Signing up for vocational workshops

Dylan writes:

The Millennium Corporation, or FOMILENIO as its Salvadoran branch, offers dozens of different workshops in areas as diverse as agro-business, baking, restaurant management, carpentry, etc. These workshops are free of cost to the participants, FOMILENIO brings teachers, materials, equipment and everything to the community. Workshops are multi-day affairs spread out over several weeks; the shortest courses are 140 hours, so they're a big commitment. The only thing we need to provide is a minimum of 20 people interested in a particular workshop, a space to do it in, and a solicitude with an official signature on it (someone from the mayor's office, or from a local community development board - "ADESCO"). The deadline to submit the solicitude was Dec. 31, 2010.

SO we spent the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas going door-to-door, organizing meetings, and speaking with people in the street to gauge interest and to sign people up. Laura held and all-women's meeting to which one woman attended. The Asamblea de Dios -- our largest evangelical church -- had a 20 minute announcement one Sunday, and then we had a dramatic turnout at the following meeting on Wednesday. We visited several dozen houses. Several community leaders were remarkably helpful gathering names and numbers of people who were interested.

A number of people had questions; whether minors could participate, how the schedules would be worked out, etc. We had the damndest time getting in touch with anyone at the FOMILENIO office to get these questions answered. Nobody returned e-mails or answered phones. When we finally got through, people denied that they were the correct office to be speaking with, or stated that the guy in charge was not around. He never called us back. We finally got someone to answer two of our questions. After the second question, Laura said, "thank you" and he evidently thought that was the end of it, so he hung up the phone. When we called back, nobody answered.

As of now we have enough people to have three workshops -- Pasteleria (baking pastries), Panaderia, (baking breads), and Mechanics. We had one brave man cross gender lines and sign up for a class in baking. One woman signed up for an Organic Agriculture taller, but as of yet we only have eight signatures on that list and they all belong to the same cooperative. Several of them clearly signed up under pressure from the cooperative's president, who thought it would be a good idea, so it is unclear whether they would actually have the motivation to attend classes.

With lists in hand, and solicitudes on a flash drive, I went down to San Ignacio to print the solicitudes on December 23. I needed an official signature from the Alcaldia (mayor's office) since we don't have a recognized ADESCO in our community. I was specifically looking for the Unidad Ambiental - the official in the Alcaldia who is in charge of environmental matters. We've developed a working relationship with him, and for some reason he's the one in the Alcaldia with the FOMILENIO information. SO I drafted the letters with his name expecting him to sign.

Well, I lucked out. I arrived at 1:30 just as everyone in the office was piling in a pickup to drive out to some Canton or other to give away toys to kids for Christmas. The office was closed for three days before Christmas so that taxpayer dollars could be used for gimmicky political advertising. But the Unidad Ambiental went back inside with me and signed the solicitudes without reading them. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to stick around to let me use the fax.

So I went down to La Palma and faxed the solicitudes at the outrageous cost of $.45 per page. I then tried to call the office of FOMILENIO to confirm receipt of the fax and got no answer. Not surprising since it was just two days before Christmas. So we waited until Monday and called again. We finally reached someone at the office designated as in charge of the talleres, and they denied that they were in charge of the workshops. They told us that the person in charge was on vacation until January 3, and that nobody would be in the office to confirm receipt of our fax until then. Just to be sure, we put the original lists and solicitudes in an envelope and mailed them. We then sent an e-mail explaining that everything was signed and sealed before the deadline, and they should contact us upon receipt.

We'll see what happens.

As I understand it, the Canton next to ours had one of these workshops on baking, and the women tried to open a cooperative bakery which failed for want of cooperation and start-up capital. We tried to encourage people to sign up for workshops that would benefit them individually without subsequent need for capital investment or organization, but we had to go where the interest was. For example, some women were interested in a workshop about "Preparation of Comidas Tipicas (typical foods) of El Salvador". This would have been useful because many women run small restaurants, and could have diversified their offerings without having to start up new businesses or buy new equipment. But only a handful of women signed up for this workshop, and many more were interested in baking bread. The latter, of course, requires an oven and creation of a new market not already in existence. But that's the way they chose to go.

All the rigamarole getting this organized is typical here; people in the community are well aware of the inefficiency of the bureaucracy -- both government and NGO -- and are quite cynical about the ability to get anything done. It makes them reluctant to sign up or participate in any kind of organizing. Officials and bureaucrats are unresponsive and inefficient. People don't have the persistence (or often the resources to be persistent, which costs both time and money), to overcome organizational drag. And since there's a good chance that none of this will come to fruition after all of that effort, many people are unwilling to put the effort in to begin with.

I think it's a common experience for volunteers here to be the motivating force behind other people's projects. We have the motivation, time and resources to tromp around and sign people up and track people down and pester people to do their jobs. I've never been much of an organizer - preferring to go out and do something, rather than to try to get a bunch of people together to go out and do something - but in my work as an attorney I've had some experience pushing people to get up and go. It's a lot easier when you're pushing someone to do their job or act in a professional capacity. Getting people to move on their own, for their personal benefit is trickier. In this case it was easy, because all they had to do was sign their names, and we had a few motivated individuals like Don Manuel and Nina Raquel. But trying to organize an ADESCO, where people will actually have to voluntarily do work for the common good, seems like a nightmare.