APAPNEM:
In our last newsletter, I mentioned my hopes to begin a partnership with a new organization.  In March of 2007 we sent our first team to work with APAPNEM - Asociacion Pro Ayuda a las Personas con Necesidades Especiales de Monteverde (The Association for People with Special Needs of Monteverde).  APAPNEM’s goals, among others, include:  “Acquire infrastructure, equipment and furniture, including apparatus for physical and social rehabilitation with human resources necessary for their functioning” and “Collect funds to finance transportation for travel for conventional or alternative treatment, jobs, conferences, meetings and national or international tours for people with special needs.”

Additionally, APAPNEM hopes to provide:  1) A recreational and training room with sanitary services; 2) Kitchen and dining room;  3) An indoor heated swimming pool;  4) A set of vehicles adapted for transporting handicapped persons (as well as many other services for community members with special needs).  This is an ambitious endeavor, but with Patricia Jimenez (one of the founders of CASEM, some of you may remember her) and Victor Torres (the leader in Canitas and a board member of the Monteverde Clinic) at the helm, they are in good hands.

APAPNEM also welcomed our first exclusive family team.  A ten volunteer team, representing three generations of the same family, came together (from MN and the UK) for a one week, side-by-side service program with APAPNEM members and supporters.  The team and their partners worked on making tables and benches for the new facility. They came together to celebrate their family, as well as the human family!

Our second team was another stellar one!  This small but robust team built furniture to store some of APAPNEM’s things (currently housed at the clinic in Santa Elena, next door to APAPNEM’s future home) and made typical dance costumes.  The costumes will be worn by “mature” dancers who are members of APAPNEM.  These dancers will perform locally, to keep the music and dance of Costa Rica alive.  Some even hope and dream of competing nationwide, wearing these brightly-colored and expertly-made costumes. This team also visited the homes of senior citizens and people with disabilities. They took photographs and interviewed them to gather information about the elderly and disabled populations in the Monteverde area.  

San Luis:
In February of 2007, Global Volunteers sent its first team to the village of San Luis.  San Luis is like our other village sites, except for its unique location on the other side of Monteverde, and about 1,500 ft. below the Reserve.  The San Luis Valley is breathtakingly beautiful, and the community members are as wonderful as the others where we work.

We work in different parts of the community at San Luis, including two elementary schools (primarily infrastructure improvements as well as some conversational English teaching), the community and health centers, the community church, the library, the coffee cooperative and The Pacific Slope Trail Alliance. 

The San Luis Development Association, our local host, is a member of The Pacific Slope Trail Alliance, dedicated to “creating and maintaining the Pacific Slope Trail in order to promote community development, environmental and cultural education, and recreation and ecological conservation.”  Their brochure states that the trail’s plan is to “eventually connect the high elevation cloud forest with coastal mangroves in a single trail network.”  The trail “traverses the zone between cloud forest and the seasonally dry lower Pacific slope through a mosaic of farms, scattered forests and small communities.” 

Through offering “alternative financial opportunities, keeping development in local hands and providing incentives for conservation,” the trail will “strengthen the ability of local residents to manage their resources sustainably, earn a dignified living and preserve the rural character of the area.”  Does that sound great or what?  This is another example of an ambitious project in the good hands of local residents, including some CASEM member families.

We have sent three more teams to San Luis since that first one last year.  As the members of San Luis often comment, “San Luis has had a face lift since you guys started coming here.”  It looks so bright, clean and amazing!  Whereas the first team spiffed up the community center, the second team focused on the two elementary schools (and conducted very successful English-teaching at both schools). 

The third team took on the church and the community center next door. They also made curtains for the teacher’s office, installed a sink for the small children, organized the school library by subject and grade, and assisted the teacher in computer education.

The most recent team, which was here in December 2007, beautified, improved and brightened up the library, the health center and the grounds around both.  All of the teams at all of these sites have painted the buildings’ interiors and exteriors; completed carpentry projects; cleaned and cleaned and cleaned in and around the buildings; and beautified the green spaces.  The next team for San Luis is scheduled to arrive this March! 

CASEM:
We no longer send full teams to CASEM.  Every service program throughout the year (16 from Oct. 2006 – Sept. 2007 and 20 from Oct. 2007 – Sept. 2008) however, may send up to five volunteers to CASEM (as per volunteers’ requests).  Dona Nery, still the head administrator at CASEM, informed us last year that CASEM no longer needs full teams, as they have accomplished all of their renovation goals and subsequently only need help with routine maintenance.  Simultaneously, we realized that we need a place for volunteers who are too young to serve in other sites, and for folks who are less mobile and need an easier site to maneuver.  

We have had volunteers at CASEM during the December teams, and they have continued to contribute to the development of this 100 member women’s craft cooperative.  These teams assisted CASEM to build a new handicapped access ramp for their shop, which is now a legal requirement for all Costa Rican businesses.  The first team in December constructed the basic structure of the ramp, and then the second team worked with a local mason to install non-slip ceramic tiles on the ramp and the whole front entry way.  Other volunteers have assisted with organizing and tagging the items for sale in the shop, and in doing some gardening and painting projects around the shop.

Cebadilla:
Cebadilla continues to be a very successful and popular site for our volunteers.    Since our last newsletter, we have had a number of volunteer groups providing assistance to the local community here.  Among the projects they have contributed to are:

• Stuccoing the school, the school kitchen and the bus stop;
• Improving the functioning of the local water supply (go Nicasio et al!);
• Cleaning the soil out from behind the community center (go team go!);
• Nearly finishing the construction of a bus stop;
• Continuing to improve the drainage around the community center;
• Sanding and varnishing the school’s furniture;
• Painting the community center’s gate and fence;
• And (da da da, bang!) building a basketball court at the school!

Global Volunteers had another team at Cebadilla in February 2008 and this one was successful as well.  This group of seven volunteers has continued to work on the water supply system for the village, and assist in completing some of the other development projects that have been underway.

Los Tornos:
In Los Tornos, we have had many highly successful teams!  Los Tornos volunteers have helped with the following activities in the past year:

• Renovating the community church (tiling, grouting, painting, landscaping);
• Assisting the local community to build a wall between the school and the soccer field;
• Artistically constructing a fountain in front of the community center;
• Improving the soccer field by spreading several tons of rich top soil over the field;
• Teaching conversational English to students and community members;
• And, improving the cemetery by painting the crosses, roof and gate; stuccoing the wall, and landscaping. 

To top it all off, some especially artistically inclined volunteers created a tile mosaic on the entry way to the cemetery!  The most recent team to visit Los Tornos was in January of 2008, and they focused on building an addition to the local school that will be used as a computer training center for the kids in the community.

El Colegio:
We have not had a team at Colegio for some time, but we have three scheduled for 2008.  We will continue to work on the buildings and the soccer field that has been a work in progress for some time now.

Canitas:
We have suspended our program for the time being in Canitas.  We hope to resume our program there when Olger feels like he has enough community-wide support to fulfill their part on the matched labor and other partner requirements.

Thank you, again, for your enthusiasm, flexibility, assistance, cooperation, understanding (does this list sound familiar?) and presence.  We have had some fabulous teams during the last fourteen months, as we have had throughout the history of Global Volunteers’ involvement in the Monteverde area.  With this newsletter I can only begin to paint a few strokes of a picture representing the difference you have made to “la zona de Monteverde.”

Colby and I hope to hear from you, if not work with you, again this year.

Gina