36 i develop survey instrument to study the impacts of the SUCCESS livelihood activities on
women e.g. to determine if these activities are increasing the assets of women as part of the learning agenda
G. V
OLUNTEERS
Background
The Coastal Resources Center has a long history of using volunteers in its international work. To date, the SUCCESS Program has assigned Volunteers for Prosperity VfP to Tanzania and
Ecuador. Field Program sites have also been successful in recruiting other volunteers who do not necessarily qualify under the VfP program but who add great value to helping SUCCESS reach
its goals.
Construction of a secondary gate in Mkadam site in Tanzania with the
assistance of former volunteer Edwin Requintina
Jill Turek, Volunteer Small Business Development Specialist
Facilitating the Small Business Training June 12 – 13, 2006
Monpiche, Esmeraldas
37
Report Period Accomplishments
New assignment opportunities were posted on CRC and external websites and listserves. Some of the external websites were chosen because they were specific to an assignment. For example, the
beekeeper assignment was advertised not only on generic sites for international volunteers, but also on a specific beekeeping site. The volunteer section of the CRC web site was updated to
include not only current volunteer opportunities but also returned volunteer stories and reports and to provide on-line application. CRC’s volunteer program began collaborating with Partners of
the Americas to advertise CRC’s Latin America volunteer assignments and has since received numerous applications for assignments in Nicaragua.
Nicaragua
To date, SUCCESS Nicaragua was the only SUCCESS partner country that had not been assigned a VfP volunteer. Although UCA had developed five volunteer descriptions for
advertising, potential volunteers were required to be fluent in Spanish. This created a problem in finding suitable candidates for the assignments. This problem was solved, however, after
establishing collaboration with the Partners of the Americas and advertising on new websites. Numerous qualified applications were received for all five volunteer positions and amongst these
was that of Mary Ellen Bell from the University of Wisconsin who will volunteer next quarter for two to three weeks in Nicaragua to assist in developing a comprehensive and strategic
communications, marketing, and evaluation plan for the SUCCESS Nicaragua Program. Meanwhile, the SUCCESS Nicaragua has also hosted and mentored three international McGill
University volunteers. Because of their student status, they do not qualify as part of the SUCCESS official volunteer assignments VfP. However, the information they are gathering
will significantly contribute to estuary management activities and to development of sustainable enterprises. Specifically, they are conducting studies on resource use and recent changes in the
Gulf of Fonseca and conducting a preliminary diagnostic of fishing activities in the Estero Real. One is conducting research in the Gulf of Fonseca area on changes in natural resources use
focusing on development of small-scale shrimp culture. She is developing a GIS database on land use changes that will help the SUCCESS efforts. Another volunteer has been collaborating on
developing methodologies to monitor the small scale fisheries in Puerto Morazan. The last of the three volunteers is a tourism specialist and is collaborating on institutional strengthening with
FINCARMAR and identifying potential tourism activities. He has also been integrated into the work with UCA’s tourism faculty scoping the ecotourism efforts. Early indications include
identification of eight potential tourism sites.
Ecuador
EcoCostas worked with two volunteers for over one month. One was a Small Business Development Specialist who was partially funded through Volunteers for Prosperity who wrote
a report detailing options for implementation of a microcredit component of the SUCCESS Program, helped to develop a system for collecting the information necessary to do a financial
analysis of the SUCCESS beekeeping and Chame production initiatives, completed a study of the potential for passion fruit production and assisted with the facilitation of the EcoCostas small
business training. She will also provided follow-up support for small business training participants. The volunteer, Jill E.Turek is a graduate of the North Arizona University with a
BSBA degree in Business Economics and former employee of Bank OneJP Morgan. Ms.Turek represents the volunteer collaboration between EcoCostas and SUCCESS_LWA. Derek
Simmonds has been successfully recruiting volunteers for EcoCostas and requested
38 SUCCESS_LWA to assist in funding a few of these volunteers. EcoCostas is a model for other
