SWOT and Gender Roles Analysis

As we have explained in previous blog entries, the foundation of all the work that Peace Corps volunteers do is based upon our analysis and observations in the communities where we live. We do this analysis first because it helps ensure that the projects we commence are better aligned with the needs and interests of the community. As volunteers we strive to leave sustainable and lasting work projects that will continue on long after we are gone. By focusing our efforts on projects that align with vested community needs and desires we are more likely to accomplish this objective.

Two of the most widely used community analysis tools used by Peace Corps volunteers in Panama are the SWOT (Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats) analysis and the gender roles analysis. Though each activity examines different aspects of the community’s cultural, economic, and social dynamics, both help identify not only common problems but also illuminate components that will make for more sustainable solutions. For example, if volunteers can learn who typically manages family finances they can better focus their efforts on creating a community savings group on the appropriate individuals. Furthermore, by reviewing all possible community problems, volunteers are better able to determine which problems they can hope to address with the technical resources, support, and experience that they have at their disposal.

Anyway, attached below is the raw aggregate data that we collected during our community analysis from the SWOT and gender analysis. We had roughly 100 people participate in these activities during our community meetings in January and February and the results proved to be quite beneficial and, in some instances, quite comical (for example, in the gender analysis men identified “nagging” as a gender role for women while women identified “gossiping” as a gender role for the men). Please note that some of the items are not literal translations and we tried to keep the vocabulary and grammar that was used during our meetings.

Without further ado, here are the results:

SWOT/FODA ANALYSIS ACTIVITY

We facilitated a SWOT — Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (FODA in Spanish: Fortalezas, Oportunidades, Debilidades, Amenazas) analysis with the community at two meetings. An explanation of the purpose of the SWOT analysis was provided at both meetings and the previous meeting’s contributions were reviewed at the second meeting. Attached are the combined results of each meeting for each category:

Fortalezas/Strengths:

• unidad de la comunidad/unified community
• Básica General/elementary and middle school
• grupos organizados/organized groups
• sub-centro de salud/health sub-center
• instalación de portiva/installation of PVC pipes
• buen clima/good climate
• fácil acceso/easy access, roads, etc.
• vías de comunicación/ways to communicate, i.e. public telephone
• agua potable, luz, suelo, y calles/safe drinking water, light, soil, streets
• teléfonos – residencias, publico, y celular/telephones – homes, public, and cellular
• cedacero del corregimiento/county seat
• relleno sanitario/landfill
• computadoras y Internet en la escuela/computers and Internet in the school

Debilidades/Weaknesses:

• baja matricula en la Básica General/low enrollment in the school
• falta de personal en el sub-centro/lack of personnel in the health sub-center
• verano muy largo/long summer
• variación en el precio del ganado/variation in price of cattle
• falta de medicinas en el sub-centro/lack of medicine in the health sub-center
• drenaje deficiente en la instalación de portiva/inadequate drainage in the new PVC pipe installation
• falta del calcio en las vacas – cabezas y pies/lack of calcium in the cows’ horns and hooves
• agua servida – falta de un plan/service water – lack of plan
• letrinas/latrines
• basura que no esta en el relleno sanitario/trash that is not in the landfill
• calles sin asfaltos/streets that are not paved
• algunas partes no hay luz/some parts of town don’t have electricity
• vacas flaca/skinny cows
• vados sobres quebradas/stream crossings are poor
• tubos de asbestos por agua potable/asbestos pipes for drinking water

Oportunidades/Opportunities:

• incentivar a los padres de las familias para aumentar matricula del ciclo básico/incentivize parents to increase enrollment in the community school
• estudiantes aprenden recursos de computadoras y Internet/students learn computer and Internet skills
• reforestar la área con árboles/reforest the area with trees
• reciclar de envasas de pesticidas/recycle containers with pesticides
• Voluntarios de Cuerpo de Paz/Peace Corps Volunteers
• mejorar y limpiar el ambiente/clean and improve the environment
• cambiar tubos por salud mejor/change the asbestos pipes to improve health
• capacitación sobre muchas cosas/training on many topics

Amenazas/Threats:

• contaminación de el agua/water contamination
• verano muy fuerte/strong hot summer
• coyotes que matar animales/coyotes that kill animals
• emigración – estudiantes se fue por ciudades grandes/emigration – students are leaving for bigger cities
• fuente de empleo – falta de trabajo/source of employment – lack of work
• problemas de salud porque de tubos de asbestos/health problems caused by asbestos pipes
• contaminación del ambiente y problemas de salud/contamination of the environment and health problems
• enfermedades de animales y personas – Hanta Virus/animal and people diseases – Hanta Virus

GENDER ROLES ANALYSIS ACTIVITY

At one meeting, community members participated in a gender roles activity where each group identified which activities are the responsibility of men, women, and both sexes. Participants were divided into three groups: women, men, and youth. Each group did their own gender roles analysis and then shared their results with the other groups. Attached are the results from each group.

Youth Group:

Niñas/Girls:

• ayudan en la casa a/help in the house by:

– barrer, fregar, lavar/sweep, wash dishes, wash clothes

– arreglan el hogar/tidy up the house

– estudiar/study

• fuera del hogar/outside of the house:

– van a la tienda/go to the store

– mandados/chores

Los Dos/Both:

• estudian/study
• ayudan en la casa/help in the house
• hacen los mandados/do chores
• juegan/play

Niños/Boys:

• ayudan en la casa/help in the house by:

– buscar leña, gas/look for firewood, gas

– limpiar el patio/clean the patio

– estudiar/study

• fuera del hogar/outside of the house:

– labores agrícolas y ganaderas/agricultural and cattle work

– van a la tienda/go to the store

– mandados/chores

WOMEN’S GROUP:

Mujeres/Women:

• cocinar/cook
• lavar /wash clothes
• fregar/wash dishes
• limpieza/clean
• planchar/iron
• coser – modistería y manualidades/sew – machine and by hand
• hacer sombreros/make hats
• trabajar fuera de la casa/work outside of the casa
• cuidar los animales/take care of the animals
• recoger los huevos, posturas de gallinas/collect chicken eggs
• hacer pan y dulces/make bread and sweets
• maquillarnos, arreglo personal/to put makeup on ourselves
• cuidar los niños/take care of the kids
• dormir, descanso/sleep, rest
• diversiones, fiestas/fun, parties
• manejar carros/drive cars
• administrar el dinero/money management
• ir a misa/go to mass
• trapear/mop
• pasear/visit and socialize

Los Dos/Both:

• cuidar los niños/take care of the kids
• limpieza/clean
• cocinar/cook
• ver televisión/watch television
• cuidar los animales domésticos/take care of the domesticated animals
• trabajar en la molienda/make honey
• hacer pan/make bread
• ayudar a los niños en los estudios/help the kids with their studies
• dormir/sleep
• diversiones, fiestas/fun, parties
• manejar carros/drive cars
• administrar el dinero/money management
• ir a misa/go to mass
• comprar alimentos/buy food
• construir casas/build houses
• cosechar los siembros/harvest
• pasear/visit and socialize

Hombres/Men:

• trabajar en el campo/work in the field
• ordeñar/milk cows
• vacunar/vaccinate animals
• herrar/shoe horses
• trabajar en la molienda/make honey
• cosechar los siembros/harvest
• dormir/sleep
• diversiones, fiestas/fun, parties
• ir a misa/go to mass
• construir casas/build houses
• pasear/visit and socialize
• bochinches/gossip

MENS’ GROUP:

Mujeres/Women:

• tejer, coser/weave, sew
• planchar/iron
• lavar/wash clothes
• cocinar/cook
• regaños/naggers

Los Dos/Both:

• cocinar y planchar/cook and iron
• fregar platos/wash dishes
• lavar/wash clothes
• administración de organizaciones/organization administration
• cuidar Ganado/take care of cattle
• huerto familiar/family vegetable garden
• manejar dinero/manage money
• cuidar los niños/take care of the kids
• manejar autos/drive cars
• hacer compras en supermercados, almacenes, y agropecuarios/make purchases in supermarkets, stores and agricultural supply stores
• atender animales, pollos, credos/attend to animals, chickens, pigs
• deportes/sports

Hombres/Men:

• ordeñar las vacas/milk the cows
• sembrar/plant
• cosechar/harvest
• fumigar/fumigate
• manejar transporte publico/drive public transportation
• correduría/local mediator
• representante/town representative
• deportes/sports
• regañados/naggees

FREEHOP: Economics #1, The Tale of Two Economies

Since we are both Community Economic Development volunteers, I thought it would be appropriate to start the FREEHOP posts off on “Economics.” (If you don´t know what FREEHOP is click here.)

The largest economic drivers in rural Panamá (this does not include the canal or international trade) are agriculture and tourism. These are fairly vague distinctions; agriculture is pretty straightforward and under the tourism umbrella I would also include tourist related products such as artisan handcrafts. Both in our new community in Los Santos and our first community in the Comarca Ngöbe-Bugle agriculture is the main economic engine.

In El Bale, most individuals work in some sort of agricultural production. The most commonly farmed products are yuca, rice, beans, and corn. However, unlike other regions in the Comarca Ngöbe-Bugle, El Bale lacks a suitable climate for the production of cash crops such as coffee or chocolate. Poor soil, primitive transportation infrastructure, and a lack of bridges over large water crossings also hinder the potential for extensive income generation from agriculture. The regional cooperative does buy crops from producers (primarily beans and corn in El Bale) but several cooperative members are unable to get their crops into the stores to be sold. Transportation of crops is especially bad during the rainy season when many routes are impassible with crops. Even if crop transportation were more feasible, several producers are unable to grow enough to feed their own families, let alone have any excess to sell.

Economic development activities in El Bale revolve around improving roads and bridges and creating value-added products (such as honey or processing yuca into yuca flour) that can be created in the greater El Bale region and then distributed to cities.

In our new community in Los Santos, basic economic infrastructure is in relatively good shape which allows community members to more easily profit from their labor.  For cattle farmers (which is pretty much everybody in this neck of the woods), the primary sources of income are selling their cattle for meat and milk production. Unlike El Bale, community members are able to sell their products quite easily.  National and international companies, such as Nestle and Estrella Azul, travel to the community to buy the raw milk and transform it into products including cheese, powdered milk products and straight up old fashion milk. While these companies provide producers with easy access to market, they are not always available, especially during the dry season when lower milk production does not justify that travel entailed for these companies to buy the milk.

Additionally, several families in the community have taken measures into their own hands by creating their own cheese production facility. Nearby producers bring their milk to the facility and queso blanco (white cheese) is made seven days a week, 365 days a year by a handful of employees who live in the community. In addition to being sold in the community, the cheese is also transported via refrigerated truck to neighborhood stores and supermarkets throughout the province and even as far as Panamá City. Though they are not the largest producer by far, the cheese facility in our community is able to ensure a consistent buyer for a local product. A major drawback however is that the group is no longer able to travel to pick up milk from producers farther away from the facility (they had a truck but it no longer works). This limits their ability to increase production.

Members of our new community have been able to increase local economic opportunities by creating a value-added product (cheese) within the community instead of sending their raw material (milk) outside of the community for further processing. Not only does this provide local jobs, but it also provides a sense of community pride and ownership.  This example provides a model that can be replicated in other parts of the country and shows how to increase quality of life in rural Panamá sustainably.

Introducing FREEHOP

Warning: Potential Nerd Alert! Against Kate’s better judgement I am starting this series even though she thinks no one will read it…prove her wrong people!!

One of the tools Peace Corps uses for community analysis is called FREEHOP (for more on what community analysis is click here). FREEHOP is a nifty little acronym we use to make sure we examine the myriad aspects of our community to help ensure that our projects meet community needs/desires and increase their potential of being sustainable after we leave or, in other words, helping make sure that the round peg fits and stays in the round hole. This is also the part of our Peace Corps service where our anthropology classes come in handy.

In addition to using this tool for community analysis, I thought we should also use the FREEHOP to teach you all more about life in rural Panamá. Over the next several weeks, we will do a series of blog entries that examine these facets in both communities we have lived in as well as Panamanian culture in general. We hope  you will find these posts informative and provide you the opportunity to learn more about Panamá. Check back tomorrow for our first installment on Economics.

Here is a brief breakdown of the acronym plus expamples of the questions we are looking to answer in each category.

Family: average family size, gender roles in household responsibilities, gender expectations within families, which family members live together, who inherits what when family members die, family migration to larger cities

Religion: type and number of organized religions in the community, potential religious prejudices, role of religion in personal lives and community activities, religious holidays/festivals, what influence do religious leaders and practices have on community affairs

Education: educational opportunities available in the community, who attends the schools, what importance is placed on education in the community, where are the teachers from, what educational opportunities outside of the community do community members utilize, who doesn´t go to school

Economics: what does the community produce, who has control over economic resources and decision-making, how are products transported, who makes purchasing decisions within the community, what materials are purchased inside and outside the community, what circumstances can positively/negatively impact the local economy

Health: what medical facilities are located in the community, is traditional or modern medicine (or both) practiced in the community, what are the water sources, what does the community diet consist of, what sanitation measures are used (hand washing, latrines, etc.), where do people go when they are sick or have medical emergencies

Organizations: what are the active and in-active  organizations in the community, what services are provided to the community through these organizations, what level of agency and NGO (non-government organization) support do community organizations receive, what organized sports are played in the community, who attends meetings and how do they participate

Politics: who are the official and unofficial community leaders, what influence do these leaders have over community decisions, how do people express and resolve grievances, which political parties are represented in the community, how does party affiliation of community leaders affect availability to government resources

Getting Settled In and Feeling Good

After our first two weeks in the community, I´m happy to report that things are going great and that we love our new host family and the people in town. We´ve been busy “pasearing” (walking around town, house to house to talk to people) and meeting everyone. Although pasearing is fun, it can be a little tiring, especially when we “power pasear” for 3 hours at a time! Everyone is excited to meet us, and a few people even said they were disappointed that we hadn´t made it to their house yet, or that they weren´t home when we came by. We feel incredibly appreciated by the community, and everyone is always asking us if we are feeling comfortable and if they can do anything to help us. One woman even said “Halleluja!” when we introduced ourselves and told her we were the new Peace Corps Volunteers in the community! They are also extremely encouraging with our spanish, and in the two weeks we´ve been here, our language skills have been improving immensely. Finally!

Our community has about 100 or 120 houses in it (approx. 350 people, although that´s a guess), separated into two different parts of town. The main business is cattle, and many families depend on agricultural or cattle based income. They grow rice, corn, yucca, plaintains, and beans (sometimes one or two other crops as well). There are three small tiendas in our community, and the largest business is a cheese factory that makes fresh “queso blanco” from the local cow milk. It´s pretty good cheese, and the business sells it in nearby Las Tablas, and even outside of Panama City, in Arrijian (a community very close to where we lived during our training). They never have a problem selling all of the cheese they produce, and they´ve been in business since 1993.

Sundays are baseball days in our community from January through May. The regional field is in the center of town, and teams from throughout the area come for a full day of games on Sundays (2 in the morning, 2 in the afternoon). It´s quite the social gathering, and although we´ve only been once so far, a pretty fun time.

Our community is also home to the regional school, which currently has about 150 students of all ages attending. We think there is a lot of potential for work in the school and there are dormitories for the students who live to far to travel to the school daily (so we have a captive audience!). Also, the school has several computers and laptops that they need help with setting up, maintaining, and using to teach the students, so this is looking like a strong work possibility for one or both of us.

During our first week in town, we got to sample a wide variety of the local foods here as we paseared. One on occassion, Bracken was served a specialty dish of fried pig fat and skin, which unfortunately still had the hair on parts of it. Bracken bravely ate a little to be polite, but decided afterwards that he is drawing the line on foods that include animal hair. Otherwise, we´ve really been enjoying the cuisine, which does indeed include beef for every meal. The variety of fruits available here is incredible, and we´ve been feasting on coconut milk, fresh oranges (that are everywhere!), lemons, papaya, guyabana, bananas and banana varieties (of which there are an infinite amount), pineapple and lots of other goodies. The fruit has been a real treat, and tamarinds are in season in February. We´ll have to wait until July or August for all of the mangos.

We have our first official community meeting this coming Friday, on January 15th. We´re hoping for a big turn-out to introduce ourselves to the community and to begin talking with them about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing the community, which will hopefully point us towards the most pressing needs, work-wise. In general, the people are a fun loving group who readily adopted us into the community and have been very supportive with helping us adjust and encouraging us in our spanish skills.

In terms of the kindness and hospitality we´ve received, here´s a small sample of the generosity:

• While swimming in the local water hole, Bracken´s wedding ring slipped off, and we weren´t able to find it. (Don´t worry, it´s not the real band, just a simple one we bought for living in Panama. The real deal is safe in the states.) One man went back to his house and brought us a mask to use to look for it. Despite spending a bit of time searching, we couldn´t find it, and gave up. The next day, the same man came over to our house, with the ring! He had gone back to the swimming hole, spent his time searching, and eventually found it. He wouldn´t tell us how long he looked, but it couldn´t have been easy. It was really important to him to find it, and sure enough, he did!
• One night we were talking with our host parents, and mentioning that we wanted to take a day trip into Las Tablas to get some groceries and find the bank, post office, grocery store, agency buildings, etc. The next thing we knew, they had planned a trip for us with their son (who lives next door) to give us a personal tour of the city. He drove us in his car, and then spent about an hour taking us to every place in the city that we might possibly need to visit over the next two years. It was very generous of him to share his time and car with us, but the whole family was so kind about it, and kept insisting it wasn´t a big deal.
• After attending a meeting of the farmers´ group one evening, the Treasurer of the group (and local bus driver) invited us to his town nearby. We thought he was just willing to take us in the van and drop us off for some quality pasearing, but when we arrived, it turned out that the whole town (about 9 houses, and all related family members) was there to meet us and get to know us. They had cooked an amazing dinner for us, showed us around their cattle farms, helped us identify the overwhelming amount of tropical fruit on their property, and then we spent about 2 hours chatting with all of them. It was so much fun, and then they drove us back to our house. It was a great night, and everyone kept saying how happy they were to have us and how they had been anxiously awaiting meeting us!

Needless to say, things are going really well for us here, and that doesn´t include the “comforts” of home that we now have — including electricity, a constant source of potable water (that doesn´t vanish during the dry season), indoor plumbing, and even a small washing maching. Things are looking up, and we´re excited to get started on some projects to help our great new community! Stay tuned…

PS — See the previous post for a link to pictures from our first week in our new site. There´s a quality photo of our host mother lassoing a pig in our backyard!

The First 100 Days

Now that we are officially Peace Corps Volunteers, the two-year clock is counting down.  Since a lot of you are probably wondering what we are doing, I thought I would take this opportunity to explain what our initial tasks are in our first 100 days (the last few days of October through the end of January)  in our site.  I should emphasize now that this is not an exact process that will take exactly 100 days to complete but is a summary of the steps we will do as we become integrated into our community.

The Community Economic Development program has an established cyclical process that we use to assess, implement and evaluate our work. The first step in this process, and arguably the most important, is to build trust and friendship with members of the community.  While it might sound basic, this step can really determine the success of our future work in the community. Any future “success” in our development work will not be measured in completed projects (such as the number of latrines built or the number of babies we immunized) but in our ability to transfer relevant and useful knowledge to the people in our community. The process of transferring knowledge to our community partners will be accelerated greatly by laying an initial groundwork of trust and understanding.

The process of building trust and friendship provides another critical component to our work as well; it provides us with the opportunity to determine the problems and desires of our community partners.  By discussing the work that Kate and I can potentially do with the community before we beginning working, we can develop work opportunities that more authentically reflect the interests of our specific community. This initial step we will be working on does not appear to be utilized by other development programs to extent that it is used in the Peace Corps and therefore makes the Peace Corps a unique asset that can strengthen other external efforts to improve the communities where we work.

The initial phases of building friendships in our community can be as simple as living in the community; attending previously scheduled group meetings, visiting with neighbors at their houses, and just simply listening to what other people think.  Essentially, this process helps us build a common language of understanding that everyone in the community will be able to utilize once we begin our more formal work. During our first visit to our site, Kate and I made and shared this list of objectives that we are working on during our first three months:

• Attend meetings of all the groups in our community that want us to attend.
• Pasear, Pasear, Pasear (this is a Spanish verb that means to walk around and chat).
• To learn more about agriculture and visit farms with different crops.
• Visit the schools in the community, attend a few classes, and learn about their existing programs.

Several additional goals will probably be added as we go along but this hopefully gives you a good idea of what we are doing in our first 100 days.

First Impressions

Hello everyone! Long time, no post! Last week, we visited the site where we will be living for the next two years. We are still processing the experience but we are excited to know where we will be working and are ready to get started. We will provide a more in-depth analysis of our site in the weeks ahead but, in the mean time, I thought I should share some of our first impressions about where we will be going.

• The town is located in the mountains of central Panama. While the majority of the inhabitants have an indigenous heritage, our community feels very much like a Latino community. Everyone that we spoke with only speaks Spanish and the traditional indigenous clothing that we have seen in other parts of the region is not worn here.
• The region is almost completely dependent on subsistence agriculture. Many people have large farms (called fincas) several hours away so they essentially live in two different places.
• There is a very large secondary school in our site with approximately 200 students. About half of the students live in large dormitories during the week and return home on the weekends since the school is too far away from their homes to walk to school everyday.
• Our site has running water provided by three or four aquaducts. There is an electrical grid set up with working street lights but 90% of the city does not have electricty. The area has limited cell phone reception, so to make phone calls or receive messages, we will be climbing up a hill to get a signal.
• There has not a been a Peace Corps volunteer in our site for almost five years. Many of the children have never seen someone with light skin before, so we got a lot of staring and curious kids during our visit. Luckily, they are all friendly and interested in talking to us.
• We are looking forward to working with many community groups, including an agricultural cooperative that manages three tiendas in the region, a community family group, the local Catholic church and their many activities (including a farm and beekeeping project), and the primary and secondary schools.
• The government recently built about 25 brand new houses in town, made of cement and bamboo and painted various colors. We think we will be renting one of these houses during our service. Other houses in the community vary — some families live in mud and pinca houses, some in cement and zinc houses, and some in the new government houses.
• There is another volunteer in our community — from the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps. She has been living there for two years, working primarily on agricultural projects, but was out of the community during our visit so we have not been able to meet or talk to her yet.

More info to come soon. In other news, we will be sworn in as Volunteers on Thursday, and will finally be official! Yay!

For pictures click here. To watch a video of the parade click here.