Meeting the Tantakuna ladies

Sara, a swedish volunteer, talks about her first time meeting the Tantakuna Ladies and her progress with promoting their products. 

Last week was the first time I got to meet the Tantakuna ladies. It was nice to see all the people that I heard so much about! Although I didn’t understand much of what was actually said in the meeting, Johan had explained to me beforehand that they were going to discuss was the idea of creating the co-operative. This has been on the agenda for quite some time now. Apart from that, I have been in contact with Sweden regarding the interest of buying the products for some different Christmas markets, which seems to have caught the interest of some. All in all, it seems as if  the Tantakuna ladies are well on there way and I’m excited to be apart of it!

To see what the Tantakuna ladies are making go to: https://shop.proyectohorizonte.org/

Working with the Grupo de Chicas

Fiona one of our newest volunteers hasn't had a problem fitting in amongst the girls at our youth group. Here's a short glimpse of what she and the other volunteers have done to create a safe environment for the young women of Ushpa Ushpa.

Since starting work at Proyecto Horizonte I’ve only been to the girls’ group twice so far but it’s fast becoming my favourite part of the week. It’s on once a week for about 3 hours and it’s a place for the girls of Ushpa-Ushpa to come and hang out, listen to music, and get to know each other. 

And it’s the getting to know each other part that is the main focus of the group at the moment. Or rather, confidence and trust in each other. After talking to the girls about who they could talk to if they had a problem or a secret, the overwhelming response was apparently ‘no one’. They don’t have anyone they trust enough to confide in; and this is something that surely has to change. Being a teenager is hard enough as it is, but not having anyone to talk to about it must make it that much harder.

So, that’s what tonight’s group was about. And I loved it.

We started off with jewellery-making and, although it didn’t start up too many conversations since everyone was concentrating pretty hard, it was fun to see what everyone produced at the end, and the girls let me take a few snaps of their handiwork.

Then, Jennifer came up with a great game to break the ice between the girls. It basically meant everybody ended up sitting on top of each other and laughing a lot, so the physical barriers between the girls were broken down which definitely helps a lot when it comes to trust.

The next game was Truth or Dare. Dangerous territory, but everyone made it through unscathed. I thought this was a great idea because both truth and dare require a certain amount of trust in the people you’re with: you tell the truth in the hope that you won’t get ridiculed, and you do a dare in the hope you won’t get ridiculed.

But the lights cut out halfway through. And, after a bit of screaming and running around, the group turned to the one activity you just have to do during a blackout: ghost stories. And, although I didn’t understand much of them (I know there was something about a black dog), it was fun to just sit in the dark and listen to the girls telling stories.

Overall, it was a really good night and I think the girls are beginning to trust each other more, and, as they see our faces there every week, I hope they’ll begin to trust us volunteers as well.

 

Tantakuna, spread the word!

Although slightly delayed, I finally share my volunteer experience at Proyecto Horizonte with you here. As the proverb says, better late than never. Having spent six months in South America the Latin spirit of ‘mañana, mañana!’ might have turned out to be somewhat contagious.

In this period I travelled with my friend Manon van Paaschen from Colombia to Argentina. Having prior experience in development work via the Dutch Kembé Foundation (http://www.kembe.nl), we visited a number of running NGOs in South America in search for new inspiration, experience and simply to give our trip some added value. This is how we ended up at Proyecto Horizonte.

Last February we stayed in Cochabamba and made our way to Avenida Petrolera Km 10 by shared taxi for two weeks. I was impressed by Proyecto Horizonte and the things achieved since it was founded. During our stay we mainly helped out in the kindergarten, where the spontaneity of the toddlers entertained us every single moment. I never expected working with young children would require such a high level of multitask capacity! At the end of each day I was shattered from singing and dancing to Spanish songs, feeding the children, wiping bums during the collective baño visits, playing in the playground and running after every child who dared to escape from the (most of the time non-existent) queue. I gained deep respect for la profe who always managed to have the children behave as she liked and exhibited a level of patience to be jealous of. As we wanted to improve our Spanish, we took classes from Carla, who gave us some private lessons at the hostel (Hostal Jardín, Calle Hamiraya #248) we stayed in. She organized her classes in a very playful and informal way, which made it fun and educative at the same time. I would recommend her to every future volunteer!

As we both have a background in business, we were especially interested in the microfinance activities and the Tantakuna group. These women make truly beautiful handicrafts but as there is an excessive supply of them in Bolivia, it’s often hard to sell for a reasonable price. In order to support, the Kembé Foundation made some money available to give their business a little boost. Together with Sirley, the coordinator of Tantakuna, we designed a keychain with the logo of Kembé which will be used as donor gifts in the future. This month we expect the first 200 pieces to arrive in the Netherlands! One step at a time, we hope to attract the attention of other organizations overseas and in this way spread the word of Tantakuna. Because they’re worth it.