Justin and Mia Rock!

Hey everyone, we have been so lucky for the past 2 weeks to have two great Australian volunteers with us, Justin and Mia!! They have used their skills as a plumber and a graphic designer to help us move the seed room along and create some great promotional material.

You can see from this series of photos that Justin is getting the irrigation set up. We are having some issues with light and with water pressure but we are finally sprouting 8 trays to see how it goes!!!! Justin has been a life saver and so busy I don't even have a pic of him to post!

Irrigation tubes running into the trays

Funnels used to drain trays

Drain running out of growing shed

Our new hose and soaking buckets!

As you know from reading old post we have lost the $450 funding we had to pay the rent and buy a bit of food for the horses so the pressure is on! Fortunately we have a great team of support both in Bolivia and the US and we have been exploring a number of money making ventures.

1. Expand the Equine Assisted Therapy (EAT) program to paying client/private client. We have begun to offer the EAT privately with a beautiful poster that Mia is in the process of designing.We have 2 new children participating and their parents have been overwhelmed by the effectiveness of the therapy. Once we put a few more touches on the promotional materials we will be visiting doctors who work with children with disabilities to let them know about EAT and its effectiveness. In order to make this a success we need to print posters, business cards and leaflets.

Handmade bridles with donated bits.

2. Make halters and bridles to sell to other equestrian schools in the area. Jose Luis has done this in the past and it has been very successful. In order to get this moving forward we need a bit of capital to buy the webbing we make the halters from and bits for the bridles. This photo shows you an example of our work.

3. Use the horses on the weekends for trail riding. There are a number of beautiful spots around Cochabamba for trail riding and in the past the kids have made money to feed the horses by taking folks on weekend trail rides. In order to do this we need to be able to shoe the horses and get a poster (YES Mia is designing more than one) printed advertising the rides.

4. Finish up the seed room. This will lower food costs by 45%, from $9739 a year to $5322 a difference of $4417. With the latest financial problems it is even more crucial that we get this up and running. Since we last wrote another $150 has come in so we are $700 short of our goal.

So as you can read we are busy and we are trying to become more self sufficient and generate our own funding sources. We do still need donations to help with this so please, if you can hit the donate button DO.

If you want it earmarked for any particular thing just let us know and we will be sure to use the money as you would like. Please pass this on to friends and family if you can it helps us to expand our circle of donors.

Thanks Justin and Mia and all of you for your help and support!

HEADING UP!

The seed growing room at blajot!

Thanks Abby and Ann for the donations yesterday!!

Now we only need $849.20 to completely finish the blue seed room and $253.20 more to get Justin to set up the watering system while he is here!!

UP WE GO, DOWN WE GO...

Just a quick note to see if anyone can help out with the curent DOWN WE GO. The only stable funding source for the equine assisted therapy program has been terminated. Although it was only $450 a month it allowed us to pay the rent on the field the horses are in $150 and pay Jose Luis' a small salary $300.

We have come up with a 3 solid ways to raise the money:
1. Look for private clients for the equine assisted therapy program.
2. Use the ponies for birthday parties.
3. Start trail riding on the weekends for tourists.
4. Submit a grant to the Global Children´s Fund.
So we are working on these although numbers 1 to 3 call for a bit of capital in the way of money for advertising and shoes for the horses.

The current crisis makes finishing up the barley sprouting project even more crucial as it will reduce the costs of feeding the horses by 44%.  To date we have raised $970! Thank you all who have donated.

To finish we need to raise $996 more but most crucial is the $400 for the watering system so the volunteers coming at the end of March can set that up. 


If you can give anything $5 or $10 or $20 it would be put to good use!!!

WE SURVIVED RAINY SEASON!!!!

Things are good with the horses, they spent almost 2 months in the rain eating grass in abandoned lots around the city and many are a bit fatter than before. One of the ponies got badly cut and we are having to have a vet come everyday to keep him healthy.  Jose Luis has organized a soccer championship and the youth are playing every Mon, Wed and Sat nights. Turbo and Alejandro do an awesome job of heading up the horse care staff and are very proud of how well the horses survived rainy season. We are all working hard now the rains have stopped to get the horses and ourselves! back in shape.

Magaly giving out school supplies.

A number of the kids were helped out by the project with school supplies as so many of them drop out of school due to lack of money to buy what they need to complete their homework.

The blue room is still standing after the torrential rains and we are ready to get back to work and get this barley fodder (click here to see a facsimile of what we are setting up, of course, without Home Depot materials :)) system up and running. We have built 2 shelves but need one more as well as the watering system and a couple other odds and ends. We have found volunteers to donate their time to build the last shelf and have a plumber coming at the end of March who will donate his time setting up the irrigation system!! We are in good shape and could be up and running in mid-April!

To date we have raised $970! Thank you all who have donated.

To finish we need to raise the following:

Growing trays  $310
Shelves $150
Watering system $400
Pump  $100
Timer for the watering system $36

Total $996

If you can help give a click on the Pay Pal button and please pass this on to anyone who might be interested!!!

RAINY DAYS IN THE BLUE ROOM

Team work!

It is rainy season here in Cochabamba which means the hills turn a emerald green and the horses spend their days grazing in the empty lots around the city.

We are trying desperately to get the "blue room" done and the seed sprouting underway.

Erin and Manuel volunteering

 TGFV (Thank God For Volunteers)....Erin has been with us for the month and has been amazing in her tenacity for this project. She hails from Washington state and works as a chemist but has discovered she has a talent for building shelves with not very straight knotty eucalyptus logs! She and I struggled together after Micha left (another TGFV!) to figure out how the heck you put these things together!!

This week we have been moving quickly thanks to Manuel who is visiting Erin from Peru and Pinki who is  always ready to lend a hand. 2 shelves are almost complete and ready to be put into production! I have included some fotos of them workin in the rain in the blue room to give you an idea of what we are up to.

The first shelf!!!

We have raised about $900 and still need another $1000 or so to finish shelves, set up a watering system and get the seeds. Thanks to all who have donated we really appreciate it and to those who haven't been able to yet even $10 or $20 goes a long way so if your inspired hit the button to the right of this post.

Cielo and her foal

Hi there this is Lee in Cochabamba. I wanted to give an update on how fundraising was going to date and share some updated costs.

First we have a new addition to the Vida y Esperanza family!!! Geronimo a beautiful pinto whose mother is Cielo and father is Pittu. He loves to canter around after his mom as she works in the afternoon.

To date we have raised $560 (thanks!!!) which has been spent to buy wood to make our own funky shelves (we have finally found a volunteer to finish this work since Micah left!). We have dug the foundation our for the room (but still need funds for the foundations and floor approx $200). We have put a roof on and put up blue plastic tarps for the sides (still need funds to put up adobe walls which will allow us to better control temperature and humidity $340).

The room for seed sprouting under the trees

 We have found a plastic container that will work to fashion the growing trays. The containers needs to be cut and drilled and a plastic drain put in making the cost of each container is $7. We have bought 30 containers but still need another 30 ($270 we still owe $60 on the ones we just bought!). We are still playing around with how to set up the watering system and are estimating that will cost approx. $500.

So folks we are still raising money if you can help us out! Click that button to the right!

New Fodder System

         Hello everyone! Abby here. It's been a while since I've posted, but I'm so glad to see that the other volunteers have kept up the blog and taken advantage of all it has to offer. Being that it is the holiday season I wanted to bring up a very important issue for Vida y Esperanza... food. As I'm sure you have seen in pictures that have been posted, many if not all of the horses in the project are barely able to keep weight on. Currently the program struggles to find donors to help pay for food, since there isn't enough money to cover it from lessons Jose Luis gives to his private students. With 10 horses eating 6 kilos of food per day (a combination of grains, cereals, and alfalfas) the annual cost of feed comes to $9,739. In order to pay for this on his own, Jose Luis would need to maintain 13 full-time students, which isn't reasonable considering he needs to make enough money on top of that to feed himself and his own family.

         Having watched several "green" documentaries lately, I got to thinking.... isn't there some way we can cut down on costs? A way to cut out the middle man and grow our own food efficiently? Lee and I began brainstorming, and she came across the idea of growing barley fodder. We found this great video which gives comprehensive instructions for growing this great alternative to conventional ways of feeding. Take a look...

         The action of sprouting amplifies the natural proteins, vitamins, minerals, enzymatic activity, omega 3’s, amino acids, natural hormones, and stimulates immune response. In addition, sprouting the grain increases the digestibility from 40 percent to 80 percent, so that the horses will not need to consume as much fodder compared to commercial feed since they will be obtaining more nutrition from a smaller volume of feed. A 5 pound batch of seed will yield a 25 pound fodder mat in only 7 days, exponentially increasing the efficiency of barley as a food source. By implementing a similar system to the one shown above, we would be able to produce 100 pounds of sprouted barley per day, plus feed them alfalfa at a cost of $5,322 per year! This would be a savings of 45 percent or $4,417 a year. This would translate into 7 full-time students, which is much more reasonable for Jose Luis.

         Excited about the possibility of this new system, Jose Luis and the boys put together a prototype with the help of a new volunteer named Micah. As you can see they used chicken wire and wood to construct shelves that are conducive to the flood-and-drain system that is the most effective in this kind of set-up. The entire process from seed to full sprouting takes only 7 days to complete. After some initial precautions are taken against mold (rinsing and soaking with a small amount of bleach or vinegar), all that is required is watering a few times a day, and voilà!

         This project is a great way to get the boys more involved with the program. Many of them have really taken to the idea, excited to learn about the growth process and becoming sustainable. Since the fodder will be harvested at Blajot, it will also provide much needed structure and a sense of responsibility among the members of Vida y Esperanza.

         Construction is set to begin next week at Blajot, starting with building a floor space and walls on an already existing lean-to structure. The bit that will be started next week Micah has very generously agreed to finance!! As for the rest of construction and material costs we predict that it will come to approximately $2,200. This figure may sound high, but with the fodder system in place we will still be saving over $2,000 the first year. We will need to buy:

34 Plastic 40L Gasoline Tanks (cut in half to make 64 24" x 15" trays) 
                $8.82 x 34 =  $300    

Materials to Build 2 Large Shelving Units 
                $350 x 2  =  $700

Drainage Supplies
                $200

Foundation and Walls for the Existing Lean-To
                $1,000

         If you wish to contribute to this project, please find the 'Donate' button on the right side of this blog. Any amount helps and is greatly appreciated. If you are unable to contribute monetarily, your input and ideas about how to further Vida y Esperanza's sustainability effort are welcomed, and you can do so by leaving a comment below each post! Sharing this page and spreading the word to friends and family is immensely helpful as well! Thanks again for all of the support!