28 August 2007

Short on time, quick update

Greetings everyone!

It has been some time since we have had an opportunity to post on the blog.  All of our projects are in the beginning stages, which is to say that there is very little time to do anything else.  We have found faster internet than before, so posting some pictures will be possible soon, but it is still quite slow.

Everyone is healthy and happy here.  than you all for your letters of support and your prayers.  They have all been felt.

Today Jeff and I traveled to Oku which is an area of Cameroon known for carvings and honey.  We saw a little of both, and also made some time to get up close and personal with a lovely waterfall.

If the weather cooperates this Sunday I am hoping to take everyone out for a picnic and hike to another waterfall that we saw along the way.

06 August 2007

Historic Day for The HIC!

It is with great pleasure that I would like to announce that our very first humanitarian initiative, Sacred Link Jewelry training and apprenticeship, officially held the inaugural class today!

It was a lovely day of teaching, sharing, and rapport building.  Petra, Briana, and Chelsea did a wonderful job of taking charge of the class as head instructors.  They have worked long and hard on a course curriculum, and that work sure showed this morning when we began the program.  I am so proud for them.

We snapped a few photos of the team, and I promise to post them shortly.

I had a busy day today, as I was in attendance for the morning session of the jewelry training, but then traveled some distance to discuss with the Fon (King) of this area about procuring some land for our demonstration farm amongst other things.  The meetings were fruitful and exciting.

03 August 2007

What's been goin' on

Life sure has been exciting here in Kumbo!

We are still managing several tasks at one time, so there is never a shortage of meetings with various community members, contractors, or organizations. A brief overview of the projects that we have going concurrently include:

1. Completing the relocation of the Sacred Link Jewelry apprenticeship program that was previously being conducted in our global headquarters in Honesdale, PA. Sacred Link Jewelry uses natural materials from all over the world. We are starting with 5 apprentices for this first round of training so that we can create an intimate setting for training. There are three full time instructors from the United States that have been charged with the task of training the trainer. These first five apprentices will have the opportunity to become faculty members after they complete the three month training program so that the first group will be fully capable of teaching future classes of jewelry making apprentices the proper way to produce and market jewelry to North America and European customers. The training will begin this coming Monday 6 August 2007.

2. Completely renovate and adapt a two story, 10,000 square foot building to meet all of the needs of a full fledged Himalayan Institute Community Center. So many good things have already happened, and yet it seems as if the project will never end.

On a daily basis we have a contractor with a large team of people developing the front grounds of the building to allow for access to the main road, entry gates for both pedestrians as well as vehicles, a guard house by the main gate, a parking area, flower beds, and a lawn complete with a thatched roof gazebo that will allow up to 15 people to relax comfortably.

We also have electricians, carpenters, plumbers, roofers, and gardeners working to have the grounds prepared for the grand opening this coming October.

3. Facilitating the sale of locally grown coffee to buyers abroad. One of the reasons that we selected Kumbo as the starting point for our first community center on the African continent was the existing infrastructure that a coffee marketing cooperative union had established. The structure that this coop was operating with was similar to the way that the beta project in India had perfected, so the town of Kumbo was on the fast track for an HI community center. As mentioned, the international buyers are there, HI has connected the dots between a coop that has not sold one Kg of coffee in many years, and a contract for a full year’s production! All that we have to sort out at this point are a few details, and the wheels of commerce can begin to spin again.

4. Negotiating and facilitating the purchase of locally produced honey to be sold abroad. In true HI form, we stumbled across a honey producing cooperative in a small village north of Kumbo. This honey is exceptional in so many ways. I do not want to spoil the surprise just yet, but just know that it is far from what is available at the local supermarket, and we are buying it (literally) by the metric ton!

5. Procuring publishing rights to two books written by local authors so that the books may be combined into one title and sold globally.

6. Sponsoring the planting of 5,000 – 10,000 indigenous tree species in an effort to fight deforestation, conserve water, and create positive impacts on climate change.

7. Locating and negotiating the rights to a large area of land in order to establish a demonstration farm and model village. Right now we are trying to procure 100-500 hectares (240-1,240 acres) so that we can provide massive employment (500-1,500 jobs or roughly 3 jobs per hectare), as well as proof that all of the teachings of our BioVedic Energy Farming educational programs can work as promised. The demonstration farm will also be capable of producing enough medicinal herbs, aromatic plants, and oil producing seeds to meet local need, and still have plenty of left over produce for export. There is a tremendous export deficit in this country, so creating some foreign reserve would be a huge boost to the national economy. The people that will be working the land will also have the opportunity to become members of a model community that will be able to produce all of its food crops, bio-diesel for powering electrical generators, and also focus mainly on producing cash crops so that every day the future will be a little bit brighter for their families than the previous day. This will be a self sustained society in every way, and I am certain that we have no even scratched the surface of where this concept can go. Also, do not forget that this is a demonstration farm that is really designed to inspire local land owners to follow suit, so there is no end to the amount of income that this project can inspire!

8. Developing concepts to reality – We are constantly considering so many other concepts that are brought to us by supporters abroad, local NGOs, as well as other ideas that our faculty happen to conceive. These include, but are certainly not limited to working with local prisons to improve conditions, commissioning locally produced indigenous artworks that can be marketed in the US, establishing a local chapter of Rotary International, collecting new and used sports equipment in order to outfit a wonderful sports academy that was founded by a local philanthropist, recording and documenting local traditional music, and the list goes on and on…

So that is a brief summary of what the days have been like or us. I only wish that the internet speeds would allow for the posting of photos and videos so that we could share more of our experiences in a multimedia format. A couple of videos that Jeff Abella produced here in Kumbo should be uploaded to this blog from stateside soon. They do a wonderful job of documenting our first few days in Cameroon.

Oh yeah we DO manage to squeeze a little time in for fun every day as well.

Until next time, please stay well.