a little bit about the foundation and my role

i've had some people ask me about what i'm doing with the foundation, what is does, etc.  i thought it'd be nice to share a little bit about what we do and a little bit about my role here.

i think it makes sense to start with where the foundation works.  we work in the provincia of buenos aires about 50 minutes drive to the west from the city center in a place called moreno.  in moreno, they lack a lot of the infrastructure we take for granted in the united states -- clean water, paved roads, street signs, street names, natural gas, etc.  these are things few people think about in the united states and few people think about in the capital of buenos aires because we take them for granted -- they're more or less a given.

the foundation works to bring these infrastructural conveniences to the people of moreno by way of community organization.  the government in argentina and in buenos aires does little to help these people and so the reasoning goes that if no one will help them, they need to help themselves.  that's where the foundation comes in.  after conducting surveys/studies/etc. to determine what the area needs most, the foundation decided to focus on natural gas.  the natural gas project is what the foundation hopes will be a mobilizing event, or an event that, given its success, will hopefully gateway into other infrastructure-focused projects in the future.

two weeks ago, the foundation signed a contract with the inter-american development bank and a local argentine bank for a pair of loans totaling us$6,000,000 (to be used for the construction of the physical gas network), with the inter-american development bank donating us$689,267 for expenses to be incurred during the course of the project.  Having secured two other donations, amounting to us$167,400, the foundation is lacking a total of us$527,150 that will be neccessary to complete the project.  what i do is write grant proposals/requests that will hopefully go a ways to filling this hole.

additionally, i've been working with the inter-american development bank multilateral investment fund group within the foundation.  this group takes care of all of the administrative tasks the foundation must comply with to be able to access the funds its been promised by the idb.  needless to say, this experience has been extremely rewarding and a nice education to how an ngo works and how a project of this nature works.  it'll hopefully serve me well in peru and beyond.