Report

My internship in El Salvador fell in the final third of Mercy Corps and ADHU’s “Permanent Housing Construction and Community Development Project.”  The objective was to build over 1000 seismically-resistant homes for families in the department of Sonsonate affected by the earthquakes of 2001.  The scope of work for my particular internship was to research, design, and apply for funding for a viable agricultural development project that would address the need for economic growth within MC/ADHU’s current housing project communities.  The economic development project would serve as a follow-up to the reconstruction/community development project.

With the help and cooperation of an agriculture/marketing company called Fintrac, I designed a program that served as a mechanism to break the cycle of importing fresh produce.  The project proposed to provide small farmers with technical assistance, credit through solidarity circles, and training in basic market analysis.  Working through this process of project development (from interviewing farmers, to members of coops, to employees of the Ministry of Agriculture, etc.) was incredibly interesting and valuable for me.

After the project was designed and the grant proposal submitted (all within my first month), I began working in several other areas.  I followed the evolution of CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) with the goal of understanding how it may affect strategies on the part of community-development NGOs, particularly in the agriculture sector.  I also reviewed the housing project methodology/process from a natural resource management viewpoint in order to make suggestions that might ultimately improve the well-being of the beneficiaries or at least make the process more complementary with the local natural resource base.  And finally, I designed a new concept-based teaching methodology for water, sanitation, and environmental conservation to be used by the housing project’s community development promoters. 

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