Our chapter’s current project is in the town of El Toro, located in the Department of Susques in northern Argentina. Our local partnering organization is the Comision de Ayuda y Escuelas Argentinas (CAESA).
The Need
The community is located in a very isolated area, far from urban centers and extremely dependent on charity and the efforts of NGO’s and other outsiders to meet its basic needs. Improving the very deficient diet of the community’s children by giving them the ability to grow their own vegetables is of paramount importance to their basic health and will help restore a sense of dignity achieved through work and self-sustainability. By providing better tools for the education of the community’s children the program can help them break a circle of poverty.
Initial Goals
The overall mission is to improve living conditions for the community of El Toro. Primarily the critical need to be addressed is to improve the community’s living conditions by enhancing the local diet by increasing access to nutritious foods through sustainable cultivation of local vegetables, which is currently impeded by the very inclement weather conditions. The upcoming assessment trip will focus on the potential of a greenhouse for El Toro.
Moving Forward
Possible projects have been identified such as improving the school facilities, repairing or replacing existing solar panels and installing new ones, increasing access to electrical power by adding wind energy (the area is known for its high winds), bringing IT systems into the school, and improving the existing water distribution system (based on collection and storage from snow and ice defrosting in the mountains and a few creeks, via community storage tank and a single pipeline with communal faucets).
