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January
and February saw Alison, still alone on the project in the
UK, looking for support… which was forthcoming from Explore
Worldwide, Journey Latin America, STA Travel. With a flight,
6-month insurance and five return trips Cusco- Lima, Ali returned
in March.
By May
we had moved into a tiny office in Cusco next to South American
Explorers, and had two long-term volunteers…. Lucy Bertenshaw
committed to working for a year, full time and Lucy Brandram
was part-time from May to October 2003. (Lucy Bertenshaw will
leave at the end of April 2004, so we are looking for a long-term
volunteer to coordinate the short term volunteers and look
after tourist inquiries…. More on this later). Lucy Brandram
will return to Cusco in March to work full time.
In June
we had our opening party, marking our entrance onto the Cusco
scene. Since then we have outfitted the office with three
donated computers, all necessary office equipment and internet
access, redesigned the website, issued flyers and written
articles. Below is a list of events and notable activities….
- Followed
up informally the eight porter workshops held during 2002
– monitoring current problems and collecting the porters
ideas for solutions.
- Spoke
and facilitated a workshop at the Porters Congress for two
days in June, arranged by the Mayor of Ollantaytambo (the
nearest village to the start of the Inca Trail to Machu
Picchu), attended by about 300 porters.
- Designed
laminated English vocabulary cards for porters to carry
on their treks.
- Three
trips to take tourists out to the Sacred Valley, one hour
from Cusco to teach porters English.
- Issued
flyers raising awareness of the project including advice
for tourists when choosing agencies and hiring porters.
- Collaborated
with PeruRail on a tourist flyer (paid for by PeruRail)
of safety and porter advice whilst staying in and around
Cusco. Over 1000 copies have been distributed throughout
Cusco… more are needed and a reprint is currently happening.
- Edited
and copied to CD an 11-minute video filmed by Alison about
the problems porters face on the Inca Trail and why IPP
exists. This
is available from us and in the UK and the US.
- Set
up an account and other office systems. In the near future
we expect that another local NGO with a similar but wider
mission statement will take over the bureaucratic part of
running the organization…Accounts,
tax etc.
- Set
up an equipment loan scheme for tourists to hire equipment
for porters – and in some cases for themselves.
- Received
about 12 large duffels full of equipment from various sources…
mostly from International Mountain Explorers Connection
and some from IPPG reps. There were a number of individual
donations of items and bags of clothing.
- Took
a tour to a local porter community where Alison was asked
to be the ‘godmother’ of the festival.
- Met
with many agencies and government departments introducing
the project.
- Collaborated
with Universidad Peruana de Ciencias in Lima on two semesters
of a course to design a specialized backpack for porters.
This included taking 20 tourists to measure porters for
their backpacks and arranging for two students to visit
the equipment stores of eight agencies to measure the equipment
taken on trails and interview agency and government representatives.
This project will be taken forward collaboratively in the
coming months.
The latest
news is that on 14th January, the Inka Porter Project was
asked to be the facilitator and driver of a consensus building
process to create solutions and practical proposals and actions
to solve many of the porter issues in Machu Picchu. Many of
these solutions will be applicable throughout Peru, preventing
problems at other ancient Inca sites before they occur.
The
plan for the coming year…
Organisational
Strategy
We are currently writing a strategy which will be very influenced
by the dialogue process that is about to start between all
the major players. We envisage a large part of this to be
planning capacity building programs for porters, possibly
with agency accreditation attached to this, as well as lobbying
to change some of the laws that currently don’t work and to
stamp out the corruption that currently exists, especially
on the Inca Trail. We are keen that all this work is done
in consensus with the major players so that they feel it is
their own and will not do the usual thing of disagreeing with
and actively fighting anything they are not well informed
about.
We will
become part of another NGO in the near future… much easier
for us because we are not Peruvian. More news on this later.
We have
funding and a contract from International Mountain Explorers
Connection to develop the viviencial tourism trip and also
teaching materials for porters and awareness raising materials
for Tourists. The total grant is $2500. We are able to get
funds given tax free to them which are then used to support
our projects.
Tourism
Concern is the partner in the UK who is taking tax-free donations
for us. In the coming year we need to get this relationship
more structured and controlled.
People
We will start the year with Lucy Bertenshaw as Volunteer Coordinator,
but will lose her at the end of April. WE URGENTLY NEED A
REPLACEMENT preferably from the beginning of April for a year.
Lucy Brandram
will come back in March and hopefully stay till the end of
the year (money permitting) working on fundraising, marketing,
articles and the consensus building process.
Within
the proposals we will write, we will look to fund a Peruvian
office administrator (to answer Spanish emails, sort out printing,
basic accounts and Cusco activities) and a director to replace
Alison.
Alison
has to go to the UK in February, and as yet we have no money
for her to return to Peru….. hopefully this will be forthcoming
before April. In England she will continue to work on the
project, build contacts and do talks at events and universities.
On her return we will hopefully have some money to contract
a director and Alison will slowly hand over to this person.
By the
end of 2004 Alison will not need to be on site at all and
will probably be living in another country…. (three years
in Peru is enough). She still expects to be involved, raising
awareness (probably globally) about the project and its lessons
and results and the use of consensus building techniques to
build sustainable solutions to the problems faced by porters
in Latin America. She will also be the main contact for “Porters
without Borders” an initiative to share porter experiences
lessons between countries and which will hopefully culminate
in porters from different countries visiting each other.
Communications
We have managed to achieve a lot in the first year, and the
second year will serve to maintain and update the publicity
we already have.
- With
the public: publish the next four quarterly newsletters,
El Ch’aski, which keeps all interested parties and tourists
up to date. Continue to copy and update flyers and increase
the area by asking volunteers to distribute flyers in other
Latin American countries
- With
porters: increase the number of porter workshops
- With
other stakeholders: manage and maintain the Porter Dialogue
Process which includes all actors.
- With
the Steering Group: we will continue to write updates every
month for feedback from our steering group.
Tourism
Awareness Activities
The
best way for tourist to really get a feel for the problems
and solutions available to indigenous portering communities
is to visit them. We have two ideas on this front:
1. Arrange
more short trips (1 or 2 days) to portering communities and
their festivals for tourists who happen to be in Cusco at
the time
2. Plan three different community-based tours from 10 to 14
days for foreign tourists which take in the Inca Trail, possibly
Lake Titicaca, Lima. We will use the most eco-friendly hostels,
and agencies which have a proven track record in caring for
the environment and their staff. Where possible we will stay
with local people. This is a pilot project in what is called
in Spanish “viviencial turismo” or living tourism.
Research
Some of the most dangerous portering activity in Latin America
happens in the south of Argentina. We hear that things are
not set up very well there and would like to visit and see
what the porters there could learn from our experiences and
how the work that we have already done could benefit them.
This year we would like to get more in touch with local, national
and international legislation on porter and tourism issues.
(This implies a policy post).
Funding
We will apply for around 12 grants – all of which will be
agreed and supported by our Cuscobased Porter Process and
our international advisory group. We don’t know what grants
these may be yet.
An internet
raffle of a painting kindly donated by Californian artist
Diane Dandeneau will take place in March of this year, managed
by South American Explorers and with half of the money going
to the Inka Porter Project. We will need help from IPPG with
the marketing of the tickets for this.
Some of
the activities we undertake will also produce funds – which
will all be spent within the project.
Thank
yous
- A big
thank you to the two Lucys (the volunteers)
- Explore
Worldwide
- STA
Travel
- Journey
Latin America
- Condor
Travel, Peru
- Restaurants
and Bars of Cusco for putting up posters and contributing
food to the party
- IPPG
Australia for a couple of shipments of clothes
- HEC
(now IMEC) for constant administrative support and clothes
and equipment shipments – and the voluntary help of Ken
Stober who put in our computer network and internet link
- UPC
university in Lima for collaboration on the porter backpack
design
- The
hundreds of volunteers who passed through our doors over
the past year, helping with teaching English, paper-making,
accounts systems, website design, newsletter writing, and
general fetching and carrying.
For more
information, articles and news from Inka Porter Project, check
www.peruweb.org/porters/news2003.htm
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