Volunteering for Hidro Intag

The lights are out, well not intentionally, there's been a power shortage which has started since 3 this afternoon. Typing is a nightmare and I'm getting bitten to death by some invisible creatures (and they really hurt, not like mozis these guys take a chunk of skin off and make sure that you know you've been bitten).

I've been in Intag for a bit over a week now. Working for free (they call it volunteering), well at least I don't have to pay to work like an American guy I met, who for $3000 gave a month of his time to help an organisation somewhere in Costa Rica. If I knew you could make money by giving people something to do I would have gotten into the industry earlier.

Anyway. It all started in January and after struggling for a few months to find something worthwhile to do during my last summer break (such as getting professional experience) dad gave me a call. He told me that his best mate, he had been walking with in the aim of raising money, has a sister in Ecuador who works for an organisation called Rain Forest Concern (the website ends in .org) and she might be interested in taking me in as a volunteer. After a browsing through the website it looked more promising than anything I was hoping for. So after chatting by E-mail with Fiona, she told me there was a project in the Andes I could help. The project is called Hidro Intag, and finding information about it was a real nightmare, their website had not been updated since 2007 and most of the documentation was in Spanish. However I decided to give it a shot and booked myself a ticked to South America landing in Colombia, had a few friends there I had promised to visit for a few years now.

After a bit more than a week of cruising through Colombia I made my way to Ecuador's capital Quito where I met with Fiona, she was able to tell me a bit more about her work for RFC and gave me all the contacts I needed for my time in Intag. A couple of days later and I arrived in Apuela. The bus ride from Otavalo to Apuela is breath taking; it goes on for 2 hours in mountainous mud tracks with death threatening cliffs the entire way. The bus drivers have serious skills, I wouldn't have been driving over 20 on these traitorous roade. On my arrival in Apuela I met with Jose Gueva the director, funny enough he had even less idea than me on how I could help them. I thought they might need some data collection, as Fiona told me, but that had been done a while ago. However, it didn't take me long to come out with work for myself, their website is totally out of date, there is no information about the project anywhere on the internet and they are in desperate need of cash (meaning donations). So for the last week and a half I've been geeking away. Didn't raise much but at least the project is starting to exist elsewhere than here. Marjorie Chopin, a French specialist in hydroelectricity, asked me to train a few locals in using excel and entering information they have collected on the surroundings. Since 2007, Hidro Intag has collected an impressive amount of data and maps of the region. They have almost everything necessary for the creation of the 7 hydroelectric plants they are aiming to create. Never the less they do not have the funds necessary to buy some hi-tech evaluating machine they need.

Intag is well known for its biodiversity, the problem is it also possesses rich resources such as gold and copper. So the idea behind the hydraulic project is to protect the region from mining companies. If you Google mining Intag, you will fall on quite a few articles. Those companies don't mess around and even send paramilitaries. However the locals have been good at kicking them out so far and the production of a 100Mw of electricity would be a good incentive to protect and reforest the region. Of course the project is not hoping on donation to raise the 30+ million they need to build the station, but without the required data they will not find investors who will bend to their environmental exigencies.

If you have time and feel like finding more about it check out our facebook page I  also upload a PDF file in English detailing the project. (click on PDF). Will send another update tomorrow. Thanks for reading.