NAVCO Traveling with my counterpart

NAVCO, National Association of Village Councils, is an interesting site assignment. The organization represents 193 villages throughout the country. In addition to the villages, Belize has seven towns representing a population of at least 5,000, then two cities, Belize City and Belmopan. I look forward to traveling to all the villages within my two years here.

Last weekend, I traveled with my counterpart, the Chief Administrative Officer, and the NAVCO trainer to the Stann Creek District - we had two sessions in two villages: Hummingbird Village and Independence Village. About fifty village council chairmen and women attended the training.

NAVCO hopes to be the conduit not only to the central government but also to enhance the role and responsibilities of the village councils by educating and enhancing their skills. Many of the members only have grade school education and have limitations because of the languages because they either speak only Spanish or Creole and the main language is English.

I have to remember that the country became independent from the British only about 25 years ago and is struggling to establish an infrastructure both with the physical environment and the governmental structure. NAVCO is still a young organization established around 2001. Just this year, the government passed a new policy, National Policy on Local Governance, combining the many governmental structures of the villages, towns, and cities into a more cohesive and definitive roles and responsibilities of each entity. The new policy will become effective in April and NAVCO is responsible for the training and communication to the village councils on the authority and power they will have for their village's health and welfare.

Anyway, enough of the lecture, while in Hummingbird Village, I took a picture of their community center where the training occurred. The community center also housed the village library and a corner space for a health clinic. The two

bookshelves represented their library. The table with the white covering was the examining table and the blue fabric next to the wall wraps around the table for the traveling doctor to see patients. The doctor comes a few times a month. I was actually impressed that the village had a library established by the Village chairwoman because in San Antonio there was no library. While in San Antonio, I tried to buy a new book for a birthday present for the ten year old and found only used books - birthday presents were not a normal practice in San Antonio but I gave her two used books anyway, and to my surprise the other kids and adults picked up the books to read.

I talked to the chairwoman - she would love children's books and instructional books for adult reading and writing. I'm looking into a cheap way of getting book donations to Belize from the States. Shipping anything here is so expensive.

I took a picture of a high school in Independence Village where the afternoon session occurred. Because Independence was a fairly large village, it had the capacity to house a high school. Most villages accommodated perhaps a primary school or two. The majority of schools are administered by

the churches, mainly Catholics, Methodists, and Pentacostals. The classroom was bare with only a single table and plastic chair for the teacher. The buildings were made simple and practical for the climate, but it looked more like a military base with barrack-like buildings. In this village the high school campus was large.

I finally moved into my permanent place! That's another story to tell...termites and all...