comunidad para baja california

Los Gatos High School students Carley Stavis and Ashley Quisol aren’t planning a typical fun-filled spring break next week.

Theirs will be a more serious adventure, as they join adult volunteers from the Los Gatos-based non-profit Comunidad Para Baja California on a mission to impoverished villages south of the border.

You might call them the advance team: Ashley and Carley, both 17, are going to scout needs at schools attended by indigenous children in Baja California to prepare for a larger student mission this summer.

“My main purpose is to see what we’re dealing with,” Ashley said. They will “look at what they have, what they need and what they want,” she said.

Among the areas the two will focus on are the school playgrounds, which they’ve heard are full of dangerous junk.

Available to replace that junk are two used school play structures slated to be donated to Comunidad, including one from Blossom Hill Elementary School in Los Gatos. As part of the extensive renovation of the school this summer, a kindergarten play structure will be dismantled to make way for construction. With the kindergarten moving to a different part of the site, the structure has been declared surplus equipment, said Superintendent Mary Ann …

The weekend of January 28-30 saw a different type of trip for Comunidad, as Director of Transportation Bill Rush joined forces with members of CUNA and Aqualink to assess the water system of the village of Santa Caterina and how best to bring potable water to the villagers.

Santa Catarina is a village of 150 people spread over hundreds of acres at an elevation of nearly 4000 feet above sea level in the mountains 90 kilometers east of Ensenada. It has been without an operating water system for over six months, with members of the village being forced to travel to a small water catchment or a hand-dug well with buckets to meet their basic needs.

In October, Comunidad, aided by the generosity of a major donor, provided the necessary supplies and materials for reconstruction and repair of the community’s water mains, as well as additional supplies to bring the water supply to each residence in the village. Progress was slowed by …

The snow began to fall just before we reached Santa Catarina. At first it was a dusting, but ten minutes later, we pulled the vans over so that the kids could play in the inch-deep snow. The wonder at the snow was tempered by the knowledge that the tribes we were on our way to visit lived in these conditions with no heat other than meager wood fires.

During the week of Thanksgiving a group of Comunidad board members and their families visited all ten tribal locations, distributing coats, blankets and clothes and meeting with the tribal elders to prioritize their needs for the coming year. The donated clothing and blankets were part of Comunidad’s Escuela-a-Escuela program, in which ten Bay Area schools each sponsor a tribal community, starting each year with a coat/blanket drive, then spending the rest of the year in educational and cultural exchanges.

The trip began Friday, November 19th, as a group of Comunidad volunteers met at Blossom Hill to empty Room 22, which over the past week had been filled with bags gathered from all the participating schools. Three carloads, one cargo carrier and a U-Haul carrier could not contain all the donated goods, with two pickup …

The dilapidated basketball court was transformed by folding tables and colorful banners into six medical stations, as volunteers took blood pressures, tested for diabetes, dispensed vitamins, discussed women’s health issues and modeled proper dental hygiene. A few yards away, part of the 3-room schoolhouse had been converted into a dental clinic, with the line for treatment at the three bays spilling out onto the sidewalk. Next door, a room full of Nativo women—many of whom will not consult a male physician because of modesty—heard a lecture from Elizabeth Roman on contraception. The first annual Comunidad Health Fair had come to Santa Catarina.

Over the weekend of October 8-10 a group of 24 Comunidad volunteers flew or drove to Baja California, set up a fair with six medical stations, and educated or treated over 150 members of the local tribes, including Santa Catarina, Kiliwa, Cucapah, San Jose de la Zorra, San Antonio Necua and Pena Blanca. There were even some fun activities such as a giant pinata for the kids, hot lunch prepared by the women of Santa Catarina, and a raffle of food baskets to those with ‘passaportes’ attesting that they had visited every medical station.

The health …

Part of Comunidad’s charter is to improve the educational prospects of the tribal children we serve. For many of these children, formal education ends after the sixth grade, due to their inability to get to the secondarios, which are often a distance from their community. Now, due to Comunidad’s vehicle donation program and the generosity of three individuals, three vans are now in use in the communities, making a real difference in a number of lives.

The first donated van came from the Loper family of Los Gatos. Originally used to transport clothing, school supplies, blankets and shoes to the villages of San Jose de la Zorra, San Antonio Necua, and El Mayor Cucapah earlier this year, the van was then converted into a school bus for middle school students.

The next van came from Joy Ide-Cresci of San Francisco. Again, the van was used initially to transport clothing, blankets and medical supplies. It now remains in Ensenada, where it is used by the Comunidad medical and dental teams to access the remote tribal locations.

A third van, donated by Jim Carter of San Francisco, is headed to Santa Catarina loaded with a generator, clothing and blankets …

Three Comunidad members and their families traveled to Ensenada in late July for a gathering of the indigenous tribes of Baja and Southern California. Known as a “Kuri Kuri”, the event featured Native Singers, dancers and artisans from the Paipai, Kumiai, Kiliwa and Cucapa tribes.

Hosted by CUNA, the Ensenada-based Native Cultures Institute, the Kuri Kuri also featured a gathering of health professionals dedicated to assisting the indigenous. Comunidad had a speaking slot on the agenda, in which Diane Manning, Pam Pearson and Tom Hogan discussed the Nativos’ most pressing health needs and Comunidad’s plans in the areas of services trips, health fairs, vaccination programs and clinic construction. The Promotoras (tribal advocates) expressed the need for local clinics (to help with early diagnosis by Comunidad and Mexican doctors and preventive medicine) and an Ensenada or Ojos Negros-based facility to help recuperating patients and their families.

During the Kuri Kuri, Comunidad was recognized from the stage for its contributions to the indigenous community. Specific mention was made of our service trips, donated …