International Year of Water

The year 2013 has been designated as the International Year of Water Cooperation.  The initiative is being coordinated by UNESCO and recognizes that cooperation is essential to strike and to use water as an instrument of peace. Water is a shared resource and its management needs to take into account a wide variety of conflicting interests. This provides opportunities for cooperation among users.

"Promoting water cooperation implies an interdisciplinary approach bringing in cultural, educational and scientific factors, as well as religious, ethical, social, political, legal, institutional and economic dimensions."

One of things we often take for granted in Canada and in those in other developed countries, is our continuous access to clean and safe water sources. According to Environment Canada, our country is home to roughly 7% of the globe's renewable freshwater, making it the third-largest water supply in the world.

Globally, 783 million people, or 11 per cent of the global population, remain without access to an improved source of drinking water.  United Nations report that "these sources include household connections, public standpipes, boreholes, protected dug wells, protected springs and rainwater collections."

Isa Mundo Foundation is supportive of the approach of the Water Project as we also believe that:

• Lack of clean water has serious effects on student's academic performance and attendance rates.
• The sickness caused by dirty water saps people's energy to do much of anything and poor health leads to poor producetivity
• Access to water leads to food security.
• Without clean water, the possibility of breaking out of the cycle of poverty is incredibly slim.

To learn more about the importance of access to clean water, visit the Water Project at http://thewaterproject.org/

World Indigenous Peoples Week

Cultural Survival and First Peoples Worldwide are dedicating this week to FPIC – Free, Prior and Informed Consent.  This initiative is a lead up to International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, celebrated annually on August 9th.

FPIC dictates that corporations, governments, and NGOS must include Indigenous Peoples in the planning and implementation of all development projects on traditional land, and obtain their consent before beginning a project, including respecting their right to say no to such projects.

Isa Mundo Foundation support open discussions and creating a forum where Indigenous peoples will have opportunities for their voices to be heard and contribute to drafting policies that impact their day to day lives both in the present and future.

For the past 40 years, Cultural Survival has worked with Indigenous Peoples globally to protect their languages, cultures and traditional territories.  To learn more about the organization's work, visit the the Cultural Survival website.

Bon Voyage to Big Mountain Youth Society

The Big Mountain Youth Society (BMYS) is one of Isa Mundo Foundation's newest partners in 2013. A group of students and teachers will be travelling to Ara, Indonesia, a small village on the island of Sulawesi to help a local community develop a media and technology centre for school children.  BMYS's students have been fundraising for computers and other materials to help make the project a reality.

The BMYS is a not for profit youth organization founded by the Directors of Little Mountain Learning Academy. Their purpose is to give back to the global community through social action.  The BMYS describes their goal as having: 

"students learn about social justice, the anti-oppression framework, and how to become globally and critically aware leaders of their generation. The program aims to give students the chance to learn beyond the confines of classroom curriculum and walls"

Isa Mundo Foundation donated various school supplies to this project to lend our support and to establish a partnership that we hope would carry over to future projects led by BMYS.

To follow the BMYS group, click on their Big Mountain Youth Society Blog. 

St. George's School Peru Project

Isa Mundo Foundation has partnered with St. George's School in Vancouver, BC in order to complete the IMEC project in Peru.  A group of Grade 10 and 11 students from St. George’s School are participating in an international service trip to Peru to build greenhouses in the village of Miski Uno.  The group is working in partnership with Peru's Challenge, the same organization we are partnering with to build the first IMEC in Peru.  The School has also built similar greenhouses in Pumamarca where the IMEC is being constructed.

The St. George's School group offered to take our netbooks, projector, banner and other school supplies to Peru and deliver them to Peru's Challenge.  This will save us shipping costs and ensure that all supplies arrive safely at the school.  We hope to work with the group in the future and find ways to support their initiatives. We value the approach of the School's vision and also feel that their " initiative to support this community is a rare opportunity for St. George’s students to expand their global perspective while providing an entire village with the means to lead more sustainable lives"

To learn more about their project in Peru, visit the St. George's School Peru Service Tour Blog

A Mother's Determination

"There's nothing more wonderful that seeing your child get better"

We spend hours each week reading articles and publications in journals, magazines, blogs and newspapers. We also watch videos, posts, lectures and documentaries relating to development, poverty, education, health and environment.  These are the tools we need to arm ourselves with knowledge and to be aware of current activities and news worldwide. It also allows us to learn of new initiatives, potential partnerships and to be inspired by organizations completing great projects.

Today, we read a story in the UNICEF website about a family in the village of Banda that reminded us of our own vision and work.  The short article highlighted the importance of having strong local community members being supported by an outside organization such as UNICEF.

As the story concluded "These brave mothers needed our help and thanks to the support of donors like you, we were able to provide it. Together, our support has meant that children like Adoun can walk again, smile back at their mothers, and – when they are older – help build the resilience of their country".

To read this short story, visit www.unicef.ca. 

Peru IMEC Update

As an update, we recently purchased Asus Netbooks, HP projector, education software and other school supplies this week to complete the stage of bringing all technology tools needed to complete the IMEC in Peru.

The supplies and netbooks will be transported to Peru in June by a group of students from Vancouver who will be spending time with the Peru's Challenge organization and their staff - who are our local partner in Peru.

I would like to thank all past and present volunteers who provided their time on this project since 2011. A big thank you also to our funders and supporters as we could not have done this without you. And a big 'Thanks' to Staples UBC Store for their continued support and committment to our projects.

We will keep you updated when the IMEC is officially open for students to attend.

Isa Mundo and Big Mountain Youth Society

Isa Mundo Foundation has committed to support the Big Mountain Youth Society by donating school supplies for their trip to Ara, Indonesia. The Society is part of Little Mountain Learning Academy and will be travelling to Indonesia with their students to complete education and development projects in August 2013.

We look forward to hearing about their trip and experience and we hope to continue this partnership in the future. 

To learn more about Little Mountain Learning Academy, visit their website at: www.lmacademics.com