Working in General Merino, Adopt-A-School 2025 Second Week Project
During the second week of the Adopt-A-School volunteer weeks, volunteers experience something different from the first week. While the first week is filled with school supply deliveries–each day, the teams visit two or three schools–the majority of the second week is spent in one community. These volunteers do not miss out on supply deliveries; on the Monday of that week, deliveries are made to the last communities awaiting our visit. Then, we embark on a different type of volunteer work for the rest of the week, in one community.
This year’s chosen community was General Merino, located on the Yanayacu, a tributary of the Amazon. We chose General Merino because, in recent years, the community has been an exemplar of participation with projects, including those implemented by CONAPAC. Communities where participation and interest are high are the communities CONAPAC will bring projects like those we complete in the second week of AAS. We also chose General Merino because it was predicted to be a high high-water year, and this is a community that is hard to reach when waters are low or even average. This also means that it is difficult to implement projects, even when we want to. And we weren’t wrong; the water was high enough for the big Explorama boat full of volunteers, to arrive directly in front of the community.
Above: Monday deliveries at the communities of Yanayacu Ticmicuro, Las Palmas, Santa Maria de Fatima, Timicurillo
To avoid the higher-than-average afternoon temperatures, we departed from our lodging at Explorama’s Ceiba Tops at 7:30 am, arriving in the community around 8:30 am. And then, we got to work! Several activities were happening simultaneously.
Kindergarten and primary school kids joined Detroit Zoo education staff and a portion of volunteers for environmental education activities each day. Check out the picture of volunteer Jef reading El gran capuquero (The Great Kapok Tree ) by Lynn Cherry.
Construction of a student dining room was completed, including painting both the interior and exterior, by volunteers.
A maloca escolar (gazebo classroom) was built and screened to create a shared space for all levels of the school.
A new playground was built, featuring a hammock hanger, climbing net, tire swings, and a colored pencil fence.
Above: Story time with Jef, The new student dining room, Building the gazebo classroom, Painting the playground pencil fence, The playground enclosure, Trying out the new playground equipment
The entire General Merino community
On the Friday of that week, CONAPAC led a workshop for community members that followed up on a previous one in which the community had designed its vision of sustainability, and also renewed the community and CONAPAC agreements. The community vision for General Merino reads: “Comunidad unida y organizada que utiliza sus recursos naturales de forma responsable. Buscamos aliados y protegemos la naturaleza para que nuestros hijos conozcan y se beneficien. También, reforestamos y criamos peces para conservar nuestra reserva.” (A united and organized community that uses its natural resources responsibly. We look for allies and protect nature so our children know and benefit. We also reforest and raise fish to conserve our reserve.)
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