The end of CBT

Wow, time sure does fly. I can´t believe Community Based Training is almost over. I am going to miss the fruit trees, tropical mountainside and eating avocado and super delicious bananas everyday out here in the country side when we head back to the capital. We have done so much in CBT I really don´t know where to begin. I didn´t do a very good job of describing much of the training process in my last post so I am going to be using this post to do just that. The principal idea that Peace Corps wants us to grasp is to see a vision for the community. They want us to be able to use the development idea of teaching sustainable ideas to the community. Basically that means that we need to serve as facilitators and educators in our community so that they will be able to continue doing what we teach them for theirselves after we leave in 2 years. For example, we have visited an artisan group in this region of the country (the Cibao region) that makes tons of detailed wooden carving projects by hand and sell them. Their main market is tourists so that have worked with hotels in Puerta Plata to bring buses of tourists to see their site. They have had Peace Corps volunteers in the past that have helped to teach them how to do websites, marketing, financial planning, ect. Since we are living amongst a fertile land of Cocoa plants, we have also visited 2 chocolate producers, one of which being much more developed than the other. The further developed one is now focused on getting their site conditions improved to be as sanitary as possible and also by wearing hairnets and clean shoes on the floor so eventually they may be able to export. Also, they are trying to turn their site into an ecotourism spot to generate more income. The smaller chocolate factory is struggling because they can´t produce all of the time because of the constant power outages that the majority of the country faces. Also, they do not have as big of a market span and their product is not as well known. A Peace Corps volunteer´s job is to go in and start to help with the marketing by teaching them the promotional skills that they need. Examples could be websites, fliers, brochures, business cards, ect.

At the technical training classes we have really just focused on the basic accounting, marketing and business principles that we may be using as volunteers. Right now, we are working with business plans and next week will be attending a business plan competition. The reason why we are doing this is because we may be assisting youth and young adults in the community to write business plans to submit to the regional business plan competition that takes place once a year. This competition is great for people of smaller communities because it helps them get more hands on experience of how to organize a business on paper and they can recieve start up money for the business and-or scholarships if their plan is one of the better ones submitted. With the expertise of a Peace Corps Volunteer like myself, hopefully I can help a winner. Just kidding...

Lastly, yesterday my friend Ben and I gave a ¨Charla¨ which is basically a presentation to a group in the community over something that could help their group. We chose to do an income generation project with the ¨Grupo Juventir¨ which consists of young people in the community who try to create activities like small fiestas, playing movies for the community since many do not have tv-electricity, ect. The product we selected as an income generator was banana bread. Although this product could be anything ranging from floor cleaner to Vicks Vapor Rub..we will have the recipes and can get the chemicals to do it thanks to Peace Corps. We taught them how they could use this product to generate income for the group by selling it in the community. We went over the fixed and variable costs to select a price, talked about doing a feasibility study to see if there is demand in the community, ect.

Anyway more to come on my Peace Corps life. I am headed back to Santo Domingo Sunday for the business plan competition. I will be getting a cell phone on October 28th, so please buy calling cards so you can call me..I really want to hear what is going on with everyone. It is more expensive for me to call there...very expensive. I will repay with wonderful souvenirs or a free place to stay with out electricity when you visit.