Just beyond the beaches and resorts of Montego Bay, Jamaica, people are struggling to maintain a basic living in the small rural town of Catadupa. Experience Mission has been bringing volunteer teams to Catadupa for the past 6 years, and Executive Director Chris Clum first visited the community about 15 years ago. EM staff member Josh Gray spent two summers in Catadupa while in college and is currently EM’s primary contact for Catadupa leaders. During their time in Jamaica, Clum and Gray began to see that lasting change in the community was not going to be achieved just by bringing mission teams. A more strategic approach was needed.

The Catadupa Community Development Committee (CCDC) was formed in 2008 consisting of a team of Catadupa residents, and it exists to confront the needs of the community. It focuses on improving the community in various areas including health, education, and business. The current priority of CCDC members is developing agriculture, but without any significant resources or even a functioning office, they have been able to make little tangible progress.

In the fall of 2009, Gray and Leroy Gordon, local pastor and CCDC president, began discussing the community vision for economic development through agriculture, and since then EM has been partnering with the CCDC to assist in raising funds. The CCDC members are driving the vision, and they possess an in depth knowledge of local agriculture, but EM has a network of connections with people and organizations from the US who have resources. EM is committed to leveraging its time and resources to assist the community of Catadupa, and the CCDC will continue with the necessary on the ground research and planning.

The CCDC’s strategy for agricultural development is all about collaboration. There are many capable farmers in the community, but they lack the knowledge and resources to market their products. Even if they find a market, such as a hotel in Montego Bay, they lack any means for transporting their crops, and in most cases do not produce a sufficient quantity for the hotels to take notice. The CCDC intends to unite local farmers so that they can together produce sufficient quantities, and then provide a mechanism for contracting with hotels and transporting products. The farmers will sell to the CCDC, and it will in turn fulfill its contracts and transport the products to Montego Bay. CCDC profits will be used to sustain the program, provide supplies for the farmers, and fund other community initiatives.

The goal is to create opportunity. Gordon states, “One of the things about farming is that if you’re gonna plant you need market, so the CDC, we come together as a group, and what we want to do is to create the kind of a vehicle or the opportunity where we can provide the market for the farmers, and identify the market so when they plant their product they know exactly where, who they’ll be selling it to, and the price they will be getting from that.” Gordon explains that many farmers only sell to an occasional friend or neighbor, so he hopes that they can plant on a larger scale. He states, “There are more persons who will go into farming if bringing their product from point A to point B and getting a high return was possible.”

It’s been a long road for the people of Catadupa. Originally settled by runaway slaves, Catadupa was traditionally a farming community, but in the late 1800s the island’s main railway was extended to Montego Bay, and the resulting railroad line passed right through the center of the town. It became a primary source of employment and provided a consistent influx of tourists who were ready to purchase handmade clothing and crafts from local artisans. The train became the life of the town, and it provided a much needed connection to the outside world for nearly a hundred years. This all changed in the early 1990’s when the train was unexpectedly shutdown. The town was devastated; its economy and way of life had been destroyed overnight.

Today, the train station is dilapidated, the railroad tracks are covered in weeds, and the only local businesses area are a few poorly stocked shops. Without a market for their products, farmers struggle just to maintain basic necessities such as food, shelter and clothing. Most people live a life of abject poverty. While EM and other NGO’s have accomplished many projects, these fail to address the root cause of the poverty in Catadupa. A grassroots movement that will provide economic opportunity may be the only hope for Catadupa. This is why the locally led agricultural program is so important.

Both EM staff and CCDC members agree that the first step is to build a community resource center. This will serve as a platform for community collaboration, and it will include a functioning modern office for the CCDC. Noel Atkinson, a member of the committee, sees the establishment of a resource center with agricultural development as the number one priority for the community. He explains, “The potential is there for development, but as I said the whole thing is to get the resource center working, and alongside of that, we want to encourage the farmers now to get back into farming so that, you know, we can have some economic activity in the area. That would improve the standard of living.” Atkinson is a retired farmer who lives in Catadupa, and he has years of civic and industrial experience with a US corporation.

EM hopes to raise $40,000 for the construction of the resource center, and $50,000 for the development of agriculture by spring of 2011.

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The month of August has been filled with adventure and excitement it has been wonderful to be part of God’s work in Costa Rica. Time after time God shows me why He keeps bringing me back to the Bribri reservation. I truly feel like I have a family among the indigenous people of Costa Rica, from the community in Watsi at the entrance of the reservation all the way to Alto Coen, one of the remote villages in the Talamaca mountain range.

The week of the 5th - 13th I was in Coroma, Talamanca. Experience Mission has been working in this community for the last few years partnering with the community to build a high school. Currently there are about fifty-five students attending the Coroma High School. A couple of years ago when the high school was started there was only twelve students and there was only a couple of standing building, currently there are four functioning classrooms, and one kitchen with a small dining room.

Our project this week was to help continue building a two-story classroom at the local high school. The First level will be used as a classroom, the second level will be used for dormitories since the three teachers that are currently teaching have to walk about an hour and a half to teach in Coroma everyday.

Classroom under construction

There was a couple of highlights of this trip, one of the main highlights of this mission trip was that the local church in Coroma received 2 proclaimers.  The Proclaimer is a digital player dedicated to playing God’s Word in the local language which in this case is the Bribri language.

Here’s the way it works:

• An installed microchip contains Scriptures in the Bribri language; the chip will not erase or wear out from frequent playing.
• The battery will play for 15 hours and can be recharged enough times to play the entire New Testament more than 1,000 times.
• The Proclaimer has a built-in generator and solar panel to charge the battery.
• The solar panel, in addition to charging the battery, will run the Proclaimer even without battery power as long as there is sunlight.
• The sound is digital quality and loud enough to be heard clearly by groups as large as 300.

This device is perfect for the Talamanca area since there is no electricity in the coroma area. This will be a great tool to share the gospel in the reservation. I felt so excited and privileged to be part of this project to take this playback device to people who may not have any other source to hear God’s Word.

Iglesia Cristiana de Coroma

August 31, 2010

Yonathan Moya

Experience Mission is offering summer 2011 mission trips to Costa Rica. Learn more at www.experiencemission.org or by calling the EM Office at (360) 554-8060.