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Update from Tehuacan Mexico, March 24,2002
We are located in the state of Puebla in Central Mexico.
We have taken possession of the house and grounds in Tehuacan, Puebla Mexico. The house is a beautiful well built structure of cement and glass with marble floors throughout. It consists of a home portion with two bedrooms, a bathroom and living room. A kitchen area divides the home portion from the classroom and office portion of the house.
The home and gardens has been unoccupied for ten years so some repair is necessary to make the place comfortable. Some windows are not working well and need to be fixed or replaced. The electricity will have to be upgraded for our Institute and the cost estimates for that are $1400.00. We also need to furnish the house and classroom which is additional expense.
We have now completed one outdoor classroom, the childrens area. We have a childrens class that now has 12 children. Several of the children have started small gardens in their backyards.
We are also nearly ready to graduate our first three trainers from Zapotitlan, a nearby town.
Gabina, one of our first trainers, is pictured in her first greenhouse project. She is now starting her first class for Home garden owners in her town.
We also have completed most of the home garden owner training area. This includes a home garden of 20 bed growers and a commercial garden of 20 bed growers.
We have also received a donation from a soft drink manufacturer in town of the tables chairs and refrigerator for our outside deck. This area will be used for lunch for our students.
The outside gardens of the Institute are now being planted in fruit trees. This picture shows the organic garden in front of the building, and the bricks will be a fish pond to feed the fruit trees.
One portion of front garden will show a variety of fruit trees under fertigation. They will be planted in soil, then a hydroponic nutrient will be dripped to the trees. Next to this orchard will be a tropical greenhouse to test medicinal herbs in a variety of hydroponic cultures. This greenhouse has a potential funder. We wish to test manufacturers equipment and here we would like also to test your nutrients and additives. The purpose of this research is to improve the phytochemical content of the herbs.
We have started to construct the hydroponic homeless shelter. All four patios are now in place and we are waiting for the bamboo structure to be built for the plastic cover.
We have completed the animal food area which includes three bed growers and an animal pen. We will probably use this area for a horse. There is tremendous need in Mexico and throughout the world for animal grasses and foods grown to offset the damage being caused by grazing. We will showcase this in our small animal fodder garden.
We now have a working kitchen, a cook and are now eating food from the gardens. This is a vegan diet of soy based meat substitutes.
We have promises of donated cactus for our cactus garden and are waiting for a donation of sand to begin this area. The Drip irrigation for the entire Institute has been donated by the rural Secretary of our state.
The international director, Peggy Bradley, had a birthday on March 21 and the trainers class gave her an all day party in Zapotitlan. She is pictured being hugged by Juan Cortez, one of the graduating trainers.
At the party Betty our training Director had an opportunity to hug a cactus that is probably at least 800 years old.
Outreach within the comunity
We have been meeting regularly with the Microcredit portion of the banks here in Tehuacan to establish a training course for the small commercial grower. The banks here have approved 140 loans for establishing small commercial greenhouses from 300 to 1000m2. These people are just now starting to set up and we will provide a three day course and technical support to work with these growers.
We received a $18,000 donation from a non profit to help us start the Institute.
We are now setting up a small store in the Institute to sell hydroponic products. We welcome any donations for the store, and will showcase your literature in our training courses if it can be useful for the local growers.
Around the world we are getting inquiries about starting local and country wide Institutes. A few have already started. We are helping others go through the paperwork of setting up non-profits. Both Romania and Sri Lanka have sent in pictures and reports on their work so far, now on the interent.
We need more funds to keep operations going. The Institute should become more and more self supporting as we become established, but for now it is a difficult process just to decide what the priorities might be. We are looking for sponsors who will be linked to us on the internet site. Stores are asked to contribute $300 and manufacturers are asked to contribute $1000. These contributions will be used to create the Institute grounds and then later to promote our work around the world.
Please send donations to our Oregon address
Institute of Simplified Hydroponics
P.O. Box 644
Seaside, Oregon 97138
Mexico Contact Information:
Mexico ISH
29 Poniente 1213
Colonia Santo Domingo
Tehuacan, Puebla
Mexico 75700
Telephones:
0052 238 39 21600
0052 238 39 21601
Fax: 0052 238 39 21601
Report issued by Peggy Bradley.