The FEMAP Foundation [06.15.10]

On days that I don't go to Hospital de la Familia in Ciudad Juárez, I work at the FEMAP Foundation office in El Paso, Texas. The office is where all of the administrative work for the various programs under FEMAP-SADEC take place including; brain storming a program, planning its execution, finding funding and then actually bringing the model into Juárez. Although I wasn't expecting this kind of experience, I'm actually really glad to be able to work in the offices. I'm learning all about the ins and outs of organizing and actually running an non-profit; how all of these programs actually become a reality! One of my main tasks while in the office is writing and revising grants for the various projects. FEMAP-SADEC received no government aid whatsoever, so the entire operation is funded through donations and grants. In order to keep these specific programs alive, the offices are on a constant look out for sources of funding. 


One of the most exciting developments in regards to funding over the past few days for the FEMAP Foundation has been the new points of focus for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Last week, Mrs. Gates announced in celebration of International Women's Day that she would pledge $10 million towards funding for programs associated with women and children'd health. This morning, Mr. Gates established a partnership with Carlos Slim (a Mexican citizen who also holds the title for current richest man in the world, just barely passing Gates) to pledge $150 million towards funding health organizations in Latin America, particularly Mexico. What a wonderful union for the FEMAP Foundation! We have been working with the hospitals in Mexico all day to figure out on behalf of what program we should submit a grant application. 

In my Intro to International and Global Studies discussion sections, we had many discussions where we spent a lot of time bashing non-profits. The argument was that non-profits often suffer from "tunnel vision"; focusing too much on one issue that may cause harm to another issue. The example that was raised was in regards to environmental organizations that were working hard to eliminate the production of GMOs, citing genetic modification of food as harmful towards the environment. However in some third world nations, GMOs are the most promising means of defying the ever present issue of food insecurity -- a reduction in production or research of GMOs may prove detrimental towards such a pressing issue. Additionally, the discussions focused on the inability of non-profits to keep programs afloat past a certain grant cycle - with only short-term programs in place, development through programs implemented by non-profits rarely proved successful. 


I have found that the work that the FEMAP Foundation does doesn't suffer from these common faults amongst non-profits. I had initially believed that the FEMAP Foundation was focused solely on the provision of health care towards impoverished regions in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Actually, the FEMAP Foundation has a lot of different programs including;
 - Nursing School and Scholarships; the FEMAP Foundation started and still funds a now nationally accredited nursing school right in the heart of Juárez. Scholarship opportunities are provided for promising students as well as ex-sex workers who have the potential to gear themselves towards a better career. Partnerships with hospitals in the US (who need nurses) have also been established to provide a job opportunity for graduates of the school.


- Promotoras Foundation; Providing informational sessions in addition to free clinics for women and young teens to  provide information on STI/STD prevention, teen pregnancy, nutrition and balanced diets as well as other topics as needed. 


- Community Banks and Micro-financing Program; Providing funds, primarily to women, to begin their own businesses in order to become economically independent


- Jovenes, Cultura y Sexualidad; Working with high school students to provide information on sex, sexuality, drug use and violence. The program has now implemented an additional step, creating a coalition of young students from impoverished communities to seek out the needs of their environment. It was determined that many students go to school hungry everyday in these communities - the teenagers started a community kitchen to provide breakfast and lunch for these students.


... and many other programs! These are only some of the non-medical programs FEMAP-SADEC has implemented, and has its largest investment on free provision of healthcare to those from low-income regions, focusing particularly on women and children. The hospitals specialize in pediatrics and OB/GYN; as I hope to make obstetrics my specialty I am so excited to be working with a foundation that does work in these areas!

Finally, I want to talk about the location that we're set in. The FEMAP Foundation recently changed venues from an office downtown to a location out in the eastern suburbs of El Paso. We're currently located in a two-room office in El Convento at Lorretto, which serves as a convent, a private school for girls, a church and office space for non-profit organizations and artist groups. I wanted to talk about the Convent because the grounds are so beautiful - nothing at all what I imagined the office would look like! The Convent sits at the top of a large hill, so I can look out to see all of Juárez and El Paso from our windows. 

Ciudad Juárez y la Hospital de la Familia [06.12.10]

On Tuesday, June 8th 15 year old Sergio Hernandez was killed on the International Bridge in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. On Wednesday, June 9th I crossed over the same bridge to go to Juárez for the first time. I recognized the bridge and the graffiti along the riverbanks from the different newspaper articles that covered the story. There were a lot of people on the site, some were cleaning the area, while camera crews continued to cover the story. 

Juárez was actually pretty scary going in the first time. The bridge that connects Mexico and the US is lined with security guards, casually carrying around rifles and some even machine guns. The guards on the Mexican side all look really, really young - probably not much older than me. There are also a lot beggars and people peddling goods that wait right along the bridge, knowing very well that tourists have money. 

The minute you officially leave the bridge and walk into Mexico, about 15 guys are sitting around, waiting to see if you are a viable target for pickpocketing/harassing. Right before we got on the bridge, Ana said "I'm not going to talk to you in English for a few minutes until we pass those guys. Just try not to make eye contact with." But as I got off the bridge, the guys seemed to surround the bridge landing - there was nowhere to look at but them. 


The hospital is really modern, comparable, even better than some institutions I have seen in the US. A modern three story building, the hospital sticks out as one of the newer buildings amongst the small taquerias that line the rest of the street. At the hospital, we met Graciela and Libby - two of the volunteer coordinators who work with the Promotoras de Salud initiative. They took Anna and I on a tour of the hospital, while explaining to me the program we would be most active with (Colpomovil). The program is essentially a mobile clinic that travels around rural and impoverished regions of northern Mexico providing free healthcare. The new initiative was focused primarily on detecting and treating breast, cervical and uterine cancer amongst a population of women who do not have the resources to pursue these check-ups.


The hospital itself is very modern, but the patients in line stood in stark contrast with the facility. Hospital de la Familia is a private, non-profit hospital - therefore for many of its patients, the Hospital is their last resort. Though Mexico has nationalized healthcare, the public hospitals can often only offer low quality care and patients must wait for hours, sometimes days to receive emergency care. While the hospital provides routine checkups and other basic care, many of the families are there because they seek immediate assistance. There was one woman waiting in the ER with her eight children, all of them barefoot and many with only pants on. She was carrying her screaming infant and she looked so tired, so exhausted...


The second floor was where I best saw why it was so important for the hospital to continue. This second floor was expressly for obstetric care; delivering and caring for newborns. When Graciela took us to this particular ward she indicated that one end of the wing was for healthy newborns and their recovering mothers. She then indicated that the opposite wing was for newborns who faced complications. There was a waiting area with what seemed like over 40 people carrying newborns and infants. The hospital only has about 6 incubating machines for pre-mature infants and only so much other equipment to tend to other needs. The other parents had to wait their turn with their infants for however long it took. 


Having now gone to the Hospital de la Familia, I feel privileged in being able to donate my time and intern with the FEMAP Foundation. Having directly seen the cause I am working for, and the people who are benefiting from the Foundation, I feel fortunate and grateful towards SCB and FEMAP for sending me here and allowing me to meet and work with these people. 


"There are two primary choices in life; to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them." 
                                                              - Denis Waitley

Fronteras [06.01.10]

The route that I take to and from work is one of my favorite parts of El Paso. Every day I take these roads that bring me in through all the different "regions" of El Paso; the downtown area, the nice neighborhoods, the less nice neighborhoods, the historical districts. The most interesting part for me is the main highway; towering over both El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, the bridge basically runs alongside the border that cuts between the two countries. This was my favorite part of my commute because, for all of the political and cultural conflict that takes place along this one border, the two cities look undeniably that same from up on the highway. Up on the mountains, the diversity of the two cultures is represented - the landscape on the American side largely composed of larger than life billboards for BudLight while the mountains on the Mexican side have written on them "Juárez - la biblia es la verdad, leela!" I could see all this from the highway, and every morning I kept wondering how an invisible divide, an imaginary line could present so much separation.


If you look down from the freeway, you can see that there is a massive graveyard for most of the trip. There are thousands of little gravestones dotting the area, some with flowers, some with crosses, some with pictures. The strange thing about this graveyard is the land that it sits in. The graveyard stretches for miles as dust, the gravestones not entirely standing up because of the instability of the ground. Then, out of nowhere, there is a tiny patch of bright, green grass with big willow trees surrounding the area. The patch of grass is gated with a iron fence enclosing it. Then, miles more of dusty graveyard. The first time I saw it, I couldn't help but laugh - even in spite of the hot, Texan heat, the rich were still able to keep up a higher-quality graveyard. There was obviously no attempt at exemplifying a more "PC" organization of the graves, because right there in the middle of dusty dead people was a lush, green and gated community. What I didn't know was how much more the divisions continued. My supervisor explained to me that the green area was for all the white Americans of El Paso, something that was to be expected. But the partitions continued, as separate graveyards were created for the large Arabic population and another for the significant Korean/Chinese population. The largest region, the one that had the most direct sunlight and gravestones sinking into the land, was reserved for the Mexican people. The upkeep of the graveyards also related to these divisions, the "Mexican graveyard" finishing last with little to no maintenance. 


I still like taking the highway to work every morning. Only now, it serves less as a hopeful symbol of the closeness of the two nations and instead as a sobering reminder of the bigotry, racism and a long culture that serves as a blockade between Mexico and the United States. There may not be a physical barrier between Juárez and El Paso, but there sure as hell is a wall.   


"Either we're going to solve this by realistic negotiation or there will be blood on the border."                  
                                                                                                     - Tom Metzger 

¡Viajando por El Paso! [05.31.10]

Dimple, Laura and I spent most of today touring around El Paso in search of our internship sites and explore downtown El Paso! As El Paso was a nice and scorching 99°F, we loaded up on sunblock and water and headed out to investigate the city!

 As we found out very quickly, most people from El Paso travel by bus - mainly because the El Paso bus system is so reliable! In spite of the fact that today is Memorial Day, we didn't have to wait longer than 20 minutes at any bus stops. 

"La Tierra Cafe," along the bus route.

Our first stop took us to downtown El Paso. Laura and I had walked down here yesterday morning, but we didn't really get a chance to investigate. The downtown area is filled with lots of little shops selling clothes, gaudy jewelry and novelty goods - kind of like the Chinatown of Texas. We got on the first bus to head out to Dimple's internship site; the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Institute of Texas and Laura's internship site; the Border Network for Human Rights.

Dimple and Laura at MHMR, Dimple's internship site.

Laura at her internship site, the Border Network for Human Rights.

The bus ride to and from the internship sites were some of the more interesting parts. The internships were located in what were primarily residential areas so we got a view of a lot of cool looking houses!

Adobe-style houses that lined the bus route.

We decided to take a break for lunch near Laura's internship site, at a Mexican revolution-themed restaurant called "Rincon de Villa." The area that we are staying at has a lot of restaurants, but not a lot of authentic food (shockingly, there are three sushi bars within walking distance of our housing!). This was our first taste of really good, non-Taco Bell, Mexican food since we've landed in El Paso - and it was delicious!  

Laura checking out Pancho de Villa.

One of the most fun parts was the salsa they brought out to start. It was ridiculously spicy, but we all braved a  taste of it! You can watch Laura's face as the spiciness really seeps in - it was really, really hot!

Examining the chip...

Venturing forward...

"Oh my god, that is hot!"

After lunch we headed back to downtown El Paso, where we did some shopping and some touring! I'm coming to find that Dimple and Laura are really awesome to tour and investigate with - their enthusiasm and interest for the area make them great people to travel and live with! So far, we've gotten along really well and have been enjoying cooking, exploring and getting lost together. 


Having figured out our bus routes and a general scope for the downtown area, we took another bus back to University of Texas (UTEP) housing - basking in A/C and planning out our dinner menu... internship starts tomorrow! 

Outside of the restaurant. 

The downtown shopping area.

I got excited because I saw a Chihuahua, Mexico license plate!

Dimple outside of one of the stores in downtown El Paso. 

So I guess... [05.29.2010]

... I'm a little bit nervous.

It's less than a few hours before I leave for my internship site and my mom is knocking on my bedroom door. Glance over to the clock, it's 5AM. My flight leaves at 3PM. Yeah, for my mom that seems about right.

"Sarah chan, don't you want to reschedule your flight? You're going to be arriving so late - aren't you going to be terrified? Aren't you even the slightest bit nervous? You should be more nervous! Be more nervous!"

Today, I left the tiny town of Falls Church, VA to start my internship in Ciudad Juárez. I will be volunteering for an organization that offers free healthcare to the public; an office based in El Paso, TX but the real work is done across the border in Mexico. I don't know much about the area that I will be travelling to except for what I have read in the news. And there has been a lot of news about Juárez. Recently named as one of the most dangerous cities in the world, the violence on Mexico's most well-known border city has certainly picked up over the last few years. Attributed largely to drug related "turf war," there have been a significant number of murders of both the involved and the innocent.

The taxi ride from the El Paso International Airport to the University of Texas, El Paso gave me a little tour of the area. Signs that read 10 miles to Juárez... 5 miles to Juárez... 1 mile - most everything written in a mix of Spanish and English, sometimes just Spanish. Strange scenes like a massive Target with an expansive parking lot right across the highway from a tiny neighborhood of houses piled on top of one another. At one point, I could even see the football stadium like lights that were lined up on the border.

I want to finish this post up by commenting on starting this blog. The requirements for my fellowship are to create two posts on my experiences, but I want to update it at least once a week. I've never blogged before, but I have done a lot of travelling - I feel like the combination of writing publicly and going to a new place, a new habit and an old habit, will balance out well.

"If God had really intended men to fly, he'd make it easier to get to the airport."                                - George Winters