Today a five year bi-lateral project was completed between Canada and Colombia. A program which I had the privilege starting in late 2012, now already five years ago again. That activity was the reason I started this blog, so you can go back to December 2012 to see how and why. We did a small consultancy activity in this program with Team Seneca and I was asked to present on that today. I was able to combine it with meetings in Panama City earlier this week (and again later this week). It was very nice to be able to witness the presentations of the cooperation during these past five years.
Presentations were given by representatives of Canadian colleges who worked with the Colombian partner organization on reviewing and designing new training programs in mining, agriculture and water treatment. One of the main challenges in Colombia is the fact that many small scale miners still use mercury which is not only very bad for their personal health but also for the environment. Methods were reviewed the past years on finding way to train these miners to move away from the use of mercury to cleaner yet affordable methods for the treatment of gold and other minerals.
Other projects in this program worked on designing programs for the most effective treatment of polluted water sources. The 3rd group presented on getting former small scale farmers who became miners back to farming in cooperatives.
One of my SENA colleagues in Bogota presented at the end of the day how the work done the past five years in the two provinces of Bolivar and Antioquia will now be replicated in other provinces.
Bibiana, the quiet powerhouse in Cartagena oversaw the work done in the Bolivar province, and Blanca, an equally quiet force in the Antioquia province, both rounded of the day. It was a great experience to see them all again after working with them so intensively during 2013. Back to Panama City tomorrow morning early again....
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