Mindo
BEYOND CHACAY FOUNDATION
ECOHELIX
IMMERSION PROGRAM 699Â
6 WEEKS OF IMMERSION WHAT IS BEHIND A TOURIST DESTINATION
Smart Destination by: Cecilia Guerrero
Dear Chacay Friends It is a pleasure to share with you our First Newsletter where i display all what i have learned in my Immersion Program from Regis University. Many of you know that we launched the Smart Destination Initiative that embraces different projects and programs to contribute to a sustainable development in communities and cities in Ecuador. We carefully take the tourism industry as it is one of the largest industries in the world and one of the fastest growing economic sectors to be our main entry point to create progress, although we also need to consider that it has great impacts, both positive and negative, on people's lives and the environment and BCF is aware of both impacts offering way to mitigate.
Meet Mindo
The concept of SD, embraces a holistic approach that mobilises the seven capitals (financial, physical, natural, social, social, political and human).
It is a small town (3000 people) located in the Andean foothills of Ecuador, exactly to the north west of Quito (two hours by driving). Mindo is surrounded by the Mindo-Nambillo Cloud Forest; the cloudforest is home to hundreds of species of birds, many of which are in danger of extinction. It attracts birdwatchers first and foremost, this is why it is considered, for three years consecutive, as the top place in the world for birdwatching. The town has activities for everybody: there are ziplines to fly over the forest, you can go tubing in the river, and hiking in the rainforest with nature guides. Each year there is a Birdwatchign counting, it is determined that it has around 450 species of birds, a great variety of butterflies, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, making Mindo a paradise for eco-tourism. People are just fascinated about the things to see in Mindo like: Mariposario, a butterfly park in town. Orquídeario (orchids), an amazingly diverse garden of orchids (from extremely tiny to quite large, all possible colors) in town, Colibries (hummingbirds). There are places that offers Coffee and Chocolate from Mindo Area, El Quetzal, for example has artisan chocolate. They make tours daily where you can see the live fruit trees and the chocolate making all the way to being made into chocolate to finally end with a delicious brownie. All is beautiful, in this calm place to relax and be in touch with nature but with a scary unsustainable fast growing community.
Why Mindo as a Smart Destination The idea of Mindo as a Smart Destination (SD) builds upon the IEEE’s concept of Smart Villages (SV), also because it has a lot of potential touristically talking but with a high risk in conservation, balanced community wellbeing and and community life. Its success depends would depend on the collaboration of Stakeholders, Community Learning Activation (CLA) and communty capacity building, which is based on self-identification of the community members with the local culture; local development strategies for governmental management, service leadership, and collaboration of all sectors and the reform of public services; improvement of the local economy through innovative business opportunities; contribution to economic community development; and the creation of a sustainable model of Smart Community (SC).
SMART The underlying core concept of the project of Mindo as a Smart Destination is the adaptation of SV and SD to places that are or could be important tourist destinations and are at risk. The aim therefore is not only to empower local businesses but also women, native people, youth, children and authorities by providing technical, functional and practical knowledge about sustainability, business, innovation, stewardship, services with experiences, values, abilities and attitudes. BCF proposed the program called Smart Destination that has a toolkit to be applied in and with the community toguethe with a Community Resource Inventory, to be able to plan, organise, execute, evaluate and scale, at this point is ready to be commercialized with a new brand called Smart Destination Mindo. Another important objective of the SD in Mindo is to involve the incoming tourists as agents of transformation and conservation. The idea includes the preparation of tourists before their visit by raising awareness about the ecological situation in and around Mindo, but also the chance for the visitors to invest in green businesses and ecological community projects during and after their stay. The distinct advantage of a Smart Destination lies not only in the investment that tourists make as a result of their visit, but just as important, in the feedback they provide to the community by ranking and rating the quality of their experience, thus providing critical information for the businesses to improve their offerings. The data collected about the tourists could also be used as important information for the local authorities in order to better respond to the wishes and preferences of the visitors. BCF is currently working on an event called Smart Mindo Fest that will put the online platform called EcoHelix to function, which should support the described process (buy, experience and rate) for the future we will have infomracion about the list of things to do in Mindo and build bridges between tourists to local green businesses.
MINDO
1. Create the model (we have the Smart Destination model: sustainability while we promote) 2. Talk about the model with experts (prototype) 3. Immerse and bond with people 4. Working with community to form partnerships, investors, followers and governmental agencies to promote the Minga (involvement in community work). This is the point where I am at. After this bonding, we have to build trust before we convince community members to work colaboratively to solve local problems as a main part of their responsabilidad and identity. Academically, grow social capital. My message was clear: The SD plan is to work based on their assets at the same time hearing your voices and feelings to encourage towards a community involvement (Stewardship Sense). All messages are Heard in any way they delived. Use of social media to communicate the good things going on, success stories and profiles of people who have done fantastic work should be shared with the community. Use all the online communication posibilities to reach the greatest number of people who like GREEN and to start evangelizing that Mindo is Smart. After all this happened I heard complains, rejection, lack of faith as I was coming as a representative of a foundation. I received coments like, we are developed, we have electricity, wáter, phone, what do you want to do here? Between demselves, thye boicot each other. They are in the red ocean (competitors killing each other). I got in meeting that people will leave while I was talking. I got in meetings where they asked for David Lansdale (Gringo and Man is heavier that a woman), and when they saw me I was giving much attention. Many meetings were business people (foreigners: Quito, Manabi, and from other countries French, Canada, USA, etc.) and i went to the other extreme, the artisans, women (employees from hotels), an NGO, artists and activitivists. Who have a lot to say? Who hear them?
Mindo´s Reality: Six weeks working and thinking where to start
Talking to main players for a collaborative partnerships in Quito, looked easy. The story changed when I arrive in the community. All the promises were vanished. I wanted to take my luggage and run away. I started calling main actors and decision-makers to talk. In a slow mood I started getting integrated in meetings and I always had the chance to talk and invite them to work together and help create conditions in a common ground which it is more likely that community efforts will be successful. Fruit of this work I start validating my Rural Community Intervention Tool Box.
I found out that the Price for each M2 costs $1250, Hotels that cost from USD $15 to USD $200 per night, rents around USD $300, 00, transportation to the town USD $ 3,00 and from Quito USD $ 3,50. Salaries around $200,00 for month working over 10 hours (mostly women). Three guitars for the entire community youth courses (cost $5 dollars per monthly each course), teachers are paid around $20 dollars per month. Artisans that try to do fairs but are taken away, etc. Among other things… I really wanted to give up and go to the other communities where Ceci is loved and looked for.
I LOVE MINDO
My persistence made me to still be there I proposed a Quick Project to show how our work is about in terms of working like a minga sense and I called: I am a Steward. A quick description: It is to ask all hotel owners to allow us to place a stand at the cashier front desk with four boxes to collect money for each program (culture, gender, enviroment and youth). So visitors can have the opportunity to hear about the projects and the invitation to be investors. Addicionally to this we are placing a fundrasing called I AM MINDO, which will motivtate to collaborate with one dollar, because we think if the 3000 citizens donate a dollar, they can have 3000 friends who can make it, too. From all this talkings I found out four beautiful projects that need to be reinforced:
I AM A STEWARD OF MY OWN PLACE
a group of people interested in Culture aimed to potentialize the culture affected by the negative impact of the tourism where local young people are loosing identity and children are adopting fashions foreign customs and unfortunately bad behaves or addictions.They want to créate music workshops, theater for children, youth and adults, artisan fairs which have had an excellent reception in the community, but have been limited by lack Musical instruments and educational materials. It is for this reason that we thought of holding artistic and craft fairs with the objective of raising funds and investing them in our needs, unfortunately for this type of events we need the collaboration of the local authorities, for the utensils to be used as tents, tables, chairs , Sound, etc., but lacking the support of public institutions, our events have been very limited and with very little economic benefit, we have witnessed the great openness of the community to these events and above all the motivation that Has generated in the participants.
Women
Salem Foundation emphasizes the feminine face of poverty, risk, health and living condition for this reason they bo the bestt efforts to empower women with productive initiatives, education to promote sustainable economic growth were they have a better living condition.
Environment: MUYU, Eaten fruit, seed planted. This Project is about reforestation. The awner is a well recognize famous actor that decided to protect the earht and lives in a 2 x 2 M2 wide and long. He has the seeds bank and encourages in doing nurseries.
Mindo Cultura:
Youth and children
Tink Tank is the fusion between the "classroom of the adolescents" of SALEM Mindo and Tank 2.0., A project of the artistic collective: It is the first module of a mobile prototype with different spaces. The proposal now seeks to build different spaces, adapting different combinations depending on the needs of the moment. It is easy to deploy, transportable and supports multiple functionalities, such as a mobile cafe, a theater or a transportable office.
Agriculture (Community Nurseries):
It aims to improve the quality of life of our children and
adolescents of SALEM. A community dining room to a work with children, adolescents in education, environment, values and health. SALEM has fed children and young people in a vegetarian way, in this way they have been able to taste foods that usually at home do not consume. Three years ago they began the farm, with a greenhouse of vegetables and legumes and another of medicinal plants, with the aim of obtaining our own organic food. Seed collection began with children and adolescents. Preparation of the soil and separation of the garbage. In which guides, volunteers and little by little trained children and adolescents interested in this project. In the future, SALEM wants to be a model project for the good practice of seed collection, plant care, preparation of organic fertilizer, seedling planting (vegetables, fruits and medicinal), harvest of vegetables and fruits of the place. These activities will be done with small groups of children, adolescents, volunteers and guides that help achieve a good process on a low scale. It does not seem important that in the homes of our children begins to grow medicinal plants, vegetables and fruit trees. There has been resoults but they had a person with a salary for 150 dollars that can not make it anymore and the Project is down.
WITH A USD $1000,00, WE COULD MAKE A LOT, WITH USD $5000 AND I CAN MAKE ALL THE PROJECTS RUN AGAIN!
BEYOND CHACAY FOUNDATION BUILDING BRIDGES TOUCHING LIVES CECILIA GUERRERO