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Project Mexico

admin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:19:10 +0000

Adolfo Solis

Born in Mexico
Indiana resident
Ball State University student
CASA de Portland

Mexico’s Tarahumara Indians, who eke out a bare existence in caves high in the Western Sierra Madre mountains, lost 400 people this winter to hunger and bitter cold. But the startling death toll hardly caused a tear to be shed among this hardy race.

Mexico's Tarahumara Indians

The Tarahumara have had plenty of visitors, most of them unwelcome. First came Spanish soldiers 500 years ago, then missionaries and miners and recently lumber companies. Here in the heart of Tarahumara lands in the northern state of Chihuahua. For the Tarahumara, winter deaths are a natural phenomenon often overshadowed by other, harsher threats.
“This race, which ought to be degenerate, has for 400 years resisted every force that has come to attack it: civilization, inbreeding, war, winter, animals, storms and the forest,” wrote French anthropologist Antonin Artaud in the 1930s in words that still hold true.

Tarahumara Family

The Tarahumara are a group of semi-nomadic people who live an isolated life in the mountains of northern Mexico. They call themselves Rarámuri — “those of light feet” — and most live without electricity, heaters, gas stoves, and with very little conversation. They till crops, tend goats. They live a quiet, traditional but tough life that has been largely un-impacted by modern life.
Malnutrition among Tarahumara children reaches its peak during the second year of life (12-23 months old), affecting boys more than girls. This information may be useful for planning and targeting nutrition intervention programs for this underprivileged indigenous group

Working

Experts agree high birth rates, closely knit community structures and a relatively balanced diet are behind the Tarahumaras’ resilience. With no clans or lineages, and descent and inheritance equal on both sides of the family, the Tarahumaras are a highly democratic group. Communities make consensus decisions on everything from land disputes to local sports rules.
The figures are surprising considering the winter deaths and the population drain on the Tarahumara as the young are lured away to the bright lights of cities. Some abandon the harsh way of life and integrate into Mexican communities. Others, broken by repeated crop failures, end up begging on the streets of Chihuahua City, the state capital.

Closed

“They deliberately chose to stay apart from the outside world and consequently suffer the price of high infant mortality and also low life expectancy,” anthropologist Breen Murray said. “But it helps them survive as a race.”
It is not only the Tarahumaras’ culture that survives. Population statistics indicate their numbers are relatively healthy too. Pedro Perez Mata, director of Chihuahua state’s Tarahumara Coordinating Commission, said no accurate census exists but he estimates that 60,000 to 65,000 Tarahumaras currently live in the Western Sierra Madre mountains. That compares with estimates 10 years ago of around 50,000.

Cave Home

ReLIEF

We are a group of people to help improve education to those who need it most. Together we will unite private sector, communities, and Mexican government

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Adolfo Solis

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Adolfo Solis

Ethiopia Project

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:37:03 +0000

“We must remember the lesson of taking third world problems one at a time. If you sit down and try tot solve the total African problem, you find yourself becoming almost impotent. The key is helping one person at a time.” This is a loose quote from Harry Belafonte’s We Are the World press conference in 1985.

My daughter Mary and wife Elizabeth traveled through Ethiopia in January of 2008. While we were there we set the foundation of starting an orphanage and helping children learn English.

My son Aaron and I visited Axum Ethiopia in July of 2009. Our trip was to review what our very small group had been trying to do in helping with our mission to help orphans and help them learn English.

Arron Hudson and new friends

We found our small start up orphanage of ten children to be clean, healthy, wonderful, soul-fulfilling, and heart breaking. A friend looked at our orphanage pictures and tearfully said, “You did not bring them home with you.”

We found an English language school which is life changing to these children. The Director of the Glorious Language Center requested what they need most are computers with printers.

We need help with our mission of computers with printers for teaching English and funds to set up more orphanages for children.

The Glorious Language Center
Tel: 753077
Mobile: 0914744057
0913518984

Lillian Orphanage

CACFO

Lillian Johnson
P.O. Box 22
Amherst, Va 24521

OOvit Tesfay – Axum Contact
Cell: 251-9-111-85279
travelcovenant@yahoo.com

Project Ethiopia Contact
Mr. Barry Hudson
P.O. Box 701
Portland, Indiana

Beamhudson@embarqmail.com

China Project

admin — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:28:06 +0000

My name is Xiyun Duan, a graduate student of Ball state University, majoring in Educational Administration and Supervision that is a program to train school administrators in the U.S. I came to America with a purpose and I believe study here can help me reach my goal that is to establish an elementary school in rural part of China. It’s been a long journey that I’m confirmed by the vision and I really appreciate once only a dream but now is turning into a destination I’m driving to.

Nanxi Village Elementary School, Youyang

Three years ago I moved from Tianjin to Youyang to become a volunteer teacher. Youyang locates in southwest China, belonging to ChongQing province. Tujia and Miao ethnic groups consist of 80% of the population of 800,000 people. It’s a remote and isolated place but with fantastic beauty of mountain scenery. My father was born there and that’s one of the reasons I chose it to go as a volunteer. I have always had a big concern about education in China rural places and that’s the biggest motivation I went. It was a hard decision. My family and friends didn’t understand my sudden and seemingly unreasonable decision, for there seemed no future that lay ahead of me if I moved to a place like that. But today I can say with confidence that the decision has turned out to be a milestone of my life and my life was changed ever since.

Classroom of the Nanxi Village School

The first half year which was from Dec. 2006 to 2007 June, I taught at a local public middle school, teaching 7th grade English. The school building was old without any modern teaching devices. Normally 70 students crowded into one shabby classroom. During the time when I was in that school, a student was killed after a fight with a group of his peers just in front of the school gate in day time. 6 years ago, 7students were trampled to death during a rush after night class in the dark school corridors. I would not say it is the same educational situation all over the country, but nor is it rare, especially in county and rural levels. To make it worse, there are not many choices for students to make.

The road to school

The well-known miserable earthquake suddenly fell on 5.12.2008 and located in Sichuan Province where Youyang is not very far from. Soon after the earthquake a Hong Kong organization and I recruited a small relief team to the disaster area. To our surprise, we met a friend from Youyang who moved to Beichuan (the center of the earthquake) about 4 months before the earthquake.

Teaching 8th grade

When we met her in Chengdu, she was waiting for any news about her husband and daughter. When the earthquake happened, her daughter was in her pre-school and her husband was in his school on duty, for he was a secondary teacher. The result turned out to be that she didn’t see them survive from the earthquake and even the bodies were not found. Actually the later data show that during the Wenchuan Earthquake of 2008, 81.68% of 5,781 students and teachers who died from the earthquake died due to sleazy school buildings. However, we were touched and moved by the sangfroid and courage the lady demonstrated in the misery. She

A collapsed elementary school

calmly showed us pictures of the family right before the earthquake and talked about back to work. She even didn’t plan to leave that place but stay to help the reconstruction. I believe there are thousands of victims like her who are brave and dedicative, who love to help even when they themselves are in immense sorrow and pain. They didn’t deserve tragedy like this, but both parents and children deserve schools with the sturdiest buildings and the best education provided within it. People I have met, students I have taught and things I have seen confirm my faith in my vision—start a school where students can really enjoy learning and where parents and students don’t need to worry one day building collapse down caused by man-made poor building quality.

Library - Activity Center in Youyang

And this desire firstly gave birth to a current project—Activity Center for Children and Adolescents that locates in Longtan, a town of Youyang. A local church shares partnership and I am the coordinator. The Center includes a library which is the only free library in the town, a training hall, and a counseling room. Children and students come to read books, teachers and parents come for counseling, students having difficulties and troubles find us. We also regularly invite experts to give training in topics like parenthood, communication in family, marriage, health education and so on to local people. The Center also financially supports poor students that they can continue their study. I’m now in America but I still facilitate the operation of the Center. The next goal is to open an elementary school there. We’re in process of making contact with the local government and they expressed that they would open the door if we would invest in education as much as we proposed.

Resource Link International Educational Foundation is a newly registered organization that aims to provide resources in education to places where it is needed. I’m honored to be the Vice President and the coordinator of China Initiative. I’m confidence that with the mutual effort with my colleagues who share the same vision, we as a team will contribute to the awareness of need of education in a global spectrum and help those in need reach to resources by which they can make a change of their children’s future.

Sincerely,

Xiyun Duan

Relief For Children » School Projects

Project Mexico

Adolfo Solis

Born in Mexico Indiana resident Ball State University student CASA de Portland

ReLIEF

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Presented by

Adolfo Solis

Ethiopia Project

China Project

Born in Mexico
Indiana resident
Ball State University student
CASA de Portland