Thursday, November 3, 2011

Sustainable Community Development, part 1

BELIZE --
In order to learn about how to develop sustainable communities, or how to sustain developing communities, or how to develop communities sustainably, we spend 2 weeks studying and taking field trips around Belize. Our guide for the first week was professor Jonathan Warner from Quest University in Canada. Jonathan challenged us with questions about empowerment, globalization, biblical views of poverty, and what a development strategy based on God's shalom would look like. To complement these questions, we visited a few places in Belize.

One place we visited was a women's group in the nearby mountain village of San Antonio. A loval San Antonio woman named Timotea started this group because she wanted to see the women in her community using their collective skills to benefit themselves and their community. They currently focus mainly on pottery making, embroidery, gardening, raising chickens, and cooking.

Deb (Messiah '12) learning how to make bollos, a traditional Mayan meal


Something that we thought was pretty awesome and resourceful at the women's group was their biodigester. A biodigester is a simple system that turns organic waste (in this case, pig manure) into a nutrient-rich fertilizer and methane, which can be used to run a stove for over 6 hours!

Lizz (Messiah '13) knows that what comes out of this beast of a pig can help us heat water


We also learned about some more complicated methods of development by visiting a hydroelectric dam on the Macal River. There has been some controversy in Belize about the positives and negatives of these dams as Belize is in need of electrical energy, but there are some very real trade-offs surrounding river health and water quality. No easy answers here.

Mixed reactions to the questionable development method


We let these questions simmer for a bit (and spent a week in the rainforest) before coming back for Sustainable Community Development part 2...

1 comment:

  1. It's so fun to see the girls with Josefa and the pigs! I miss San Antonio, oh it would be so nice to go back!

    -Hannah

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