The Fútbol Bridge: Uniting Guatemalan and Belizean Youth Across the Sarstun River for Environmental Protection
- Biodiversity
- Conservation
- Intercultural relations
- Indigenous cultures
- Sustainable development
- Youth leadership
- Water Supply
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Chris
Patterson
EcoLogic Development Fund
, MA, Middlesex County
EcoLogic Development Fund
617.441.6300
25 Mount Auburn Street, Suite 203, Cambridge, MA 02130
, MA, Middlesex County
, IZ
To support local youth leadership of environmental sustainability, EcoLogic and APROSARSTUN identified and incorporated local Q’eqchi Mayan students from a school that specializes in community development and sustainability. Seeing that successful conservation required collaboration across the border, leaders from EcoLogic and APROSARSTUN identified fútbol matches with Belizean youth as a vehicle to bring young people together, form relationships, and address the topics of over-fishing and deforestation in a fresh, youth-led way. EcoLogic has worked on the Belizean side with SATIIM (Sarstoon-Temash Institute for Indigenous Management), a Belizean environmental and development nonprofit, since 1999. Along with these partners we are designing an environmental stewardship curriculum to accompany the matches, and we are set for our first Guatemalan-Belizean Young Environmental Leaders Fútbol Gameday for September 2010 to be held in the village of Barra Sarstún, Guatemala.
The Fútbol Bridge project will have both immediate and long-term positive results. The project will not only give structure and consistency to cross-boundary fútbol matches, allowing Guatemalan and Belizean youth to form meaningful relationships, but it will also teach them the importance of respecting and caring for the environment around them. The 90 young people who will participate in our first gameday (a series of several matches) will learn about the risks caused by overfishing, deforestation, and pollution, and they will be able to start coordinating protection and conservation efforts with their counterparts across the river. Furthermore, upon the success of our project, we hope to replicate the Fútbol Bridge model in other villages where EcoLogic works in Central America, producing region-wide results.
For our current year, we need to ensure that our first fútbol gameday this September is well-planned, organized, attended and enjoyed. We hope this first experience will kick off follow-up matches, with plans for a tournament in the future. We have been preparing for the first gameday for several months, in collaboration with APROSARSTUN, Ak’Tenemit (the local Q’eqchi Mayan school), the Center for Sea and Aquatic Studies (an institute at the local Guatemalan university), SATIIM (on the Belizean side), and the Fisherfolk Association of Barra Sarstún. Our careful planning and buy-in from all of these local institutions are laying the groundwork for success this year, and we are excited to see the outcome.
In year 2, we know that in order to be successful, we will need to develop a well-structured, interactive curriculum focused on the principle that working as a team to protect the environment improves the quality of life in our communities. While we are developing activities in this regard for our September gameday, we would like to formalize our approach with an official curriculum that can be used in other Central American regions where we work. Thus, year 2 will be a time to document, reflect upon, and fine tune our program. We also will be making strong efforts in our second year to ensure the participation of girls along with boys, further acknowledging the importance of unity in solving environmental problems.
In year 3, we hope to have a functioning, self-sufficient Young Environmental Leaders fútbol program, with regularly scheduled matches and a tournament. In order for us to reach this goal, we will be making sure to identify and support potential youth leaders from the first gameday, so they can develop their leadership and expand local interest and action amongst their peers.
Our primary challenge in the area regards transportation, both its logistics and costs. While the participating villages are only about 15 kilometers apart, there are no paved roads connecting them – they often have to travel across open water to reach one another. Travel by boat can be unpredictable and is becoming increasingly expensive. Seeing that this is one of the most remote regions of both countries, fuel costs are extremely high. Thus, we are quite dependent upon the availability and price of fuel. Also, communication networks can be unreliable, which can make planning and outreach difficult.
101‐1000
Less than $50
Yes
Operating for less than a year
, IZ
Yes
Maya Association for the Rural Wellbeing of the Sarstun Area (APROSARSTUN)
1‐5 years
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Partnerships are of central importance to the Fútbol Bridge project. EcoLogic implements all of its projects in Central America with a local partner organization. In this regard, we are able to engage communities as a collaborator as opposed to an outsider, while at the same time building the capacity of local institutions rather than causing dependency. APROSARSTUN is the perfect partner for this project because of their youthful spirit and close connection to the schools of the region. The same “group effort” mentality that the Fútbol Bridge engenders in youth is reflected in the way we collaborate with local partners.
This year’s Fútbol Gameday in September will include about 45 young people each from Guatemala and Belize, for a total of 90 youth, yet there are close to 2,000 children, ages 4 to 18, in the project area around the Sarstún River. In order to grow the Fútbol Bridge to ensure a wide reaching impact, we first must expand our outreach to additional communities in the area and determine how to involve youth from various villages in an equitable and coordinated manner. This will take additional planning and effort, but we hope to involve youth leaders in outreach efforts. Second, we need to formalize a curriculum that successfully transforms the lessons of teamwork and dedication learned from playing fútbol into grassroots leadership for conservation and poverty alleviation. We know that this year’s gameday will be a valuable indicator of the effectiveness of our curriculum and we look forward to reflecting upon its successes and shortcomings in order to ensure its efficacy. Third, we aspire to replicate the Fútbol Bridge model in other sites where EcoLogic works in Central America, which includes Totonicapán and Huehuetenango, Guatemala, Atlántida and Olanchito, Honduras, the Gulf of San Miguel, Panama, and Sierra de Guerrero, Mexico. In each region, we know that fútbol can be a powerful tool for involving youth in the critical environmental work that each of their communities are undertaking. To enable this expansion, we need to start laying the foundation with our partners in these other sites by identifying youth leaders and assessing community interest.
The idea of using fútbol as a cross-boundary, environmental education tool came quite naturally. Fútbol has always united people along the Sarstún River, similar to how it unites people all over the world. Fransisco Tzul, EcoLogic's Guatemala Program Officer and José Domingo Caal, EcoLogic’s Field Technician in Barra Sarstún, Guatemala, noticed how young people play fútbol at any given chance, and recognized the possibilities of utilizing the sport to create alliances amongst youth for the conservation of their forests and rivers. Having heard of a Belizean organization’s successful use of fútbol as an environmental education tool, Fransisco and José Domingo began imagining how it could be used in along the Sarstún River and discussing the idea with other EcoLogic staff and our partner, APROSARSTUN. One of the principal goals of our work in the region is to facilitate cross-boundary collaboration, and we were looking for a strategy that could produce energy around conservation, particularly amongst young people. EcoLogic and APROSARSTUN then decided that we could have a much greater impact on the environment and local communities if we hosted young people from both the Guatemalan and Belizean side of the river, utilizing fútbol as the bridge.
José Domingo Caal is a young, Q’eqchi Mayan man from the Sarstún region of eastern Guatemala. Passionate, insightful, and highly dedicated, he works with EcoLogic to coordinate our agroforestry projects and assist our local partner, APROSARSTUN. Having risen above the challenges of poverty himself, José Domingo received a technical degree in Rural Well-Being, with a concentration in Community Development and Gender Equality is pursuing a degree in Legal and Social Sciences. He is fluent in Spanish and his native language, Q’eqchi, which enables him to be effective in the indigenous communities where he works. He is also a fútbol player, having played on teams in this region throughout his youth.
José Domingo plays a number of roles in his community: as Field Technician, he is EcoLogic’s project local outreach manager and under his leadership, five pilot communities have begun using agroforestry to diversify their food and income resources. He also coordinates with farmers to help mitigate forest clearing, leads community workshops on environmental sustainability, establishes community tree nurseries for reforestation, and works with local fishermen’s associations to ensure their collaboration.
The lessons of cooperation, unity, and effort that we learn from playing fútbol, especially with people who are different from us, are key for creating a successful conservation strategy in the region. As José Domingo puts it: “What inspires me is teamwork, good coordination of activities, and the good will of the people of the communities. I do this type of work because I enjoy it, because I have lived all my life in one community, and I have truly experienced what it is like to live in extreme poverty.”
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