Thursday, May 29, 2025

Directors Report, spring 2025: The good, the bad, and the ugly –and a new hope!

Welcome to the spring director's report!  A lot has been happening with the project.  We hope to bring everyone up to speed on the current developments.



THE GOOD

Health center nears completion

The health center is now ready for use after three years of work and a total investment of approximately $9,000. Future improvements include connecting it to La Libertad's electrical system (and eventually utilizing solar power), constructing a bathroom, replacing the wooden door with a metal one, and adding furniture, which is planned for later. It is a well-made building of concrete, metal, and tile. It is ready for community use.

We hope the community appreciates the health center and directs funds towards its continued development.  The most difficult parts of planning, transporting, and construction have been finished.




24-hour solar-powered energy and internet

The guesthouse, Gustavo's house, kitchen, and bathroom now have 24-hour electricity.  The electrical system, upgraded to 48 volts, includes three 550-watt solar panels, a 100 amp-hour lithium battery, and a 3,500-watt pure sine wave power inverter.  This system is resilient and low-maintenance.

While we had hoped to increase the number of solar panels to six and build a dedicated solar energy building, this will have to wait for the future.  This upgrade in the number of panels and the building will allow better security, heat management, structural stability, and dependable power during the heaviest times of the rainy season.

Our internet has been supplying a signal to the villagers for the past two years.  This service helps communication for work, school, family, and emergencies.  Three months ago, we upgraded our router.  The new router doubled the signal range, covering the 12 houses in our neighborhood and accommodating visitors.




Technical solutions to problems of internet usage

Unfortunately, with the free internet in the village came increased time on social media, games, and videos.  The village youth spent too much time on the internet and less on school and housework. With an upgraded router, this problem is solved until the gamer youth can get around it.  The router has settings that allow us to block social media, gaming, and video sites, which helps improve internet speeds for more essential uses and happier parents.




Massive repairs and upgrades to the volunteer/guest house, kitchen, and support buildings

As the water level rose starting last December, we were able to bring in supplies to make repairs on the project's buildings in La Libertad. Significant rot and insect damage resulted in holes in the floors and walls, weakened beams, and a general state of disrepair.

We expanded the kitchen, replaced numerous floorboards, walls, and supporting beams, repaired leaky roofs, installed new electrical outlets, switches, and light fixtures, replaced old water pipes, and applied much-needed fresh coats of paint.




15-meter wooden boat for community use

This year, we helped the community build a 15-meter wooden boat. We allocated $1,000 to purchase gasoline, oil, nails, other construction materials, and food for group volunteer meals, with the community providing the labor.

The boat's size allows passage of up to 40 people or 4 tons of cargo. In April, we used it to transport our largest shipment of construction materials.





Ten volunteers have been in the community over the past six months, and more are coming!

This year, 2025, has been our most active year of volunteers since the pandemic. We have had volunteers from the US, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Germany, and Switzerland. The volunteers assisted with construction, created crafts with the village children, and contributed to the village school. Volunteerism is a great way to engage people in the community and attract more individuals to La Libertad.





THE BAD

Price increases in materials and labor

Inflation has been significantly higher in the Amazon region than in other parts of Colombia and higher than in the US, making budgeting difficult. This is the main reason we increased the scholarship program to $140 per year per student.

Low water and transportation difficulties

This year, the Amazon's water level was the lowest in recorded history, 122 years. Until the river started to rise in December (the level fell rapidly beginning in June), we had to walk over two kilometers from the river's edge to our buildings in the village.  Transportation of people and materials was more expensive, took longer, and was physically challenging.  Last year was the second lowest in recorded history.

The low water also causes hardship to the village. Without rain, the villagers have no potable water. They also lack access to clean water for bathing, washing clothing, and washing dishes.

Climate science predicts worsening drought in the Amazon in the coming years.



Time and administration challenges

It has been challenging to manage the administration of the scholarship program, volunteer support, logistics, construction supervision, and technical installations this year.


Removal of funding from USAID in our Amazonian region

USAID has had $35 million in aid stopped in the Colombian Amazon.  While we do not directly receive money from USAID, it will affect our area, and agencies are predicting a decrease in sustainable business, increased destruction of rainforest land, and an increase in illegal narcotics operations.




Drug dealers in the village

A family of drug dealers moved into La Libertad two years ago.  They are selling cocaine to the village youth and some adults. The increased drug availability has been instrumental in an increase in violence and theft in the village.  On a community level, the villagers want these people to leave the community.  They refuse to leave.  The dealers are armed.  They have threatened to kill the village chief if he tries to force them out.


THE UGLY

Corruption and mismanagement in the village

(There has been some question among the board members and volunteers of Amazon Pueblo as to whether it is prudent to send information to our supporters about the serious problems the village experiences.  In keeping with our value of transparency, we believe it is best to publicize the truth about what we are dealing with, rather than give only the "good news."  There is a reason we are helping La Libertad.  The villagers have endured years of exploitation, neglect, and mismanagement.  We are trying to help them find a way out of these destructive patterns.  This is not fast or easy.)

The village chief is an elected official. He is competent but also unable or unwilling to save receipts, has poor accounting practices, and is not fiscally responsible.  He has demonstrated vindictiveness and seems to maintain power through intimidation and deception.

Some of the issues with the chief:

Allegedly given permission to large-scale narcotics producers to enter and live in the community.

Practiced extortion on the villagers, evidenced by the people we employ to cut wood for construction projects.

Is unable or unwilling to give accurate proof of large amounts of money directly donated to the community by the tourism industry.

Requested loans from our project in the community's name without the community's authorization or knowledge.

Accused Amazon Pueblo, without providing proof, of collecting money in the village's name and using it personally.

This behavior directly contradicts Amazon Pueblo's written values, which align with our mission and vision.


OUR VALUES

In pursuit of our mission and vision, we adhere to the principles of transparency, adaptability, perseverance, respect, and a commitment to serving others.

Our donation records and how we allocate funds are transparent.  We have receipts and documentation of the accounting.  We have shown them to the village chief and other members of the community; however, he still claims that we are hiding money and stealing from the scholarship funds.

We should not compromise our values by giving in to the corrupt practices of La Libertad's current leadership.  We hope that, over time, the village will reject corruption through education and by modeling positive behaviors.




A NEW HOPE

Continuing the scholarship program

The last time we had problems with La Libertad's leadership, we designed the scholarship program to be independent of the village's governance. We can meet with the parents and children in Leticia to do all the school shopping.



Continuing our partnership with Gustavo

Once again, the last time we had problems with the village chief, we transferred the ownership of our buildings and equipment to Gustavo.  We did this again to prevent the chief from attempting to take our supplies or building materials and keep them for himself, his friends, or family, or to sell them.

We can continue to support Gustavo with a website, internet, volunteers, tourism, and technical support.  Gustavo has an independent, licensed tourism business in La Libertad.  He also has the protection of the law for his belongings, family, and business.



A partnership with the Colombian foundation La Aljaba

After we discussed the current problems of the management of La Libertad a friend of the project from Leticia suggested a new collaboration for us: the La Aljaba foundation in Leticia.

The last time we officially left the village in 2017, we collaborated with a nonprofit foundation in Leticia, Funmiroca. We worked with them for four years until the pandemic forced them to relocate to another part of Colombia. They helped us administer the scholarship program. I remain friends with their director, Freddy. A new partnership with La Aljaba may help us fulfill our project's mission and address some other challenging areas of our program.



New possibilities to work with the Peruvian village of Vista Alegre

Vista Alegre is a small Peruvian river community located about 45 minutes upriver from La Libertad.    We have one scholarship student in the community.  When the student’s parents learned that we were leaving La Libertad, they told their community, which was very interested in a partnership between the village and us.

Points to consider:

1) Their leadership requested to work with us without our asking.

2) They do not have the drug and alcohol problems of La Libertad.

3) They have a three-person separation of powers and a balance of power in the administration of their village government.

4) We can set clear, written expectations and limits when working with the community.

Things like:

  • A limit to the number of scholarships
  • A procedure for the community to determine who receives the scholarships
  • A set amount of annual aid to be used or saved for a larger development project, like a health care center, solar power, or satellite internet
  • No loans are to be requested or made by the community from the project
  • No loans to be asked for by any community members to the project or project volunteers
  • A clear understanding of what happens to all the assets of the project upon dissolution or leaving the village
  • An approval process for all construction work that supports the project in the village



Final Thoughts

With the new partnership we hope to establish with La Aljaba and Vista Alegre, and our reliable internet connection in La Libertad, we no longer need to have a permanent presence in the Colombian Amazon, with yearly or biyearly visits being adequate.  We believe the changes in the project and with La Libertad is good. Our partnership with La Aljaba will be a needed strength. 

La Libertad must be given time to overcome its corruption problems. We can help, slowly, through the scholarship program and by supporting Gustavo and his volunteer program. If they do improve and request that we return, we can, but with a written set of expectations, such as those we hope we will implement with the community of Vista Alegre.



Thank you to all of our friends, volunteers, and supporters!  Without you, our work would not be possible.

Saturday, March 8, 2025

Amazon Pueblo Jungle News, Winter 2025

 

Scholarships, historic water level, internet, and build, baby, build!


Sunset at the port of La Libertad

What is this post?

1) This is to catch everyone up on what's going on with the project.

2) We are holding a virtual fundraiser (a live internet broadcast from the jungle village of La Libertad) on Saturday, March 15.  We will give more detail in a later email.

3) We are using a new service called MailerLite to send this and future newsletters, messages, and blog posts. MailerLite automates many processes (we hope it does this well) to make sending emails easier. If you no longer want to receive news from us, you can unsubscribe with the link at the bottom of this post.

The link in each session will give you more information about each topic.  Feel free to follow it.


Project Info

Governance Problems in the Community

We spent our first months waiting while the community solved a governmental problem. The current mayor was, without authorization,  using funds from the community to build a separate tourist community about two kilometers north of La Libertad. Luckily, the old mayor noticed what was happening and called the community's attention to the problem. The community voted out the corrupt mayor.  We were happy to learn that La Libertad is working to improve their governance.

Sanitary Pads

Once again, this year, we partnered with His Handiworks Guild, an organization based in Long Beach, CA. They made and supplied 150 sanitary napkins for us to bring to the women of La Libertad, up from 100 pads last year. This is a popular program with the village women.

Scholarship Program, 2024

Our scholarship program has made significant strides. We completed the first round of 28 school-shopping trips in September, followed by six more in October and early November. On November 26, we completed 14 more, bringing the total to 48 scholarships given in 2024, a significant increase from the previous year. This growth is a testament to our positive impact on education in La Libertad.

On Saturday, March 15, we will be officially starting our scholarship drive.  Our goal is to increase the number of scholarships in 2025 to 50.  Please join us in helping to change a life!

Working with the community- Pastor Jorge

We have been working with Jorge, a pastor in the community of La Libertad. His daughter is in the scholarship program. He has been responsible and friendly. He helped us collect information about scholarship students and shop for school supplies. His beliefs in education and the betterment of the community align with ours. He may help to supervise the distribution and school supply trip later this year.

Low Water in the River

This year's unprecedented lack of rain has led to historically low water levels in the river, posing significant challenges. However, we have adapted to these conditions, walking over a kilometer further than usual to transport materials. To easily transport tons of blocks, gravel, and cement, we must wait until the river reaches its highest level, typically in March or April. Our ability to adapt to these challenges demonstrates the resilience of our project.

Internet in the Village

The introduction of the internet has brought about significant changes in the village. It has provided reliable communication with the outside world, enabling work calls and emergency messages to family and friends. However, it has also led to some negative consequences. 

Many youths and some adults have been excessively using the internet for entertainment, leading to a lack of focus on schoolwork and household chores. We are working to address this challenge.

Our Internet connection speed is sufficient for a house. The cost is $80 a month. Depending on area usage and weather, this provides a speed between 20 and 200 Megs. We can easily have up to 30 people connected at one time. This leads to a slowdown and an unusable Internet connection. People who need to make necessary calls and messages are upset. The parents seem unable to monitor or control the behaviors of their children.

Starting in November, we used technology to help fix the problems caused by the technology. We have configured the router to connect to people who have registered with us. When unregistered cell phones, tablets, or computers use our router, they are blocked. Second, we have reduced the speed of everyone's connection to 2 megabytes. This is necessary to ensure everyone can access the internet for essential tasks like email, messages, web surfing, voice calls, and video calls. This is not fast enough to play popular online games, watch videos, or use data-heavy applications. Additionally, we have installed Wi-Fi range extenders, which help with connection speeds.

Clean Water, School Roofs, and Community Development

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Colombian Chancellery visited La Libertad on December 5. FAO is a United Nations agency that leads efforts to defeat hunger. The Chancellery, or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is responsible for Colombia's international relations.

The Chancellery built and oversees the rainwater treatment plant next to the village school. We help support the plant operator by loaning tools, our internet connection, and our troubleshooting knowledge about solar-powered operations.

The two organizations are also providing the funds and logistics to repair the roofs on the village school buildings, have given each family wood-powered cook stoves, and have plans to build concrete walkways throughout the village to travel more quickly and reduce erosion.

Solar Power Upgrade

We are upgrading our solar power system from 12 to 48 volts to provide 24-hour internet to our barrio in the community of La Libertad and a small security system in the guesthouse. This is a significant upgrade. We bought the solar panels and lithium battery from the store Energy Sun in Leticia. The guesthouse roof will only support three panels. More than three will cause excessive building stress.  Therefore, we also plan to build a concrete solar energy station/building.

Building Maintenance

Our wood buildings have a lot of rot, termites, and powderpost beetles. Replacing softer woods with harder woods, painting, and fumigation will help slow, but not stop, the decay. This is another reason why we need a dedicated concrete and block solar energy building.

Kitchen and Storage Expansion

The kitchen is growing! Now that more tourists and volunteers are coming to La Libertad, we have expanded the kitchen by two meters. This will allow two groups to store food and cook without getting in each other's way. The upgrade also takes care of more rot problems.

Volunteers

We are starting to have more interest in the volunteer program. Before the pandemic, we would have four to five volunteers per year. During the pandemic, zero. We have had five people during the last six months, including a mother and her son. The boy attended school for a week in Macedonia and La Libertad!

Power Tools

We now have Makita cordless power tools. They are battery-operated. We recharge them with our solar panels. The tools significantly increase our productivity!

Community Boat

The community and the project needed a new cargo boat. This will let us take all the scholarship kids and some parents shopping on a one-off trip.  It is 50-feet long and will support up to three tons of cargo.  We can also bring the supplies (gravel, cement, rebar) we need for construction, whereas previously we needed to take multiple trips or use many boats.

We bought the materials to build the boat. The community provided the wood and labor.  The cost for this boat was a little over $1,000, a value we expect to be well-spent!

Craft Fair Goods

We picked up a new collection of bloodwood and other handicrafts to sell at craft fairs this year and next. The woman in the picture is Pastor Jorge’s wife. She helps to make and sell crafts. The man is Ben, our project director.

Need to Fundraise

We will hold a virtual fundraiser from the village of La Libertad on Saturday, March 15, 2025.  It will include demonstrations of our work, videos, interviews with former volunteers, scholarship students, parents of the students, and maybe a project director or two!

Scholarship Program 2025


Donors give scholarships to specific students. We try to keep the same student and donor combination year after year. It is nice for the donors to see their students grow! 

We are starting the scholarship campaign on March 15.  In April, we will do the school shopping with as many students as to whom the patrons give scholarships.

Need: $7,,000

Health Care Center

Other than reorganizing 100 bags of sand, we did not done any work on the health care center in 2024. We had budgeted $500 to have it plastered. But, we had a community discussion and decided that the money was needed to build a 14 to 15-meter (50-foot) boat. We had $500 budgeted to build an 11-meter boat for cargo and transportation, which was inadequate for large village trips. The four million we supplied ($1,000) is for materials. The village provided another four million labor to cut, carry the wood, and build the boat.

Need: $500 for plastering this year

Storage Shed Expansion

We hope to expand the storage sheds to store gasoline, life vests, and earth-moving equipment efficiently. This will also solve rot problems. If not this year, then next!

Need: $500

Solar Power Building

We hope to build a small four-meter by six-meter concrete and block building to house all of the electronics and a roof to support up to six panels, which is the maximum our current configuration can easily handle.  (We started to level the ground last week.)

The building will solve several other problems. It will help to keep the electronics cool. It will allow us to clean the solar panels more efficiently and safely. We will not have to worry about future rot in a wooden roof. It will give us a secure place to store other equipment. 

This is the most expensive and labor-intensive work left for this year, 2025. One reason it is best to do this now is the availability of the cargo boat. We must transport about three tons of gravel, cement, and steel. If we wait until another year, the boat may not be available or seaworthy for the heavy cargo. 

Need: $2000 to start the construction in concrete

USAID

At least $35,000,000 of aid is being discontiuned in the Colombian Amazon because of the dissolution of the USAID agency. While it does not directly affect our program in La Libertad, it will affect the surrounding area. The aid money was used to support stopping illegal timber harvesting and mining, as well as water, food, and education programs, and to increase good governance. We will do a blog post when we have more verifiable facts.

Project Creep

Even though we try to avoid it (and we really do try), project creep affects our work. 

"Project creep", or "scope creep", refers to the uncontrolled expansion of a project's requirements or scope during its development, often leading to added features, functionalities, or tasks that were not initially planned, potentially impacting project timelines, budget, and resources if not managed effectively. Wikipedia 

Our project’s mission is to support education in La Libertad. This is mainly done through scholarships and adequately administering the scholarship money/buying. Nevertheless, other things “creep” into our program. These things genuinely help the students and education in the village in less direct but significant ways.

Additional things:

  • Maintaining a stable internet connection
  • Computer, tablet, and cell phone maintenance
  • Solar power
  • Access to potable water
  • Access to transportation
  • Building maintenance
  • Health center construction
  • Volunteer and tourism support
  • Helping to find solutions for the villagers and Leticians asking for help with problems

We do not take full responsibility for each of these things (financially or organizationally), but we do try to help where needed and when possible. Many things need to line up and be operational for students to succeed in school.

It is best to give some examples:

  • The internet allows students to access the web to do schoolwork. It also provides communication with family members and employers outside of the community. Additionally, it helps to seek help during an emergency.
  • Well-working electronic devices allow access to the internet and may be used as educational tools.
  • Twenty-four-hour solar power enables an always-on internet connection. This also gives a place to recharge battery-powered devices.
  • We are looking at a long-term solution to the problem of no potable water during drought. We believe this will be an artesian well. Due to difficult geologic conditions, this part of the project needs research and interagency cooperation. We will slowly work on it to have a functional and adequate well in the future.
  • We helped publicize the village school's terrible disrepair in a sweeping social media campaign in the Amazon. We believe this contributed to the funds being appropriated to repair the school.
  • When students or their parents are sick, education takes a back seat. A place where basic first aid and supplies can be kept and administered can prevent minor problems from becoming serious health concerns. A health center is also an adequate location for visiting healthcare providers to stay, administer services, and keep records.
  • Tourism helps provide money to the villagers to help maintain the buildings. Volunteers donate their time and services to help us complete our mission.

Blog Posts

Over the next few months, we plan to have more regular blog posts. When we are doing things, it helps when we can show it!  MailerLite, our new newsletter and email system, should make this easier.

After this year, we believe the project is in good shape with the internet connection, solar power, the local government and school system improvement, and the other people we have to help in La Libertad (Pastor Jorge, Gustavo the tour operator and the main village contact, and our occasional volunteers in the village).

Thank you for reading! Please send us your thoughts and comments.

Adios,

Ben Angulo

Amazon Pueblo Project Director