Why this region of Bolivia is in desperate need of help
The charity O.S.C.A.R. (Obras Sociales de Caminos de Acceso Rural) is based in the region Alto Beni, a hilly subtropical area on the edge of the untouched rainforest. The organisation started with improving the infrastructure but now takes care of several aspects of the life in this area. What follows here is a rough description of the organisation’s work.
The main sources of access to this area are forest tracks - muddy roads that become impassable during the rainy season. The farmers in this district completely depend on selling their crops at the nearest local market with the fewest owning the only suitable vehicle for this region: a four-wheel drive jeep. Therefore, many are unable to sell their crops during the rainy season.
Similarly, the health care is dependent on the quality of the roads. At the moment, in case of an emergency, medical help is hours away and during rainy season, many families are completely cut off for any sort of medical assistance.
The majority of population in this area consists of resettlers from the highlands of Bolivia. Following the decay of the tin mines and two major dry seasons in the 1960’s, thousands of families have been compelled to move from the highlands (about 4.100 – 4.500 heigh above sea level) into the wooded lowlands.
It is especially this part of the population that struggles the most with the difficulties of life in a tropical forest. In particular, the public health sector is a huge problem for the resettlers that live in a completely new climate, fighting entirely different diseases. Alimentation has proved to be problematic. Despite the fruitful diversity of the jungle, they have a very unbalanced diet. The children mainly live of the crops the family produces itself: potatoes or rice and bananas or oranges. That is why they are missing many minerals and vitamins, which leads to a high proportions of children that are undernourished and way too small for their age.
Another problem in this area is the agriculture. The ground is high-producing (fruitful?), but is very sensitive to erosion. Especially fire clearing and monocropping ruin the ground quickly. O.S.C.A.R. tries to impede this habit and instructs farmers in training courses how to treat the ground with care while using it for agriculture.
Major shortfalls in the educational system are in large part due to a bad educational level of the teachers. The project has started to train teachers that not only are professionally trained but also know the problems in the region and are therefore are able to understand the children and their needs better.
O.S.C.A.R. helps to solve problems of bolivians, focussing especially on farmers and resettlers in remote areas, miles away from anyone who might care about this poorest part of the bolivian population.