
A huge THANK YOU to all the Mesa West Rotarians, as you have helped create Generational Change. The Interactors voted, they would prefer to work alongside ALEM for the entire trip. Josephine Sili, Westwood Interactor was the Team Captain for Day 6. Day 7 we travelled home and were sad to leave. But in 7 days, this experience changed 5 Interact Students' life paths for the good.
Josephine shares this:
This morning, before breakfast we took a short trip to a river that leads into Lake Tuxpan. In that river, there are 3 dams that were built to stop the surrounding land erosion leading to Lake Tuxpan. We saw the effects of erosion. Each dam filtered and cleaned the water, the separated streams getting clearer. They were spread out across the stream a fair amount of The Rotary Club of Tuxpan & The Rotary Club of Iguala both contribute to this Global Grant as this Lake is a main water source for their Community. The final part of this project is planting trees in the barren areas of the land. The water goes through the settlement and is great for more reforestation projects.
On the second day of working with ALEM, some of us ambassadors decided to switch teams / tasks. This way, we got to absorb as much of this experience as possible. When the clients first started pouring in they check in with Mayra where she documents their stories and measurements. Most wheelchairs are salvageable, but are broken and rusty, so they’re first taken apart (Violet), then thoroughly washed (Adrian), then re-assembled, and finally Claire and I help out with drilling in the cushions. Each station has specific tools that were donated by Karitas Foundation & ALEM and bought with a Rotary Global Grant, and every tool is used and needed.
Today we really conversed more with our ALEM partners reaping the benefit of increasing our Spanish speaking abilities. I met Gavo & Irene today. Irene has been working at ALEM for several years whereas Gavo has been with them for a year or so. Even though Gavo had met the ALEM team in such a short amount of time, he really connected with them and he became very good friends with all the ALEM workers. Their disability has brought them together, but ALEM has given this group back their dignity. I admired them.