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December 25, 2007
COLOMBIAN PROJECT - Final Report
Hello Japanese Friends and Friends from Japan !
I hope all of you are doing well and be near your loved ones for this time of the year.
After more than one year of hard work I can finally say that the projects stated in my Action Plan of Leadership development course in Japan are done. Please see attached some pictures.
INTERNATIONAL WHEELCHAIR TENNIS TOURNAMENT
- The first ever International wheelchair tennis tournament, part of NEC Tour of ITF (International Tennis Federation), was held in Cali, Colombia from December 13 to 16 with great success
- 5 countries competing: Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile and Colombia
- Participants from 12 cities of Colombia also attending the event
- 11 Children with disabilities from 5 cities participating in the first ever NATIONAL JUNIOR CAMP for wheelchair Tennis development. 5 tennis wheelchairs (junior size) donated and Junior event thanks to Johan Cruyff Foundation support
- Still some challenges with accessibility but through this event many people were aware of that needs and are willing to press local government and national sport entities to solve this in the near future. Next year Cali will play host to National Paralympic games and another World competition regarding disability, so we are very positive about the improvements in accessibility around the city. Our main need on this was transportation, unbelievably there's no accessible bus in the whole city. We are pressing a lot to make this change. A new massive transportation system called MIO, very similar to Transmilenio in Bogota will certainly be the first step towards this new perspective on accessibility
- Many volunteers helped and gave us important support during the event: 3 coaches for National Junior Camp were volunteers and did a fantastic job of motivation with kids (William Gabalan from Medellin, Jose Salamanca and Edgar Pinzon from Bogota). We also had the support of boys scouts and students from I.E. Boyaca school to help organization and overcome obstacles with lack of accessibility in transportation. A father of a girl participating in tournament was in charge of "Repair station" to help many players fixing their chairs with diverse problems. Andrea, daughter of Sigifredo Hidalgo (Tournament Director) was also helping us a lot with registration and other processes related with control of participants
- I contacted to NEC Colombia, Colombian branch of Japanese multinational which sponsored the entire world tour of wheelchair tennis. They were surprised a little bit at the beginning but very happy to gave us also some sponsorship and traveled to Cali to be at the closing ceremony
- An agreement with Ecuador was announced to all participants to have in 2008 consecutive international tournaments in these neighbor countries. So they will have their tournament in the last week of November and Colombia will be at the first week of December. That way more international players can come incurring in less expenses for traveling
- Based on work of Sigifredo in previous years many other sponsors gave us different contributions that in a whole make us able to have a high quality event. We know we have to keep working hard to improve it... but we certainly know that we are in the right path
- Maybe the most important thing to highlight for this successful event is the team work, besides the many volunteers involved I have to thank the support and work of: FUNDACION ARCANGELES (Juan Pablo Salazar, recent participant of sports course is the president), CLUB DEPORTIVO RUEDAS MAGICAS (Ivan Anzola, recent participant of sports course is the president) and FUNDACION NUEVOS HORIZONTES which usually helped Sigifredo with other paperwork and processes related with tournament.
VOLUNTEERS NETWORK
- As I explained in prior email, in a meeting with JICA Colombia representatives; we decided to change perspective of this project taking advantage of the massive presence of people with disabilities in the international tournament, so we organized a Conference and banquet to cause a greater impact with my message of Volunteerism and Disability and using less resources
- The conference title was: VOLUNTEERISM AND DISABILITY Challenges and opportunities for Colombia, and was held in Hotel Intercontinental, one of the best in Cali
- Despite some troubles with weather (very rainy days), some delays in tournament schedule and slow mobility due to heavy traffic in Cali ... we did a great event with around 100 very motivated participants, almost 50 volunteers from different cities officially registered in the data base and optimistic participants expecting good opportunities for integrated work through this network
- A lawyer, first time in the tournament, from Pasto (one of the cities originally included in my plan) offered his expert advice regarding disability and legal issues and even announced legal advice for free to kids.
- A journalist with visual impairment with some colleagues attended the conference and registered as volunteer
- Representatives of an institution for persons with mental disabilities also participated
- Ecuadorian participants were very surprised about JICA opportunities in courses regarding disability, they asked some questions and declared their interest in promote these opportunities with JICA in their country. They were also very motivated to start new projects to improve PWDs conditions and options in Ecuador
- To emphasize opportunities of courses and projects with JICA; I invited Ivan Anzola, recent participant of sports course in Japan, he showed us several pictures of his trip and experiences and express his intention to promote short tennis and other sports in Colombia.
- Besides promotion of volunteerism, I emphasized the way PWDs in Japan started many of their present programmes and rights based on initial volunteer job. Specifically I talked about Job promotion system, Independent Living Concept (Self Help Organizations, Advocacy and Equals support) and also the Universal design concept
- Many questions and comments from participants about the Japanese experience and conference topics
- Finally I explained the Colombian web pages related with volunteerism and resources available and also the objective of this project to be the seed for a greater network of volunteers working on disability issues
- I also showed web pages of www.lesionmedular.org and www.discapacidadcolombia.com, which are our partners to be the information centrals for present and future volunteers who register in the system. Still we need to put the data base on line and explain a little bit more in the web page about how we expect this network to work for the future
- Mainly I explained the V2V (Volunteer to Volunteer) concept and resources, which means that PWDs and volunteers in general don't need and institution or entity telling them what to do but instead of that; take action on their own and start proposing new initiatives and projects integrating volunteers from this very initial data base, and of course, making the network to grow
- If budget is enough I will organize a similar conference in Bogota on next January but focusing more in disabilities other than physical, and also inviting important actors of volunteerism in Colombia to integrate effectively these 2 wonderful worlds
- This is an initial step on formation of this Volunteers Network but I'm very positive about it. With the work and support of all these people I'm sure it will be a useful resource for many upcoming projects that change lifes of people with disabilities in Colombia.
Thanks a lot to JICA and Japanese people for their teachings and support.
I wish the best in New Year to all of you. Peace, love and happiness for everyone !
Best Regards,
FABIO PADILLA
Ex-participant JICA Leadership course
Bogota, Colombia
Posted by jicafriends at December 25, 2007 03:46 PM