I spent three weeks in Lobitos with the EcoSwell team. Upon my arrival, the first thing I noticed was how quickly the new arrivals were assimilated into the EcoSwell life and routine. Within a few days of living and working with the directors and the other volunteers it felt like I had been there for months. The EcoSwell house felt like home and the directors and volunteers felt like family. During my stay I met ten volunteers and three of the directors, all of whom were intelligent, driven individuals with common interests and goals. Whether it was surfing, swimming with sea turtles, exploring legendary caves, binge watching the extended addition Lord of the Rings films, binge watching Vikings, grabbing a Cuzquena at Tranqui’s or La Casona, or even just cooking dinner, we always did things together and they are all experiences I will cherish for the rest of my life.
So the people and the atmosphere of the house were absolutely spectacular. And the work was just as fulfilling. For the three weeks that I had with the EcoSwell team, I was tasked with completing a feasibility study for a Hole-in-the-Wall computer learning station. The idea was first tested and implemented by Sugata Mitra, now a professor at New Castle University in the United Kingdom. The computer he built, which was just a monitor and a touchpad embedded in a wall facing a New Dehli slum, was meant to test his hypothesis that children could teach themselves almost anything if given the right tools and some well-deserved praise. And his hypothesis was correct. With no guidance or adult supervision, the children of this slum in New Dehli approached the computer and began to teach themselves everything about it, including how to surf the web, which opened an entirely new world of information to these children who had never seen a computer before. Lobitos is a small fishing village in the north of Peru and most households and even the school, do not have WiFi access due to its prohibitively expensive price tag in that region. Therefore, as part of my feasibility study, it was determined that the benefit to the children of Lobitos, could be outstanding, giving them access to the universe of information that is the internet while also utilizing renewable energy to power the device, keeping in line with the sustainability goals of EcoSwell.
The feasibility study wasn’t the only thing I worked on, and in fact, collaboration among volunteers was very common and one of the most fulfilling aspects of the experience in my humble opinion. I helped and mostly watched and learned as one volunteer built an aeroponics system from virtually nothing. I helped and learned from another group of volunteers working on a passive solar distiller to generate fresh, clean drinking water using the power of the sun. I watched as various volunteers tried and failed and tried again to build a vetiver pontoon which is now successfully filtering through sewage ponds, cleaning the water as it goes. I had the pleasure of using and learning about a dry toilet, which had been built before my arrival. And probably my favorite side project, I helped plant trees in the EcoSwell dry forest, which is a forest of over 200 native trees, many of which will serve as habitat and a food source for the Cortorrama, a bird that is endemic to Lobitos and also severely at risk of extinction with numbers as low as 500 individuals.
Overall, my time at the EcoSwell house was life changing. I learned more about sustainability than I ever did in a classroom in college. I had been working in Washington DC for a year prior to my time in Lobitos and the three weeks I spent there were exactly what I needed to reinvigorate my passion for living sustainably and doing my part to ensure the future of this planet. Lobitos is a magical place and the work EcoSwell is doing will help to ensure a bright future for Lobitos and many other places in years to come. I give my highest recommendation for this program for anyone out there who is interested in NGOs and how they operate as well as anyone looking to make a positive impact on this planet we call home.