Summer Archives

Meredith Waites Salta, Argentina - Foundation for Sustainable Development (FSD) - Fundacion Anpuy

“La comunidad nos importa” – Fundación Anpuy

Meredith Waites, Salta, Argentina

Much of our understanding of community service comes from having deep connections and an understanding of the challenges, needs, and abilities of a specific community. For summer projects, scholars spend a year planning, researching, and connecting with an organization to cultivate change. My summer project was a little out of the ordinary as I had approximately 24 hours to prepare for my 8-week experience; and in that, I learned that sometimes the best way to cultivate change is to simply show up and say, “I am here to help. What can we do?”

When I first began my partnership with the Foundation for Sustainable Development last November, I planned to go to Udaipur, India to focus on women’s empowerment and feminine hygiene issues through an organization called Jatan Sansthan. In actuality, I completed my project in Salta, Argentina at Fundación Anpuy, an organization that aims to provide new educational and social opportunities to children, adolescents, and young adults from disadvantaged socio-economic contexts. A reoccurring theme throughout my project and experience was flexibility. Instead of going to India, I completed my project with a different organization, addressing a different issue, and on a different continent than I had originally anticipated. Flexibility allowed me to complete my project in Argentina, and having an open mind and no preconceived notions, allowed me to integrate into the Salta community.

Anpuy has three age-focused programs that aim to provide tools and resources to young community members to have equal opportunities in life, education, and employment. I worked within the children’s programming, focusing on the needs of children aged 6 to 14. It was important throughout my experience to focus on the community and to rely on their perspective and ideas to drive the implementation and outcome of my project. A concern within the community was that children in Argentina, especially children from lower-income families, do not have access to a variety of foods or the understanding of the importance of healthy diets. Argentina has the second highest meat consumption per capita in the world and the average person consumes 10 grams more of sodium due to bread consumption than the daily-recommended amount. Health throughout the country continues to be a problem as meat and bread are primarily consumed in place of fruits and vegetables. My project became a community’s initiative to educate the children at Anpuy about the importance of healthy lifestyles and to provide children and their families with access to healthy and sustainable food options.

Focusing on healthy living at Anpuy was not in my original project proposal, but after becoming part of the Salta and Anpuy community, it became very clear that this project was something that the community both needed and desired. Through this summer experience, I learned that creating change is not always planned out in detail and sometimes, if you simply show up and focus on the community, change far greater than what is written on paper can occur.