Development of Development

On my quest for a better understanding of International Development through my Master’s Degree, I’ve joined this group of six student researchers to travel down here to the middle of nowhere, Amazon, Ecuador, in attempts to conduct my first ever real research project.

Last Spring, some of the MDP students prepared a project analysis of the proposed Yachana Technical Institute and cultivated the relationship with Douglas McMeekin, the director and creator of Yachana Foundation. Last quarter, our team of six student researchers completed our research proposal (passed through IRB successfully!) to conduct needs-assessment survey of potential students of the Yachana Technical Institute, a post-secondary training institution which aims to give people in the region the appropriate skills needed for regional employment opportunities – an idea apparently completely foreign to the local populations. What do they want to study? What could they pay? What kind of schedule is best for them? The second part of our research was a lofty attempt to imitate the longitudinal survey we observed at ICDDRB in Bangladesh where demographic information was collected on a random sample of the families in the region over a forty year period, producing an invaluable collection of data reflecting the changes in the community over the years, impacts from development projects, and data which can inform future development projects that may better serve the community.

Now doesn’t that sound like a Development Student in action? Participatory data-gathering and demographic information to inform future projects? We were prepared to set off into a Utopian world of development in which participants participate, students are eager, money is available, of course a crises of your time never occurs! Least to say, this is why an education with practical components applied on-site is so appropriate.

Douglas McMeekin is your typical entrepreneur. Visionary, exciting, motivating, bursting at the seams with ideas and innovation. A man who came to Ecuador with a less-than-perfect history in American business, a desire to change the world, and a sack full of dreams. Entrepreneurs (or at least the successful ones) also typically have a lot to show for those dreams they carried with them twenty years ago, and Douglas is no exception. The Ecolodge with its walkways adorned with indigenous flowers, its high-energy, bilingual, local guides, its internship employing local high school students in the kitchen.  The Yachana Collegio offering exceptional high school education to communities previously marginalized from knowledge, producing young people with confidence, work ethic and aspiration. The Yachana Technology, the greatest of which is the water purification buckets, procuring a much-needed amenity of clean water in the middle of the Amazon. I am nothing less than impressed.

But… there has to be a but… this is development. This is twenty years of trial and error, projects successful and projects left to rot in the backways. I’ve learned in the last few days that the high school almost had to close down last year for lack of funding in the foundation, despite the fact that the idea for the Institute funded by the foundation forges on. I learned that in fact no money is given from the Ecolodge to the high school, despite the fact that this is promoted all over the property of the lodge. I learned that in fact little food used in the kitchen is grown by the foundation or the high school kids as was suggested to us previously. I learned that there are about a million ideas in the head of that entrepreneur and his right hand man is continually reeling him in back to “reality”.

Confusions abound. They should offer you a course on the philosophy of development. Where do you begin? Which types of projects should you focus on? How much money should you have before you begin? Can you take chances with peoples’ lives? Should the cart ever be before the horse?

All of that said, here we are. This morning we conducted our first focus group survey which looked nothing like what we had hoped. Sporadic participation of 16 graduates of the high school who were… somewhat interested in the idea of technical training, while attempting to maintain their focus on the cute senorita across the room. We’ve been here five days and have altered our survey questions probably ten times.  This must be what Douglas meant when he said we’ll need to “learn to be adaptive”.

I’m learning more than conducting a survey. I’m learning how difficult it is to operate a conservation and education organization in the Amazon. I’m learning how to operate with difficult and different personalities. I’m learning about myself and piecing together pictures of my future.