This summer of 2009, Direct Development International volunteers, alongside allies who are disseminating DDI-collected materials through affiliated groups and projects, are working in Latin American countries including Peru, Nicaragua, and Colombia.
Two of DDI’s founding members, Camila Mateo and Anca Grigore are traveling on a two-month community-service oriented trip throughout Central and South America working in schools, orphanages, and farms in order to affect areas mired in poverty. Both Anca and Camila are graduates of the University of Florida, with extensive coursework in Latin American politics and Health Sciences between the two of them. Anca and Camila felt disaffected by typical travel, in which spaces are visited, and spaces are left. Instead they are pioneering new forms of travel in which their purpose and intentions are purely philanthropic and transformative.
Another group of DDI founding members is headed to Belen, Peru, a slum on the edges of the Amazon that can be likened to a shanty-town-Venice during the wet season. A pioneering trip was undertaken last year by Kevin Bond and Kelly Heber, in order to form contacts with locals in this community that completely lacks health infrastructure, education, and public services. The purpose of this trip is to donate hundreds of collected books, the result of a spring book drive that took place on the University of Florida Campus. DDI members Zak Bennet, Kevin Bond, Chris Cano, and Maria Finkernagel will return this summer in order to make contacts in the village and set up a system for a consistent supply of donations for the community. Maria is actually spending a few months in Peru, and will serve as a regional representative on the ground, in an effort to expand DDI’s work in Peru.
Direct Development is also partnering with two members of Children Beyond Our Borders in an effort to set up an English Learning Library in Colombia. Taryn Deveraux is traveling to Cartagena, Colombia with their organization to implement educational relief for poverty-stricken regions in Colombia, and have generously donated bag space to carry DDI-collected children’s books to contribute to the library.
Check out the travel blog sections for more information on specific projects they are involved in.