Panama: Carnegie Mellon Global Business Brigades

Awesome Presentation

2009-05-02T13:32:00.000-07:00

We had an amazing presentation for our donors and supporters on 4/30. Technical difficulties aside, our team had a great time sharing our experiences with the CMU community! The president of the university, Jared Cohon, attended the event, as did our Dean of Student Affairs and Deans and Advisers from various departments on campus. Go team!

Back from the Farm!

2009-03-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! We're back from the farm now. Cell phone access made the whole posting plan a little difficult. We are now back in the city and will be touring Panama City tomorrow, as well as following up with some of our contacts in the city. Here is a quick breakdown from a couple people of our time on the farm:

Sunday:
After spending he night in Panama City, we wee extremely excited to get to La Granja. On our 3 hour car ride to the farm, we stopped at this awesome place and ate empanadas con queso (I love cheese)) and drank chicheme (which is a traditional cornmeal based drink). After the bumpy ride through the mountains, we arrived at La Granja. The views from the farm were breathtaking and the farm itself is amazing. After briefly meeting Don Alejandro and his family, we immediately had to get ready for out first meeting with the community members. It went wonderful and it was great to really get to know them and converse in Spanish. It also made me realize how much hope they had in is to truly change their lives. One man specifically old me, with tears in his eyes, that he was tired of working so hard and that he sees us coming here as an opportunity to improve their lives and change their futures. That night we got to sit down with don Alejandro and his family to really introduce ourselves and lean about his family. We brought a world map with us to show how diverse our group is and to put into context where we are all originally from. After talking about why we had come to Panama and our reasons for truly helping the family, we gifted them a Carnegie Mellon pot, which signified us wanting to plan the seed and “grow” with the prosperity and success of the family and farm. I can’t wait for what’s to come. Live and Learn!

--Hanny

Monday:
Today we had a great day! It was very tiring, but really fun and interesting at the same time. After having egg and Panamanian tortillas for breakfast, we had a tour around Don Alejandro's farm. It is really amazing and the view is breathtaking. After that, we played soccer and football with Alejandro's grandchildren.
We started our workshop sessions with Operations. It was very long, but we really got a lot of useful information about the four groups that attedned.
Later in the night we spent some time with the Rodriguez family and taught Alejandro's sons basic English.
Before we sleep, we has a group meeting and discussed what we have to do during our next few days here in the farm day overall!

--Mua

Tuesday:
We started out today by visiting all of the members of the community we had met on Sunday. Our first stop was Loma Bonita which was about a 20 minute drive from Alejandro’s farm. While we were at Loma Bonita we got to see the very unique conejo pintado (painted rabbit). They weighed around 40 pounds! Our next stop was AGLAC which is the local tour guide company that runs tours to the National Park and other attractions in the area. They had some brochures about the surrounding area and we talked with them about how to raise awareness among tourists about the beautiful El Cope area. Our final stop before lunch was Las Yayas. Las Yayas is a community that owns a waterfall which tourists can visit. The path down to the waterfall was well maintained and some of us even swam in the river by the waterfall. After lunch we split up into two groups. One group presented the finance workshop to all of the community members and the other group worked on laying a gravel path around the farm to make it more accessible to tourists. Laying the gravel path was exhausting but it looked great at the end of the day and we all felt like we made an impact on the farm. The finance workshop was also very successful and the key takeaway was that the community members need to set their prices to not only include material costs but also the time that goes into making products. I think that’s it for now, but I look forward to another exciting and busy day tomorrow!

- Rajit

Wednesday:
¡Hola! ¡Este día fue una maravilla!

Today we did the marketing workshop and it went a lot better than we expected. Despite that that community members got a bit territorial about the prices of their amenities, the general purpose of the workshop was to get the community members thinking about the idea of a cooperative in which all the businesses would market their attractions under on name in the hopes that a single group of tourists could filter through the different businesses to promote prosperity through the community. To our amazement, they we receptive to the idea and that workshop certainly increased our confidence that we could leave the community members with some sort of hope for the future. This day is definitely one of me favorite because it entailed working with Alicia from AGLAC (she’s incredible).

--Jenny

Thursday:
Today was our last and saddest day on the farm. We were all really sad to leave the
family and the beautiful farm. Being our last day, however, we had many last minute
tasks which we needed to complete.
We started off the day by designing the logo for Granjo Trapijito which we will
later finish back home. We also finished designing the welcome sign for Alejandro.
Some of us finished up the signs for the farm trails. We made them out of wood and
Alejandro will later carve in the letters and design the signs. Each sign has a
Spanish and English translation of all the popular plants and animals on the farm.
We hope they will add to the farm and improve the trails for tourists.
Leaving the farm was hard for many of us. Although we were only on the farm for a
few days, we all became apart of Alejandro’s family. We all learned so much and
have been inspired by the family’s generosity.
As one of our last presents to the family we all signed a guest book which we left
with the family. We hope that future tourists will also sign the book and will have
learned and enjoyed many of the things we did on the farm.
On the first night we gave the family a Carnegie Mellon planter. Our intention was
to plant a plant with the family to symbolize the growth and relationship our
brigade had formed and will continue to form with the family. Right before we left
the farm we planted the plant, took many pictures, and said our numerous good-byes.

On the way back to Panama City we stopped at a beach to relax and eat dinner. It
was a great way for us to all wind down and relax after our busy days on the farm.

-Krithika

Friday:
We woke up at a semi-godly hour (10:30AM) and got ready for our day touring Panama. Before the group got up to go, I went exploring for a Fedora & flip-flops. Wandering into the heart of the market, I was amazed by the kindness and diversity of the place, and especially how it contrasted with the peace and solace of Don Alejandro’s.
We started our tour at the “old city”, the ruins of Old Panama. Actually, the first stop was the tourist market where we lost a large part of the group for a couple of hours. We walked around the ruins and took in the history of the place.
Before heading to the canal, we stopped for lunch in Panama City, at a very western mall –walked in with Louis Vuitton and Zara around us, and new American music playing. Again, I was thinking about Don Alejandro and the farm, and felt bitter at the huge inequality in income.
After a lunch of empanadas at the food court, we headed to the amazing Panama Canal, and learned about the history of the canal as well as its cultural economic & political effects on Panama.
We returned to the hostel, and a part of our group returned to the local market to take pictures, snack on local cuisine, and try and be a part of amazing Panamanian culture.
Our day ended with an amazing group dinner!

--Dhruv

Saturday:
At about 4:30AM on Saturday morning, we somehow managed to pack all our bags, load the van, and say our good-byes as we left Casco Viejo(our hostel in Panama city)_. At the airport, Andrés was there to see us off as we checked in. As soon as we did checked in our luggage and had out rickets, we ate breakfast in the airport. It was our last meal in Panama! Already feeling nostalgic, we made out way to the gate exhausted as ever. After napping on the 4 hour flight, we finally reached Atlanta only to find out our flight we delayed 2 hours. While eating lunch in the airport, we ran into the Nicaragua group from CMU. We were finally back in Pittsburgh and home by 7PM, even though all of us wished we were still back in Panama. We missed each other’s 24/7 presence soo much that we reconvened on Saturday night… a total of almost 40 hours without sleep!!

--Aanchal

Hello from Panama!!

2009-03-09T22:15:00.000-07:00

Sunday March 8, 2009

Hello from Panama!

We just got to our hostel after starting our travels from Pittsburgh at 10 AM. It is 1 am here and we will be heading to bed soon. Everything went smoothly getting here and our GBB hosts are extremely friendly. For those wondering how we are updating this blog over the course of the trip, Julie, another member of our Panama brigade group, is acting as our point person in the U.S. We are writing our blogs down and leaving them as voice mails for Julie to post (we love you, Julie!). That being said our posts will be shorter than we'd like, but hopefully long enough to give everyone back home a good idea about our trip. Well it's off to bed- tomorrow we are going to the Trapiche farm at 7 am to meet Alejandro to get to know his family and the community.

Thanks for reading!
Panama Love,

Cristian

So how's about a lil update?

2009-03-03T07:50:00.000-08:00

There has been so much progress in the past couple of weeks that I don't even know where to begin.
I suppose firstly, we are officially going to Panama in less than a week! We recently reached our fundraising goal, with lots of help from the Carnegie Mellon campus community, Monsanto, Liberty Mutual, and friends & family. We purchased our tickets, got our passports & visas in check (well most of us at least...), and are working on getting vaccinated, and coordinating all the logistics! Oh, and the project...

We have been working away ferociously with two team meetings a week, in addition to committee meetings throughout the week. We are dividing and conquering in order to prepare workshops for Alejandro and other interested farmers in the region. The business plan that we develop with Alejandro will then be used as a template/model for the other farmers to develop their own businesses.

We have had a lot of help from the Global Architecture Brigades and the local Panama GBB staff who have patiently answered our millions of questions and have given us as much preparation as possible to help us understand the context of our project.

I could write pages on what we have learned in these past weeks, but for fear of writing an essay I will just end with saying that I am extremely excited, and prepared for the adventure that's to come. I think this project will be a huge learning experience for us CMUers, and I look forward to not only seeing our impact on the community, but the impact on ourselves.

Kate

Now the spadework.....

2009-01-14T20:18:00.000-08:00

The last few months have seen us brainstorm and rant about the trip nitty-gritties and well, we'll be off to Panama in just about a month and a half!!Will we make a difference? Will it be positive? Hopefully, it won't just be visiting a new place. With all our preparation, I also hope technology and information will not come in the way of an original experience and we will,I hope, experience real Panama as it is and feel different about it.

And we still have much to do. Most of the spadework in conceptualizing and drawing up the actual business plan will happen in the next few weeks. An architecture brigade from Chicago visited Panama over the winter break and we're waiting for news from them. It will be interesting to see how much their on-ground experiences will influence and mold our ideas. Mau and I are planning a gamut of culture acclimation programs for preparing us in someway for this big trip. I thought of movies, dance, music, food and of course, history, politics and language. Over the next few weeks, we will also see some rigorous networking and discussions with the farm community members and our contacts to plan the logistics and deliverables.

On another note,it has been interesting to see how this cause has brought each of us with very diverse backgrounds to make a team with the least effort. Learning to write a proposal, fund raise, ice-break, and now, its not just another acquaintance in school but someone you've connected with on a bigger scale :)

Ayshwarya

Week 3 - The Calm Before The Storm

2009-01-04T19:44:00.000-08:00

Like the electricity, the water, governance and everything else, Internet connectivity in India is always a hit - or - miss. It makes me realize how dependant we (my generation?) are on the net. I just went on a family trip to a semi - rural area (considered urban, but not by me :), and was suffering without connectivity...

I digress...so how is any of this related to Panama?

One of the biggest pieces of our puzzle to start up agrotourism is going to be Infrastructure (or lack of). Before going to Panama, we might think of great ideas, but most of them will be under the assumption that the infrastructure in the area will be similar to what we are used to. Based on my experiences at home, we're in for a big surprise. I'm looking forward to it a lot, because it will enable all of us to move out of comfort zone not just physically, but also "intellectually" and make us start applying our education in new, undeveloped environments.

This is the last week of our winter break, hence the "calm before the storm". There's a lot to be done so that we're on track and ready for Panama, starting with securing more funding, finalizing the logistics, and booking the tickets. But we're hoping to hit the ground running, using break to do research on different business models, agrotourism as an industry and benchmarking other places that engage in agrotourism. Valuable survey data collected by the GAB is also going to be extremely helpful in taking our ideas forward.

I can't wait to get back. Break is good, but thoughts of Panama make me restless. I heard this on a TV show about young people doing awesome things (it was a lame show, but the quote was memorable) - "Dreams aren't what I have when I'm asleep, they are what keep me from sleeping"

- Dhruv

Week 2

2008-12-28T20:53:00.000-08:00

As Rajit posted, the Panama Brigade is currently reaching out to corporations hoping to receive another bulk of the budget. Despite being able to account for a third of our funds as of today, with the exciting campus fund raising events we are planning, I am hopeful that we will achieve the first project goal of raising the money we need. When we accepted to be a part of the brigade, we all knew that one of the requirements was that we’d have to devote a lot of time and effort into making this project happen, and as of today, we definitely have noted just how much is necessary. One positive note: the time is spent productively and we always have fun. I’m excited about Panama simply because it has an amazing history and it takes pride in unifying a cultural spectrum which definitely makes it a great place to start our paths to global citizenship. Perhaps the main reason why I wanted to be part of this project is because the idea of creating something from scratch is intriguing: it’ll be our little seed that we watch germinate (fun comparison since we’ll be on a farm!)

I’m even more excited about what we’re able to accomplish because I believe that what we strive to do in Panama will have lasting impact on the community that we will be helping. Seeing as our business plan will provide the Rodriguez family with a reliable source of income, the fact that we will also create jobs for the other community members makes our mission incredibly valuable. Despite this shared prosperity, another factor that makes our project even better is that we will also be providing enthusiastic tourists with the opportunity to visit a farm that will put them in a truly organic and natural setting expecting them to get their hands dirty, expecting them to partake in a lifestyle that is alien to them but commonplace to the laborers, expecting them to appreciate life stripped of all materials. It will also be a business that has a unifying force which allows a variety of cultures to mesh together for the single purpose of having a great time while helping out a farmer with the work needed to maintain his farm.

The point is that we will create a business plan that will establish a sustainable agritourism business that will benefit a community and at the same time, we are helping create a learning experience for tourists of different countries and cultures. Additionally, we are becoming global citizens determined to volunteer our help where it is needed.

“He who gives love, receives love.”- Omar Torrijos Herrera

-Jenny

Week 1: planning for the upcoming semester

2008-12-23T07:22:00.000-08:00

The Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Panama Brigade has had a very busy semester and is currently planning for the exciting semester ahead. We have raised about $6000 from on campus resources and will be approaching corporations over the break and into the next semester. Besides fundraising, we will also be working on developing our business plan for the agritourism farm by benchmarking against other agritourism ventures around the world. I have been working on getting advisors and we are proud to welcome Professor Jay Aronson from the History Department and Professor Robert Culbertson from the Tepper School of Business to our team. We hope to gain insight from their global development and entrepreneurship experiences to ensure that our Panama agritourism business will be a success. Some other highlights for the coming semester include Spanish lessons and Salsa dancing! Please stay tuned for weekly updates from the CMU Panama Brigade. Happy Holidays!

- Rajit

WELCOME

2008-12-04T21:51:00.000-08:00

Thank you for visiting!

The Carnegie Mellon University Panama Brigade offers the opportunity for students to apply their education in solving real world problems while enabling underdeveloped communities to achieve their goals. A team of students of diverse backgrounds will participate in extensive planning and development throughout the academic year on a given project and collaborate with the community to implement their work during trips to the region. We believe that our brigade will not only enrich the lives of the community members, but those of the students as well by bridging cultures and encouraging global citizenship, and building long-term relationships. We hope that this endeavor, with the combination of work experience and cultural exchange, will lead to the personal and professional development of all students involved.