May Newsletter

May provided another exciting months of challenge for Meaningful Volunteer.  Our RYE School Summer Classes came to an end, Project Mangrove got some great momentum and Project Lifecycle continues its research and is getting prepared to train the local health care workers.

RYE School Updates

Summer Classes End

The initial RYE School Summer Classes have come to an end.  A big thanks to Steve, Betsy and Josh who worked so hard to make it a success!

The classes were taught in an unused local school (as they children were on their summer break).  As a way of saying thank you for the use of the classrooms, Meaningful Volunteer donated ten boxes of chalk to the school.  The Filipino government gives a measly 300 pesos chalk budget for each teacher for the year.  This amounts to about 1 cm of chalk per lesson!  Needless to say, the chalk was gratefully accepted.  Meaningful Volunteer also covered the power bill and will continue to support the school through the year.

The two English Land 3 classes will be combined into one class and taught during the students lunch break.  The English Land 5 and 6 students were also combined into one class.  There has been a reshuffle of some of the computer classes as well.

Click here for more info.

Laptop Computers Donated

Ed Thayer - from the U.S.A. recently visited Meaningful Volunteer in Romblon to see how the projects were progressing.  He originally wanted to volunteer with Meaningful Volunteer, but time and business constraints made it impossible.

Instead he made a fleeting visit (2 hours!) from nearby Boracay to present two laptop computers for use in the RYE School.  They were gratefully accepted by the students and will bring the total computer count up to six.  This will allow Meaningful Volunteer to reach even more students.

Click here for more info. 

Project Mangrove Updates

Dynamic Project Plan

Reforesting mangroves is not easy.  It is hard.  Most projects fail.  We don't want Project Mangrove to fail.  We want it to thrive. 

To make it thrive, we need to do the hard work now before we even think about planting mangroves.  We need to document and research; document and research.

We are forever coming across new information and ideas and techniques.  So much so, that even our original plan is now out of date.

With all this is mind, Meaningful Volunteer has created this document management tool for Project Mangrove. 

Click here for more info.

Interactive Coastal Map

Critical to any successful mangrove rehabilitation project is good information.

With this mind, Meaningful Volunteer has produced an interactive map of coastal mangrove areas on the island of Tablas. 

This map can be viewed here.

With this map, you can:

• Zoom into and out of areas of interest
   
• Pan around the area
   
• View photos of key areas of interest.

This map is ever evolving and key features of the island will continue to be added.

Project Lifecycle News

Spreading the Project Lifecycle Message

Meaningful Volunteer was recently invited to give a presentation at a mini-conference in Sugod, St. Agustin.  The conference focused on ending gender-based violence and inequality issues.

Ingrid Potgieter headed up the talk with Malcolm Trevena. Eden Navia assisted with translation.

The talk focused on the SDM method of contraception.  Ingrid introduced the method, went over the scientific basis for it and talked about who the method is suitable for.  The talk was very well received with many ladies expressing interest in the method.

Click here for more info.