eBay Style Fundraising Drive

Many of you sponsored me for the London to Brighton bike ride and I am on another fundraising drive. A Spanish film company called Mirador del Sur has made a 20 minute DVD (in Spanish with English subtitles) about our work and we are looking to sell copies to raise funds for a project to create Bolivia`s first energy powered primary school.

The DVD makes a wonderful Christmas present! Let me know if you would like a copy. Cost: £10/14 Euros (+£3/4 Euros postage and package). The best thing is that I am NOT featured in the film.

The school in question is in Waqanqui, La Cumbre, a very poor rural community located about 40 minutes from Cochabamba. It has one teacher and 27 pupils (6-9 years) and some of the key issues that need to be tackled include toilets discharging directly into the river causing pollution and creating an environmental health hazard for the children who play in the environs; no hot water for the showers so not surprisingly the kids are reluctant to shower more than once every 3-4 weeks; cooking takes place in a room that also doubles up as the teacher`s bedroom; and while the school has a library fitted out with two computers, television and video recorder thanks to a foreign donation, ironically the school was not given any resources to purchase books, software and audiovisual materials.

Our plan is to install renewable energy in the form of biogas, wind energy, solar power and a cyclemotor (pedal power), improve the toilet/shower block and build a separate annexe which will act as a kitchen. Young people from the local community will help prepare materials, dig, build and learn on the job about the technology. Once completed, it is also intended for the project to become an integral part of the curriculum for the children, with a fully equipped "technology" library and welcoming educational visits from the area.

There is widespread support (actually excitement) from the whole community for the project. More than 40 people attended an open meeting recently to discuss the project in more detail. Interestingly I was not the only one for whom Spanish was not their first language; many of the residents are Quechua speakers first and foremost. We have agreed that I will teach them English in return for some Quechua lessons. It has been suggested by some wags that I need to master Spanish first however.

PS We have decided to spend money raised from the bike ride towards installing 25 combined biogas systems and toilets/showers in Achacachi around Lake Titicaca. The area may look idyllic with its location next to the lake and surrounded by snow capped mountains but the poverty is extreme and climate unfriendly. I head off there this weekend and more news will appear soon on the blog.