Surfing on the net

Good to write to you all again. I hope everything is well. This week here in Punta Arenas has been quite productive, and I'm about to tell you all about it!

I did a lot of searching on the net this week. I found some interesting sites that may be useful for us. For a start i found out there is a national network of volunteer organizations in Chile. I was quite impressed by this and its actually quiet straight forward to join the network. I still have to find out what the direct benefits of such a network are, but the regional contacts phone doesn´t work. So i sent a mail. Lets see what kind of response i get.

Other members of the network are organizations like the Bomberos de Chile and El Hogar de Cristo. These organizations are very different to us. However, what did become clear is that volunteering is Chile is becoming more popular. There was some data on a related site that indicated that in places like europe and the US 30% of the population has volunteered in something. Here it is less, if i remember correctly it is at about 6%, but rising!

Another interesting find was Fundacion PROBONO. This is a foundation is made up of volunteer lawyers in Santiago. They provide free and paid advice for organizations that want to get formalized. So they help organizations to get their Personalidad Juridica. This is exactly the process we are in now. As our lawyer has not exactly been very forthcoming with information.....ie, he is impossible to get a hold of, i decided to get in contact with this foundation.

They replied so quickly to my mail it was amazing. Anyway, what they said was that Yes indeed, it takes 6-8 months to become a legal foundation in Chile and, like Phil Collins once said (over and over again), you just have to wait....unfortunately there is no way of speeding up the process. Well, ok so that means that 1. my lawyer was right, and 2. we should be formalized between May and July......

This is pretty critical, because i also looked through the websites of funding bodies and one of the things they ask is the legal statues of the organization, which we ofcourse.....do not have yet.

Ok, well another interesting find was the BID website. Well, this is a big website but if you go to the section on projects in Chile your realize that loads of the projects you hear about area actually funded by them. This includes the ecotourism development fund i mentioned in another post.

There is some interesting stuff there. I found a project they are funding in Santiago. Its about using volunteers to help micro enterprises!!! The volunteers come from the US. This project received about 1 million US$, and is being executed by Accion Emprendedora. A foundation from Santiago. I´m trying to get into contact with them to find out more. The title of the project is actually Volunteerism in Chile.

I also checked out the Patagonia Inc fund. Yeah, from the clothing maker. If we get our papers sorted out i can see us applying for money there under the theme forests, and the certification system Andres is always talking about. Deadline is the 31 of july i think.

Anyway, some some interesting things on the web. Besides that i met up with Christian Morales, and Orlando. The BMF group contact from Punta Arenas. Also a good talk and seems promising for future work.

Not much news from Natales or Williams for now. Andres was in Santiago, and Alejandra has been in Torres del Paine. However, it does seem that CONAMA has also become interested in the waste management work we have done there. Hopefully i can have a meeting with them next week. They would like the information!

We have also been working on the strategy, Marije got an 8 for here thesis, pepe/gigabyte/ipod ran away from patty, Catalina is fine, and German is coming back! I also recieved a package from a good friend from England this week. It was great!