Campamento Nacional 2011

Last week Junior Achievement gave me permission to work from Monday to Sunday with the Red Cross. The special event was a National Camp of the Costa Rican Red Cross for young people. The majority was between 14 and 17 years old. After baking typical German food for the Cultural Fair, Tuesday night we headed to Liberia. It is the capital of the province Guanacaste, in the Northwest of Costa Rica, which is located close to the campground.

On Wednesday during the day groups of the different committees arrived. At night the Cultural Fair took place and because we were 5 German volunteers we had our own exhibition stand. Previously we had prepared posters with information about history, important cities, places and people of Germany as well as German brands. The area around our stand was crowded and everybody loved the German/Austrian cookies “Vanillekipferl”, which tasted (unfortunately) more like peanut than vanilla

On Thursday workshops and activities took place the whole day. For the afternoon activity they divided us (Germans) into two groups and for the first time we had to guide games, in a foreign language, all on our own. Luckily some songs/games were already known so we did a good job.

On Friday there was a big clean-up-project of Liberia. It was impressive to see how motivated these young people were. They collected trash, cleaned banks, helped with the restoration of the Museum of Guanacaste, handed out brochures and painted the faces of children.

Everybody was excited for Saturday: the senda. On a distance of 12 kilometers there were 28 physical and mental tests. Depending on the level of difficulty every test was worth a certain amount of points. For a group consisting of about 6 people it was not only important to reach a high amount of points but also to run the senda as fast as possible.

For the night the Red Cross arranged bullfighting in a little stadium next to the campground. The bulls looked beautiful and elegant but I already told you my opinion about bullfighting in the last Blog.

Sunday was the last day and the winner of the senda and of the whole camp was announced.

Another aspect I would like to mention was the morning ritual, which was very unusual to me. Every morning at six o’clock all participants including staff formed rows. While setting up their flag they sang the Costa Rican national anthem and some kind of motivation song of the Red Cross. Afterwards the program for the day was announced. The committees earned points for attending but still I cannot imagine the same thing in a camp in Germany.

Fiestas de Palmares

From 12^th to 24^th 2011 Costa Rica was celebrating the “Fiestas de Palmares”. Palmares is a little town about one hour from San José. Every year around January they have the biggest parties of Central America for 12 days. Traditionally the Fiestas are opened by a tope, a parade of horses. Although the huge discos, which are only built up for these days, charge a high admission they are always crowded during the night. Furthermore the Fiestas are famous for the best bullfighting in Costa Rica. In Contrast to the traditional bullfights in Spain the Cost Rican bulls do not die at the end. However I do not agree with putting a bull into a stadium, annoying him just for the gratification of the spectators and watch people being hurt.

At the weekend I was able to visit Palmares and went to one of the concerts. Groups like Los Rabanes from Panama and Calle 13 from Puerto Rico were playing. Luckily at that Saturday it was not too hot and I enjoyed it a lot.

Bancos en Acción 2010

Besides the program business administration program “Talleres Empresarios Juveniles” Junior Achivement Costa Rica also provides the program “Bancos en Acción”. This program is supposed to show students how banks function/operate and teach them about finances. The previous week we were having a big event: the best teams of 14 Latin American Countries came to the Hotel Intercontinental in San Jose, Costa Rica to compete. The participating countries were: Panama, Guatemala, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Honduras, Argentina, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, Columbia and Costa Rica.

Students in Action

On Tuesday everybody arrived during the day and after welcoming them we made an integration activity. Some of the students had to travel for 8 or 10 hours and were very tired. The next morning we started with a visit in the building of Citi Bank and listened to presentations. Citi Bank supports “Banks in Action”, including the event, financially. Afterwards we made a sightseeing tour through San Jose by bus. Everybody liked it because our guide was very entertaining consequently we had a lot of fun. In the afternoon the First Round of Competition began. The teams had to manage their own virtual bank and make profit by having the highest Bank Performance Index. Out of 14 teams only seven were able to attend the next round among Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Uruguay, Panamá, Venezuela and Guatemala.

Fair of the Nations

At that night we were having an item on the agenda which I liked the best of all: “Feria de las Naciones” respectively “Fair of the Nations”. Each delegation had an own stand to represent their country. The students wore typical clothes and one could walk around asking and getting to know the different countries. On the stand they exposed for example a map, their flag, handicraft and typical sweets. It was very interesting and the students were open minded and explained things to me with a lot of patience.

Stand of Costa Rica

On Thursday morning there was the second Round of the Competition. For Lunch we took the delegations to “Pueblo Antiguo”. This is a little town showing how Costa Rica was build up at time of colonization. We had a typical lunch with rice, beans, fried plantains and meat. Before having dessert we watched a show with music and a lot of typical dancing. At the end they even took people of the audience to dance with them on stage.

Pueblo Antiguo

The last evening we had a delicious Gala Dinner with many prominent guests. Embassadors of represented countries, the Minister of Education of Costa Rica, the boss of Junior Achievement Worldwide, the boss of Citi Bank and many more came to hold speeches and award the prizes. Brazil made the third place at the competition. The prize of the best stand on the Fair was won by Mexico just the same as the second place of the Competition. The winner was Argentina. The prize a cheque of $1000, Congratulations! The official event ended with a Dance and a performance of drummers.

The winners of the Competition, right Brazil, left Mexico, middle Argentina

It was a great experience to be together with people from so many different countries and cultures. I just loved it and got to know a lot of new things!

La Clausura

A couple of weeks ago we had the last big event of this year of “Talleres Empresarios Juveniles”, the business administration program. At the end of every semester all the students, who participated, come together in the Hotel Palacio. Unfortunately not all students were able to come because of exams and a long way to San Jose. The students who came were dressed up. First of all there were held speeches by the chairmen of the board of JACR (Junior Achievement Costa Rica) Mrs. Cortez and an alpinist. He compared the climbing of a mountain to the different steps one takes in life. Even the minister of Labor came to hold a speech:

Afterwards awards were given to some “Mini Companies” for the best product, the best stand on the Fair, the best Show etc. Furthermore different persons won prices for the best Manager of Marketing, Production, Finances, Human Resources and the best Young Businessman, the latter of whom will participate for one week in a workshop dealing with business administration. Then a Video with pictures of the Product Fair, Interviews and excerpts of students being questioned by the local TV was shown. At this point in time quite a few students were bored and left their seats, very disrespectful. At the end everybody ate snacks at the buffet and talked. All in all we received a good feedback concerning not only the realization of the event, but also the program in general.

Helping in the Emergency

The week before last Costa Rica was brutally hit by hurricane Thomas. It was raining heavily almost all day long, which lead to flooding, and landslides buried many houses. At least 27 people died. At the beginning about 2 000 had to live in hostels and now still more than 700 people are homeless. It was one of the worst natural catastrophes for years.

Sent to Costa Rica by the Red Cross we agreed before to help in cases of emergency. This is why last week we did not work as usually in our organizations but in the Headquarter of the Red Cross of Costa Rica. Toward the Headquarter there is a hall for cases of emergency where donations of groceries, toiletries, clothes and mattresses are stored.

In the morning(s) we unloaded trucks, many times in chain. After arranging the groceries we packed them in certain proportion into bags. They contained rice, beans (one of the basic foods for Costa Ricans), coffee, sugar, pasta and a lot more. Clothes were sorted in men, women, male/female children and babies. Everything was picked up again by a truck of the Red Cross to ship it to the affected areas.

“Retorno a la alegria” is the name the program which is besides the Red Cross also sponsored by Unicef. To support the homeless children psychologically we visited provisionally hostels established for example in schools. Many people have to live together, some have to stay for a couple of months. The children were very happy to be visited by a group of young people. First we sang and played games all together and then the Costa Rican voluntaries performed a play. (Beforehand they had participated in a seminar preparing for such situations.) While drawing a picture, which we would collect afterwards, we talked to the children to find out how they were doing. Finally they let their faces be painted or blew up balloons with us. I think we made them have a good time, at least for a few hours.

Report about the Product Fair

The students had many different ideas for their products. They sold for example muffins, jewelry, and honey, vases made out of bamboo, shower gel, T-shirts with prints and a lot more. One company even checked your car to see if everything was as it is supposed to be.

There was one company which produced little bags for cell phones to protect its screen. The girls of this stand were very much into their project. Because of raising extra money from relatives and other activities they were able to buy and wear the same T-shirts with a print of their logo.

I liked the idea of the Humboldt (solely private school) the best. One company of them was called “Erde” which is German for “Earth”. “Erde” manufactured pretty purses out of magazines and old clothes. The material they used is 95% recyclable!

Their aim is to:

• help protect the planet
• create conscience
• show what can be made out of (usually considered) waste
• encourage people to reuse material/waste and consequently promote the protection of the environment

There was one aspect to criticize: In my opinion not all but many products were very expensive. For example the purse cost 4 000 Colones which are about 8 Dollars.

All in all I am impressed how much the students concentrated on their project. They did not only spend great thoughts on the product itself and their company but also on the decoration of their stand and their physical appearance. For this reason it seems that they really did have a lot of fun doing what is part of the project of Junior Achievement Costa Rica. Therefore I believe that we respectively the organization did succeed. There is nothing better than learning by doing and at the same time having fun!

Product Fair Tomorrow

After spending 18 weeks manufacturing products tomorrow the students will have the chance to sell them. The big Fair will take place from 9am until 5pm in the Mall Plaza del Sol in Curridabat, a district of San Jose. We will have about 250 students from public schools in San Jose which come from all over Costa Rica! Every school respectively “company” has an own stand to present and sell their products.

At the beginning of the semester every student had to donate 1500 Colones which are about 3 Dollars. With this money they bought their material and were able to begin producing. When the sale is over the students can keep the utility and the best company will also win a price. I am very excited for what the students created and will inform you later on.

In the following picture you can see a stand from the last Product Fair in May 2010