Usaquen Sunday market

Today I met up with Javier Mora, a colleague of APICE (a Colombian student loan organization with whom I have worked at Niagara College for the past 16 years), to walk the 4-5 km to the relatively expensive neighbourhood of Usaquen. We walked over the Carrera 7 which is closed off for traffic on the Sunday mornings and at the end we had a well deserved coffee and snack:

The Sunday market of Usaquen, "mercado de pulgas", is organized by an association of micro companies, most of them making artwork but also many small food producers (mostly organic). Below you can see just of few of the hundreds of small stands:

According to Javier some of the fabrics of the stand above are produced in China and sold by indigenous people from the Andes: if true, quite the effect of globalization....

There is also an area with paintings and there are some non-associated sellers in the side streets:

Usaquen was a village 70-80 years ago, but over time it has been absorbed by the city of Bogota. Here a few photos of the old town center with the traditional local church, the beautiful flowers and at the town square some pretty good volleyball players in action:

The season of carnivals will start in February and each town and region has its own specific traditions during their festive period. Here is somebody selling costumes for the colourful carnival in the city of Barranquilla in the north on the Atlantic ocean:

Walking these wonderful streets of the city on a sunny Sunday, life is near perfect. One huge thing is of course missing this year: the presence of Mary, Hilary and Mark. I already miss them dearly and thank goodness for Skype and Face Time. So for those of you who read my blog postings and have not seen my little family for a while, here are a few photos I keep on my computer screen saver:

A special Saturday lunch

Thanks to the introduction of Lina Amaya, who works at the ACCC Ottawa office, I was introduced to Angela & Daniel (one of Lina's sisters and her husband). They picked me up today and we drove to the outskirts north of Bogota to a place called Chia. There is a very unique restaurant there called "Andres de Res". I have never seeen something like this place and it is absolutely impossible to do it justice with photos, but let me give a try in this post. First of all, here are Angela and Daniel:

They have two wonderful kids ages 3 and 9, and little "Pipo" is quite the character:

The restaurant is a true family place during the day and seems to be quite the party place in the evening. The food is amazing and six hours after this lunch I am still 100 % stuffed! Let me show you a few of the special places to entertain kids during the day (while adults eat and chat):

Kids can do all sorts of crafts from painting to wood-work. They can make music and they can learne new dances. I could not cover it well in photos but hereby a few impressions:

All the staff at the place are students from a local university. Not only are they serving food and drinks, but they also offer kids entertainment, music at the tables, magic tricks, valet parking and more. Daniel told me about some real nice company strategies like that. In Colombia there is a franchise called "Crepes & Waffles" (we need some of those in Canada!). All the staff in those restaurants are single women (many of them single Moms), a strategy offering good work and income potential to women and adding to gender equality in the country. In the photo above a few of the students dressed up and playing all day "live theater" for the patrons of the "Andres de Res". And below a group of musicians entertaining another table (sorry for the poor photo quality):

The place has a large "open kitchen" and I should have made photos of the food as well (sorry Kyla; next time; plus maybe I can get my hands on a few Colombian recipes for Kevin's "Smokin Buddha")

After a few hours in this very special place this is how our group looked like. I think I was totally exhausted of all that great food and entertainment. A very special Saturday lunch indeed!

Thank you Angela and Daniel; muchas gracias!

Showing our colours

The SENA international relations team works with partner organizations around the world and today an assistant put up a bunch of new little flags above the desks of staff members working with the countries of those flags. You see in the photo above a bit of an overview, and for the Dutch readers among you, you might have spotted our red, white and blue already (for the others, yes we have more colours than just "orange"). My colleague Sandra waves the Canadian flag:

And the writer of this blog? Well, what do you think?

A "Dutchie" under Canadian service and speaking all day Spanish... go figure....

After lunch (a wonderful typical Colombian dish for about $6) a group of the international team headed for another good Colombian coffee, while some of you shuffled through the snow, or like Paule, a dear colleague from Quebec, made a very special "snow-man"....

Hasta luego. That is it for today again. On Sunday a post with photos of a nice arts market.

New office

Here is my little cubicle in the international sector of the SENA headquarters, Around me are colleagues who work with partner organizations in different parts of the world. Below is an overview of the entire group of 15 staff in SENA International Relations:

The colleague with whom I will work mostly is Sandra and below you can see her having a short break in one of the local Juan Valdez coffee stores (the equivalent of the Canadian Tim Hortons):

This week Sandra and I started going in detail through our work-plan for the April 2013 to March 2014 budget year, as well as starting to organize logistics for field visits in the south of the Bolivar province and for a regional EFE/EPE program meeting in Lima (with colleagues of the EFE/EPE programs in Peru and Bolivia). Sandra is a lawyer and works at SENA since July 2012. Before that she worked 7 years at Colombia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the SENA International Relations team she maintains all the partnerships of SENA with organizations in Canada and the USA.

One correction of an earlier blog entry: I mentioned that Bogota is at about 2,000 meters altitude. In fact, I just learned today that it is actually 2,600 meters! Just to give you an idea of what that would mean in Canada: Graham, a colleague of College of the Rockies in BC, sent me the photo below of a trip he made into the local mountains. The photo is at about 2,000 meters altitude....

Ahhh.... no snow here in Bogota though... :-)
Sorry for those of you in the cold in Canada and northern Europe... could not resist that one.

Be good all of you!

Hasta la proxima.

Rosales in Bogota

This morning I made some photos to share with you. For starters, this is an impression of the Rosales area where I now live. In the background you can see the mountains against which the east side of the city of Bogota is built. Rosales is next to Chapinero where the SENA offices are where I work.

This is the gym where I work out every other day. It has four floors with different stations. The top floor has daily spinning classes. Not ready for that yet. Bogota is at 2,000 meter altitude and your body needs some time to adjust to that. But I do every other day my 2 km on the rowing erg plus some upper body instruments. Little by little I will get in shape again....

As you all know Colombia is famous for its coffee. There are many small places, all with great coffee, and then there are the Colombian franchises. "Juan Valdez" is probably the Colombian equivalent of the Canadian "Tim Hortons" (don't think Juan was a hockey player though). This Juan Valdez is the closest to my apartment; about 3 blocks. There are hundreds of them in the city and throughout the country. In Canada I need 4-5 Timmies per day to get my "caffeine fix". Here I only need 1 or 2. Paul Brennan (of ACCC) and I will one day open a Juan Valdez franchise in Canada...

"Zona G" or "Zona Gourmet" is right around the corner of my apartment. There are some 40 or so restaurants with good Colombian food and also with food from around the world. You can't really get this restaurant area in one good photo, but there are 5 streets like this full of restaurants. I try to be disciplined and cook most of the time for myself. There is a wonderful little "farmers market" just down the street from a cooperative "Finca" just outside of Bogota. All organic stuff.

This is a view of "Carrera 7" to the north. Bogota is super easy to find your way. All the streets going north to south are called "Carreras" and the streets east to west are called "Calles". Carrera 7 is one of the larger streets. On Sundays part of the street is blocked off for traffic and thousands of cyclists, walkers, runners and roller-bladers make use of that wonderful city offer. At Calle 72 it veers to the left (to the west) and then it continues on Carrera 15 all the way north till who know where. This lasts from 8 AM till 2 PM. Tomorrow I will be one of the thousands of runners there!

This is Carrera 7 to the south, the direction I walk from my apartment in Rosales to the SENA offices in Chapinero. As you can imagine in a city this size (about 6 million) almost everybody lives in apartment buildings. The house market prices have been going up steadily the last few years, partly influenced by a growing economy and partly by a larger influx of "gringos" like me...

The walk from my apartment to the SENA offices is about ten minutes. I already bought a good big umbrella because in February and March the rain comes down here steadily most of the days. Below are a few photos of the SENA administrative buildings:

This is the main entrance. SENA offers training and education to millions of Colombians each year from short 2 week training programs to 3 year diplomas. Very much like the Canadian Community Colleges. These offices are the SENA headquarters and only administrative staff work here. In the city of Bogota there are numerous training centers, and also around the country. All training and education is free, so SENA is 100 % dependent on the annual government budget. The vast majority of the thousands of teachers and instructors go on year to year contracts. During the coming months I will share more details along with my own learning process about the SENA operations.

One last photo for this entry: my "Bancolombia" branch across the street on Carrera 7. Maybe not such an exciting photo, but an interesting experience to open an account as a foreigner. Good service but also a charge for every single transaction. That is the world of the banks, eh?

A little bit more about my work (building on my entry of a few days ago). About 700,000 people in Colombia have formal or informal work in mining and related service industries. One of the current challenges of the Colombian mining industry is that about half of the estimated economic activities in the sector are informal (and a fair amount of that are illegal operations). A lot of work needs to be done by the Colombian government to change as much as possible of the informal activities into formal businesses. That way the crime will reduce, the workers are better protected, the small scale miner associations will have more access to business loans and in general the expectation is that it will also improve the environmental control on this industry. A better balance between increasing the economic potential of the mining for the country and protecting the rich eco-systems of the country needs to be found. The main results will flow from more access to and improved training.

Between 2004 and 2011 the gold production in Colombia increased from 38 ton to 56 ton, and the estimate for 2012 is 62 ton. A huge increase without enough "checks and balances" so far. Canada represents 52 % of the foreign investment in Colombia for mining research & exploration. So we also have a role to play in improving that balance as desribed above. The plan is to move to more "responsible mining" or also called nowadays "sustainable mining". The challenge is of course the pressure of the world market. Gold prices increased from $300/ounce in 2002 to $1,500/ounce in 2011. The increase of production has been both with more larger corporations and with a lot of small scale operators. The informal mining takes mostly place in remote and isolated areas of the country, such as the south of the province of Bolivar where we intend to assist with our EFE/EPE program co-funded by CIDA and the Colombian government.

In these rural areas at this moment the formal education of the people is on average only five years. So we must describe these miners (and miners-to-be: youth and teenagers in these areas) as what we call "non-traditional learners". SENA is starting its outreach of training programs in these areas, but most of their curriculum needs to be adjusted to non-traditional learners. It must include much more life skills, work skills and awareness about citizenship than they do in the urban training centers.

The second focus of our EFE/EPE program will be on small scale agriculture, husbandry and (river) fishery. Not everybody in these rural communities should have to become a miner. At the moment the agriculture in these communities is under-developed and too much food needs to be imported from elsewhere (which makes the cost of living higher than is needed).

SENA has already a few years ago declared that this work will be one of their priorities. The cooperation with the Canadian ACCC and its member colleges is very much welcomed. In Canada many colleges work in rural regions and train thousands upon thousands of Canadians for both large and small scale operations in mining and agriculture. There are numerous "lessons learned" and best practices which we can try to transfer to our colleague teachers and instructors of SENA. One of the examples already mentioned is the fact that in some Canadian conservation areas there is actually small scale and responsible mining taking place. With its share of the revenues of this mining the park management supplements its limited government supported budget and that allows them to for example build "green bridges" over the highways through park areas (which offers the opportunity for animals to migrate more between areas and accelerate eco-system restoration).

Not all the Canadian practices will right away be applicable in Colombia. SENA is still a very centralized organization with all of its curriculum development taking place in Bogota. We will work hard with them to create more decentralized models so that local SENA training centers can better react on the local training needs. That is the model which was designed right from the start with the Canadian community colleges in the late sixties. SENA was created in 1955 and in line with the then government policies, it was created as a centralized organization. Old habits change slow, but the SENA strategists have declared also this decentralization (and internationalization) process as one of their priorities. Let's see whether the Canadian involvment can function as a catalyst in that process.

More next time....

A home away from home

The first week in Bogota I lived in a hotel room which I turned into a small office because at SENA most of my colleagues were not present yet. I purchased a small printer/scanner/copier (all in one) and it is amazing what one can nowadays do with the technology between computer, iPhone and its accesoires. I really regularly feel a technology dinosaur... but eventually this old dog learns the new tricks. Persistence and perseverance...

Yesterday I moved into my little bachelor apartment and this feels much more a home away from home. The home-office is now more spacious and I love the neighbourhood I ended up in.

This view is from my mini-balcony. This coming weekend I will take a few photos from the neighbourhood, because this photo does not really show too much.

I can now cook my meals (in order not to spend a fortune in all those very appealing restaurants in "Zona G" (remember: "Zona Gourmet", the restaurant area near all the banking offices....).

We (the Ottawa ACCC team and I) are working this week on what is called the PIP, Project Implementation Plan. The purpose for CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency who funds these kind of international development projects with Canadian tax payer's money) is to have base-line data and clearly described intended outputs and outcomes at the end of the project. Based on this PIP the colleagues from CIDA will at the end of the five year period (and sometimes also during the implementation phase of the project) monitor and evaluate the results of the project. This all forms part of the objectives to be transparent and accountable.

The PIP is therefore very important. It will be nice to have it completed by the end of this week. Next week I will then sit down with my colleagues of SENA to review this work (which we cooperated on together already in November, August and June 2012). My next task is then to get the balls rolling for the work-plan 2013-2014 which goes from April 2013 to March 2014. This work-plan forms part of the PIP and links to its intended outcomes.

Colombia has a population of almost 47 million (2011 statistic). The country has medium level economic indications with a strong growth potential. Unfortunately there is still too much inequality and poverty: an estimated 15 % of Colombians do not have enough daily nutrition and almost 25 % live below the poverty level (more so in rural areas than in urban areas). The Human Development Index for Colombia is 0,71 which is lower than the Latin American & Caribean average of 0,73 and it puts the country at # 88 of 187 countries with an HDI. Inequality measured with the GINI coefficient puts Colombia at the 2nd highest inequality level in the LA & Caribean region (higher than for example Haiti) and the 7th highest inequality in the world (for countries where a GINI coefficient can be made). One of the main neglected issues of the past was land ownership which played an important factor in the start of rural guerilla movements such as the FARC about fifty years ago.

The Colombian government over the past decade has worked hard to address the root issues of the political and internal conflicts. At this moment the government and the FARC are having peace talks in Cuba and most people seem to be optimistic and positive. It is time for real social change especially in a time where there is more interest than ever from foreign investment (Canadian companies count for example for 50 % of the investments in mining exploration at the moment).

One word that is used a lot at the moment in Colombia is innovation: technical innovation and also social innovation. Environmental and social sustainability for the country are now priorities and our project "Education for Employment" responds to this movement. In my next blog entries I will give you more details on how we hope to contribute to more and better opportunities for people living in some of the most isolated rural areas and who make their living on gold mining and small scale agriculture. If these people do not buy in on sustainable practices, it will be a huge challenge for the Colombians to reach their current ambitious targets.

More in the weekend.

Getting settled in

On Tuesday January 8 a smooth five and half hours flight with Air Canada brought me to Bogota where I had for the first little while a hotel booked. On Wednesday I started right away looking for an appropriate apartment in one of the neighbourhoods near the SENA offices where I will be working. By Saturday I had decided on a nice small apartment and I will be able to move in on January 16. The research I had done in advance from Niagara through the website "metrocuadrado" paid off, because I could right away do my search very targetted. One of the local realtors proved to be very helpful.

My apartment is located about 10 minutes walking from the SENA offices, so that will be a healthy excercise each day. In addition I took a membership at a local gym. The area where I will be living is called Rosales where "Zona G" there stands for "Zona Gourmet". I will need that gym membership!

Last week was hard work to meet a deadline the ACCC team had to submit our 2013-2014 work-plan by Friday January 11. From my hotel room in Bogota I made a few long nights in order to feed the team in Ottawa with some of the required input from my side. In addition I had to get a number of logistics organized such as a local bank account, a local cell phone plan and some office equipment.

Yesterday was my first Saturday in Bogota. I decided to explore the city on foot and ended up walking a good three hours along Carerra 11, past "Zona T", "Parque de la 93" and "Museo Parque del Chico". It is such a lively city with parks, busy shopping streets and thousands of small restaurants and stores. It will not be difficult at all to be entertained here in my free time. I found a store to be compared with the Canadian Mountain Equipment Co-op. They organize day and weekend treks in the mountains around the city. I better first have my body get used to the 2000 meters altitude as well as get in better shape before I join them!

The project work-plan for the coming year is ambitious but - in my humble opinion - realistic. We need to start with some further community needs assessments in our two "pilot" areas in the south of the province of Bolivar. I plan to go a week to each community with some colleagues of SENA and the provincial government in late February and early March. The output of those visits will be more detailed "base-line data" which will later be used during the monitoring & evaluation visits to see what the measurable outputs (numbers of people trained and able to get better work and/or do their own businesses better & safer), outcomes (changed behaviours based on better training) and impact (changed/improved economic and social circumstances) in the targetted region.

During the week of February 11-15 we will  have a regional coordination meeting in Lima, Peru with the EFE teams from Bolivia, Peru and Colombia (CIDA funds this program as a regional activity in order to stimulate these three countries - and others - to increase regional cooperation).

In April and May we will try to bring some Canadian experts to Colombia from the Canadian Mining Sector Council and from the expertise in Canada on so-called "access training", programs for people who have not been able to complete elementary and/or secondary education (we also call this group of trainees & students sometimes "non-traditional learners"). At the end of May we will bring a few colleagues from Colombia to western Canada where they will attend the annual ACCC conference hosted this year by Okanagen College. We will also visit a number of colleges in that part of Canada who have strong training programs in mining and agriculture.

In June and July I will be assisting my colleagues of SENA to write "terms of reference" for Canadian colleges who - based on those "ToRs" - will show an interest to be involved in the program. In October or November a few Colombians will travel to Canada to meet with representatives of 8-10 short-listed colleges, and then make a choice of 4 or 5 colleges to work with SENA on new and improved training programs for artesenal mining and small scale agriculture. These colleges will then start working in Colombia in early 2014 for a three year period.

There are more details, but I will fill you in along the way....

In future blogs I will try to add some photos. Right now I am trying to figure out how this fancy new iPhone works that my wife and kids gave me in December for my birthday....

Saludos,

Jos

Packed and ready to go

Best wishes to everybody for a healthy & happy 2013. My suitcases are mostly packed and I will be off to Bogota on Tuesday. The first few weeks I will stay in a small hotel near the SENA offices and the hope is that I will find a suitable small apartment soon. Wednesday I have already a few showings of apartments which I found on the "metrocuadrado" website.

Then the logistics of opening a local bank account, finding a gym to (try to) stay fit and buying a local cel phone plan (among other things) will have to be done. Work at SENA will start on Monday January 14 but I am already preparing activities via e-mail communications.

I have a Skype address under "josnolle" so give me a shout every now and then!

Hasta pronto....