Volunteers from Abroad

When I joined the Peace Corps I mentally prepared myself for a very solitary experience, one where I was going to be working alone in a foreign land with the only resources provided to me were by the Peace Corps and my surrounding community. But in my time here I am happy to say that that has not been the case as I have received support from all kinds of people who are still living in the US but want to help me in my cause any way they can.
That is where Jay and Melanie of New Mexico come in. About 8 months ago the Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that I work for, the Colinas Verdes Foundation, was going through a small lull in-between projects. In that time I was looking for stuff to do so I went to our website, http://www.colinasverdes.org/, and decided that it needed a drastic overhaul. After choosing to take on this project I was going through a list of friends in my head who might be able to help me with the web design and amazingly enough I received a message that same day on my blog from a couple by the name of Jay & Melanie who own a web design company (check them out at http://www.websitesanddesign.com/) and were very interested in helping to redo the Colinas Verdes website. Well the first thing I did was jump for joy at the fact that someone other than my Mom & Dad was actually reading my blog and then I celebrated the fact that these people were so eager to help.
First off I guess I should give you a little bit of back round information about the Colinas Verdes Foundation. They were formed in the mid-1990’s as an organization to help with the conservation of southern Ecuador’s natural resources (with a focus on Podocarpus National Park) as well as to help with the development of the local farmers and their practices to provide a better standard of living for them and their families. That being said, Colinas Verdes solicits money from all over the world to fund projects in areas such as irrigation, coffee, a starch made from the Achira plant and marmalade production to name a few. With some NGO’s I have had heard horror stories about how they just take the money and do minimal work on the proposed project and just keep the rest of the money but I am happy to say that that is not the case with the Colinas Verdes Foundation; they are truly a remarkable group that is very organized and dedicated to helping the people of southern Ecuador.
Now, given the fact that the first action possible donors will take in approving the foundation for a project funding is to go to their website, I thought it essential to update http://www.colinasverdes.org/ to a tool they could use to portray their professionalism and successful past projects. Therefore, over the past 8 months I have worked essentially as a liaison between the Colinas Verdes team and Jay & Melanie to create a website (in both English and Spanish) containing the mission, vision, past projects, galleries of images and enabling outsiders to contact us from all over the world.
As well as building a website to benefit Colinas Verdes, we have also created “buttons” on the home page of http://www.colinasverdes.org/ that will direct people to some of the other smaller organizations of the San Pedro de Vilcabamba community. The beauty of these “buttons” is that these small organizations now have a web presence that will enable them to direct people to should they pose the interest. (We have actually had one person contact us who is interested in importing honey to the US!)
From a personal standpoint I am deeply indebted to Jay and Melanie for all their help. Previous to this project I felt as though even though I was a member of the Colinas Verdes team I was not really providing too much value to the organization. I was more or less just another set of hands that could work a shovel or fill a plastic bag with dirt. But since the website project I have felt that the team has grasped what I can do to help benefit the foundation and the resources I have available to me.
As well as receiving help from Jay & Melanie at http://www.websitesanddesign.com/, I would also like to thank my Mom the English teacher for all her help going through the English portion of the website. In sending her the pages to proofread I was amazed at how bad my English had gotten and I know myself as well as the Colinas Verdes team are very grateful for her help.
So if you are bored at your computer and looking for things to check out online (and I know you are if you are reading my blog) please check out http://www.colinasverdes.org/ and you will get an idea of everything this great organization stands for. I am especially proud of the Contact Us page, check it out!