

Last Friday nearly all of the team at Proyecto Horizonte took part in the Bolivian tradition of Ch’allar. This involves making a small fire with herds, sweets, food, fake money, etc, and carrying the ashes round all of the rooms in order to protect them from all bad things. We started off in the school, we passed a cup of chicha round and went to all of the classrooms. Then we repeated the process in the kindergarten, the health clinic and the offices. The kids from the kindergarten all came together and did a dance round the playground, wearing carnival masks. It was really nice for almost the whole team to come together and there was a really positive atmosphere.

End of November 2012, we completed our first five year agreement the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of San Simon, Cochabamba (UMSS). UMSS sends us interns as social workers and psychologists who complete the practical parts of their studies. More than 110 interns worked with Proyecto Horizonte over the past five years. In a meeting with the faculty and Proyecto Horizonte, both sides presented an analysis of the impact of the work. It was agreed that the collaboration will continue next year

The children of the Daycare-Center celebrated the end of the school year. This also include a graduation ceremony for those kids that will continue in the school next year. This was a great day for teachers, parents and the children who were proud about their achievements.

On Sunday October 21, the 5th Fair of Proyecto Horizonte took place. On this day all areas present their work to the public. The various classes present their projects and our Tantakuna team sells their work. In this way we link the community well to our work and even generate a decent amount of sales.

Our children’s reading day is a fantastic event for children and parents to show the im-portance of reading. The children at our school have prepared short stories about topics such as love, friendship, or life in Ushpa-Ushpa. They then go to a central square in Cochabamba where they read them to passersby. For 15 read stories they receive a small gift. The reading day showed the importance of reading while being entertaining for all.