Friends of the Project
General 14/10/2009
Carmen Garcia is a friendly, hard-working woman who is always ready to help others in her everyday life. She has been involved in the project since the start, providing information about it whenever she can and looking for support both at work and amongst her friends.
How would you explain “Project Vitala” to someone who doesn’t know anything about it?
Project Vitala strikes me as being a way of helping people who otherwise would die! It’s as pure and simple as that. They are people whose life in itself is an extreme situation. And that doesn’t seem to worry anyone. The help we send and the way we cooperate is, like them, very real. Clothes, school equipment, money…I know they receive what I send and that they make use of every little bit of it. And my contribution helps them to live another day.
What is it that you like best about this project?
What I like best about this project is that it has not become “diluted” in a huge organisation with its fingers in many pies. Silvia is in direct contact with Turkana and keeps us up-to-date with the local news, achievements and requirements. It is almost a one-to-one between the people of Turkana and the colleagues and friends who are lending a hand.
Mariel Isakson, is an intelligent, personable woman whose work is to assess people not by their physical appearance but by what they can contribute to companies through their personal and professional skills, and for Project Vitala it is an honour to hear what she has to say about us.
Mariel, what was it that made you decide to support the project?
Silvia convinced me. We met recently talking about work. Silvia’s description of herself included this project. This prompted me to try and find out a little bit more, and her enthusiasm, drive and the fondness she expressed, as well as a great deal of emotion, made me want to help her in some way. She talked about the people she had made friends with or who were backing the project and she encouraged me to visit the website and look at the weblog.
Mariel, what did you think when you saw the weblog? Can you tell us how you felt at that moment?
You are struck by the closeness of those involved, and by the immediacy and proximity of people’s needs in Turkana. You are right there and that also makes you realise that you, too, can have a positive role to play – they can be major actions like the ones carried out by Silvia and the people who have been involved in the project for some time or they can be little helping gestures, but they all add up to a visible result.
Blanca Entrecanales is one woman who is constantly indulged in helping the needy in different settings, is in love with different cultures, and yes!, an excellent photographer (actually, most of the photos in this blog were taken by her last year in a trip we made together to Turkana)
Blanca, having been with me in Turkana, tell me, what is most memorable of the place for you?
I would definitely say, the children. Wherever we went with the missionaries, a huge crowd of children would come running and surround us. A very vivid image was during the visits to the schools. In each class, over 50 children of different ages were converged, sitting on wooden benches arranged in rows. There was a special ritual in which each one in our group would introduce themselves, followed by a round of applause dedicated to us after their teacher told them who we were. The children would then sing us some songs in their mother tongue as well as showing us their prowess in counting, in English. They wore no shoes, and almost always had rugged clothes on, though, at times, the girls displayed the typical Turkana style; a rolled up type of sarong and the necks adorned with necklaces of different colors.
The Turkana people are nomadic, and bank all their wealth on livestock. However, their basic food is ground cereals which are distributed by NGO’s, and once in a very blue moon, milk mixed with blood. The main work done by the Missionary Community of Saint Paul there is to provide infrastructure for conservation of water, mainly by building dams and drilling wells. Now, besides these, they are beginning to cultivate some orchards in their mission territories so as to improve their diet, besides teaching them some agricultural lessons so as to help them become self sufficient.
Why would you encourage other people to help in this Project?
I encourage you to participate in this project because it’s concrete. It is clear that the children need a school. Its taken donkey years fighting to get a school built in Kokuro by the government, but the barriers are many; financial help arrives at a snail’s pace, there is no proper management of these finances and there have been failures after failures in the project. Under the steering of the members of the Missionary Community of Saint Paul who live in the area, there is surety that the school will be completed.
If you desire to help the neediest and you want an assurance that your money will be used for that which you have donated it, trust in Silvia. There is absolutely no better way for you to feel near Kokuro village, and to see the progress of the project than checking out this blog which Silvia regularly updates,
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Yolanda Revuelta, is a working mother, always concerned with the situation of the children in Turkana. She is nice to be around, generous, and a very good mother, with a desire to do more for others.
Yolanda, as a mother, what did you feel the first time you saw the Proyecto Vitala page?
It was like something that I always felt within me was finally becoming a reality. I’ve always wanted to do something for others but I didn’t know how, so Proyecto Vitala has become ‘the how’, and ‘the others’ in this case are the 250 Turkana children, to whom the Project is going to help by financing the building of their school and its maintenance.
What have you had to do without since you started participating in the project?
In my case, my monthly subscription has not changed neither my life nor that of my children in the least, after all, a contribution of 20 € a month is much less than a menu for four at Burger King, yet, that which for us means nothing, actually means the daily upkeep for a child in a nutritional rehabilitation center for a month.
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Rosa Garcia has been to more than 20 different countries of the world, which means that she has a distinct vision of the world. She is a good person, a wonderful sister and a lovely friend. We’ve been to more than 10 countries together, and we were travel mates when we first traveled to Kenya more than 15 years ago.
Rosa, having traveled to so many countries over all these years, were you impressed by what you saw in the web page and if so, why?
What has really moved in the web page, in the photographs that I have seen and from what you have told me, is the lack of something so essential like water. Of course, I remember when you and I visited Kenya (during our touristic trip), seeing women along the way carrying water pots on their heads for longs distances in search of water, but during such trips, one really never gets to see how far needs really go. Their lack of such basic needs like water and food really surprises me.
Do you talk to other people about your participation in Proyecto Vitala, and if you do, what do you tell them?
Truthfully, I really don’t tell the people that I participate in a Project to build and run a school in Turkana, because, though I see myself as being involved in this Project thanks to Silvia, I think that my contribution towards it is very tiny. When I talk about Proyecto Vitala, it is a huge Project, propelled by a friend and in which one can see in the webpage whatever developments are taking place and the progress achieved. I believe this webpage is a great method through which people can get to know PROYECTO VITALA better.
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Ignacio Albisu is a nice man to be around because he has a good aura around him especially when he speaks, both at the professional and personal levels. He takes care of his friends and is an excellent dad with a very pretty family as the photo will attest.
Ignacio,tell me, what has immpressed you the most about Turkana after seeing the web page?
From the Web page I’ve been touched by seeing how the Turkanas have to go down to a well everyday in search for water, as well as the impacting datum on their life expectancy, as I would already be dead had I been born there. Above all however, I’ve been touched the most by the enthusiasm with which you have begun and are carrying out this project, because when one personally knows the person who is the driving force behind it, then it is contagious.
Do you talk to your kids about Proyecto Vitala, and if you do, what do you tell them?
I took advantage of the Proyecto Vitala web page to explain to my 13 and 9 years old kids how other children of the world live. I have to admit that I was a bit surprised by their reaction because it is hard for them to assimilate. My small daughter asked questions like ‘Why do they need the money if they don’t have shopping malls where to spend it?’ and these left me disconsolate and they made me see how much I have to talk to them about this and other similar issues until they asimilate them.
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Mar Durán is a very intelligent woman with a very open character. She is very athletic and lover of nature par excellence. She always has her mind open to help Proyecto Vitala in whatever positiom she may undertake, with great empathy towards life, something that gives her a very special personality..
Mar, what has caused you the greatest impression about Turkana on seeing the web page?
The expression in the eyes of the Turkana children just takes my breath away. They are so full of life! Having so little to call their own, they look extremely happily. Your project’s slogan could never be truer than this: A place full of life.
Do you talk to your daughters about Proyecto Vitala and if you do, what do you tell them?
To participate in Proyecto Vitala for me means, above all, a way of forming my daughters on solidarity and a way of making them earn to value everything they recieve in life.
I've been looking for a project in which to cooperate, but had to have a particularity, it could see, touch and live! and I found it. I want to tell you because I'd love to help me carry it out and you do as much yours as I feel that I belong to my push. Silvia Florez