AMIGOS partners with the Ministerio de Salud (MINSA), the Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente (ANAM), and Panamá Verde in the region of Coclé. Our partners directly involve AMIGOS Volunteers and Project Staff in their ongoing community health and environmental efforts. Panamá Verde works with AMIGOS to carry out an annual environmental festival and to facilitate excursions to national parks in the province.
Our work in Coclé
AMIGOS Project Staff and Volunteers work with local youth and community members to carry out the following activities:
I. Community Service
- Community-Based Initiative Process (CBIP): Volunteers collaborate with their host community in the implementation of a community-specific project. Projects in 2012 included: creating a school book exchange, repairing the roof of a school, and organizing a cultural festival.
- Extracurricular Activities: Together with local youth, Volunteers will plan and lead games and envinronmentally themed activities for children ages anywhwere from 5-12. In 2012, Volunteers focused on five different themes: Safe Water, hygiene, trash and recycling, risk management, and leadership.
- Tree Planting: For the past three years, AMIGOS has worked with a local teacher who is passionate about reforestation; for summer 2013 he will be providing several dozen trees to each of our communities. Volunteers and local youth can coordinate with local experts to utilize these trees as part of environmental consciousness-raising workshops.
- FiestAmbiente: An annual envoronmental fair where youth from all over the province of Coclé gather to share initiatives they are carrying out in their communities as well as daces and music.
II. Intercultural Exchange
- Living with a host family: Volunteers will have the opportunity to be immersed in Panamanian culture by living with a host family. AMIGOS prefers that each Volunteer is assigned to their own host family, however, occasionally two Volunteers are placed with the same host family. Volunteers are expected to act as part of the family, helping out with chores and taking part in day to day activities. Volunteers will learn about the local culture, while also providing host families with insight into their own habits, ways of being in the world, and lives back home.
- Eating local food: Although eating arrangements vary from one community to another, a common strategy is for Volunteers to have a rotating meal plan, in which they eat with different families in the community.
- Indigenous Rights Awareness: Volunteers will have the opportunity to learn about the current status of Indigenous groups in Panama and how they seek to maintain their culture and way of life.
III. Youth Engagement
- Guna Youth: This project will have Guna (Indeginous Panamanians) youth serving as AMIGOS volunteers alongside US-based Volunteers.
- Local Volunteers: Prior to Volunteer arrival, local youth will be trained by AMIGOS project staff on the basic program structure and planning and facilitation skills.
- Forming youth groups: Volunteers are encouraged to be creative and form youth groups in their communities (i.e. afterschool girls group, reading club, ect.) when possible. This will provide local youth with a structure within which to continue activities started throughout the summer and ensure sustainability of summer initiatives.
About our Partners
MINSA is the governmental entity responsible for ensuring the health of all Panamanians. The MINSA is a rector of health and part of its mission to promote integrated action with other national and international organizations, in order to sustainably increase the quality of life.
The vision of ANAM is to build a Panamanian society that is characterized by a healthy environment and a culture of sustainability, contributing to a higher level of human development. They lead, facilitate, monitor and manage environmental management for sustainable development. This is done in order to preserve, protect, restore, recover and improve the environment and natural resource base by promoting the environmental competitive advantages of Panama.
Panamá Verde is a non-governmental organization that forms youth groups in rural communities to plan and execute environmental and health related projects. Panamá Verde’s three-tiered programs are almost identical to that of AMIGOS—environmental health, service work in impoverished communities and youth leadership. Panamá Verde supports AMIGOS Volunteers with training and contributes to the sustainability of AMIGOS projects by continuing to work with youth groups after Volunteers depart.
FURTHER ACTIONS
Involving youth from across the Americas
Read about our Partner Agencies
