February saw some significant progress in small and larger projects.
Locally in Denton, Texas FWOP started a small afterschool program in the Fall of 2010. Neriman Esendemir from Istanbul got the program started. She passed the program on to five graduate students under the supervision of Dr. Traci Cihon from Behavior Analysis Department. The program is at the Renaissance Apartments operated by Denton Housing Authority for low income families.
Spoke to some representatives from a local Afro-American neighborhood groups last week to create some micro enterprises to support low income seniors in Denton.
Recently a colleague at UNT called to tell FWOP they had 40 EPA small science kits for elementary school children to water analysis projects that have sitting in storage for many years. Twelve kits will soon go to Nicaragua schools with a Rotary team that we be building a school and a clinic near a dump. Remaining kits will go to schools in Zacatecas and Durango, Mexico .
FWOP linked up a community oriented artist in Ajijic, Mexico. Efren Gonzalez has been assisting poor children to paint individual cards that the sells for them at his gallery. FWOP is now selling their cards at the webstore on the FWOP website. Thus, we hope to expand their market.
March and April should be interesting. FWOP Board members ( Amin and Ingman) will be in Istanbul in two weeks and will meet with leaders from a Kurdish village to discuss possible partnership to stimulate community development .
April will see a visitor from a director of four schools for the poor families in India . We will sit down to discuss how FWOP can become partners.
You may recall from other postings on Mazamitla that some 400 women have formed the “Vigilantes ” to promote development and reduce corruption. We learned recently that 675,000 women are now registered in this movement across Mexico. In the coming months we will learn how FWOP can assist their agenda across Mexico. I learned that our textile cooperative in Flor de Campo now has contract to produce some products.
