postcard micro-business

may and june 2010

here is the story of my first trip to bolivia. a story about success, failure, and the future.

i spent the first six weeks of my summer vacation (2010) in bolivia. i spent most of the time working in la paz on various projects and assignments as part of a humanitarian design program through my university and the international design clinic (IDC). i was surrounded by several other students, professors, interns, volunteers, bolivians, australians, and a couple amazing home stay families. it was my first trip to south america, and hopefully not my last.

my project was photography oriented. i started teaching a photography class to children and young people that work on the streets of la paz. my students were between the ages of 3 and 28. i taught in a “school” called sagrado corazon (sacred heart)… it was more like a soup kitchen, where the children would come every day for a warm meal and some refuge from the streets.

the purpose of my project was to develop a regenerative micro-business which the students and sagrado corazon could benefit directly. the model looked a little like this:

teach photo. give out disposable cameras.

collect film and develop.

students select best photos.

create postcards locally.

sell photos. (children keep half of profit)

restart.

i tried my best to teach them basic principles of photography through broken spanish and translators. i made and handed out these little reference guides. (poor use of spanish, i know)

we then handed out the disposable cameras (w/ replaceable film cartridges) to groups of students for them to share. the students were asked to photograph where they: eat, sleep, play, work

the students then returned the film to me before the next class, so i could have the film developed. for the second class, i printed out photos the demonstrated whether or not they remembered the photographic principles i taught them. they then discussed, in groups, why they felt certain photos were good or bad. my students took some incredible photos. (the expired bolivian film was pretty awesome)

i then laid out all the photos in the middle of the courtyard, and asked the students to select the best overall photos to be used as postcards. eventually, we narrowed the photos down to the best six.

here is an example of one of the postcards:

we financed the creation of 6000 postcards in total (1000 of each of the best six photos). once they were made i delivered them to sagrado corazon.

the director, who i was working with throughout the entire project, was very thankful and excited. sagrado corazon is struggling to continue because of a lack of substantial funding. the cooks that provide the daily meals for these children may leave sagrado corazon for higher paying jobs. with this project the children can sell each postcard for 2 Bolivianos (1 u.s. dollar = 7 bolivianos). the student would keep 1 boliviano and then sagrado corazon would keep 1 boliviano. everyone benefits.

simple math: 6,000 postcards x 2 bolivianos = 12,000 bolivianos

everything seemed to be perfectly in place for this project to succeed. we had the financial support from the IDC. we had the postcards created. my students and sagrado corazon were all excited for this project. so, why did it fail?

there was a spanish nun in charge of sagrado corazon. she arrived after we had already started the project. she did not like the photography class, and believed that religion was more important in order to help out my students. she also did not like that we were from the united states. she felt that we were exploiting the students. she called a lawyer and was able to retain possession of the postcards. she did not want the postcards to hit the streets of la paz, so she decided that the best way to deal with the postcards was to either burn or cut them all up.

after we returned from bolivia, the plan was to create a book about the school and the children to raise more awareness and possibly raise funds for the school. the nun destroyed the postcards and prevented me from completing what i needed for the book project as well.

i have never experienced something so selfish in my life. i can live with failure, but not in this fashion. the project was never given a chance, and the students and school never benefited from the possibility of this micro-business.

we are planning on returning to la paz next summer. in the meantime, i will be fine-tuning this micro-business. it will work. it has to work.

oh, by the way, i am probably not technically allowed to show that scan of the postcard. oh well.