July’s Spotlight of the Month: Matthew Rutman
For July, we caught up with Matthew Rutman, the project coordinator of Partners in Solidarity, the international computer placement program of NextStep.
Partners in Solidarity is not your typical non-profit. You might recall our spotlight for July that focused on NextStep Recycling. Partners in Solidarity take NextStep’s rebuilt computers and electronics to the next level: they are the facilitators between organizing NextStep’s electronics that will be shipped to communities in need, and organizes with another non-profit, INEPAS, that will make sure the equipment is set-up, managed, and used most efficiently. They are the bridge. And it all started about 8 years ago with an idea. In Matthew’s words….
I spent a year working in Guatemala from 2000-2001. I was involved in a variety of non-profit work that included house construction, homeless shelter support for street kids, and education. I thought I’d only spend a few months there, but ended up spending almost a year. The big “yahoo” moment for me came from being invited by a group of community leaders in a small village called Pasac Segundo to work with them on a fund raising project to build a school in their community. I spend days which turned into months spending time in their town-getting to know families, teachers, and kids.
The town school was built out of a variety of scrap materials and all the classrooms were dirt floors. Kids sat on planks of wood supported by cinder blocks. It was amazing to see how inspired they were to learn, and how little resources there were. Over the months, I was adopted by the town, and especially a family that made me one of their own. The long story short was that we wrote grants together, put on fundraisers, and eventually raised enough money to buy land and build a school. To this day it stands as the largest building in the community. That experience was huge for me. In addition, I knew dozens of awesome Guatemalan NGOs that were doing amazing work with limited resources. While down there, one of these NGOs told me they had over 300 donated bikes in the states but didn’t know how to get them down. They asked me for help. Through networking in the states, I sorted out the shipping and an idea was born.
I figured it would percolate for a while before becoming a reality. But, the dream of staring a non-profit was born during that time.
Things were sped up on July 10,2001. I was working for the United States Forest Service(USFS) in Washington state as a fire fighter. Me and 11 other fire fighters and two civilians were trapped behind a fire that became known as the 30 mile fire. Four fellow fire fighters died that day and the rest of the survivors came as close to dying as was possible. I realized how thin the veil was between life and death and decided to make some dreams turn into realities while I was still here. I had argued with death in my fire shelter and said that there were things I was supposed to do. One of those things was to create a resource bridge to Guatemala.
Initially, the vision of the project was to gather anything valuable to the myriad of NGOs in Guatemala that were focusing on education and health care projects. We brought down medical supplies/equipment, school supplies, classroom furniture, computers, bikes, kids clothing, toys. I had friends that were dumpster divers and would score all kinds of amazing junk(i.e. working bikes) that would make an orphanage kid super stoked. So, we filled 8×8x40′ containers with “American excess and trash.” Everything we brought down worked fine, but had no value in the rich throw away society of America.
I remember hearing an amazing story of a clinic that saved the life of a little girl whose lung had collapsed. We gave them a bunch of medical equipment/supplies that were going to be trashed by an American Med Supply company. In the boxes was the apparatus that saved the girl’s life! Just that one story alone makes everything we’ve done so far worth it. But, of course there are many other stories.
For example, we brought wheelchairs one year, and an eight year old paralyzed girl got her first wheelchair. You should have seen here smile! It was amazing.
As the project morphed and changed over the years, we started bringing down more computers and teamed up with two awesome organizations. In the states, NextStep Recycling started rebuilding old computers for us.
In Guatemala, an NGO called INEPAS worked with communities in rural areas to develop “community computer labs.” What was amazing about these labs was how it brought the community together to own, protect, and maintain the labs. Families had to agree to form committees to guard, repair, maintain, and care for the computers. The labs of course brought amazing education opportunities to the children and the adults, but the community building was equally powerful.
Since the labs have been in action, we have transported and installed over 1000 computers. These are fully functioning computers that the US did not want because of how fast technology moves here. The machines have been fully refurbished, loaded with a variety of education software, and have programs in three different languages.
Some criticism we received early on was the question of whether it was culturally appropriate to bring computers (technology) to indigenous communities. Some people said that technology kills culture. Interestingly, we found that many indigenous communities (especially where we work) were losing their native K’cihe Mayan language. We found an NGO that had bilingual(Spanish/K’iche) teachers developing computer education software to learn and preserve culture/language. All of our computers are loaded with this software.
Technology CAN destroy culture. It CAN ALSO PRESERVE CULTURE as well. It depends on whose hands it is in.Projects like ours help break that cycle. If a student knows how to use computers, they will have access to higher education. Doors will change, power paradigms will shift. I now hear indigenous students saying they want to be doctors, lawyers, even the president when I visit schools with labs. This is the start of something that could go far. There is a cool article about the project written by a reporter who went to Guatemala to track and report on the project.
Thank you, Matthew. Partners in Solidarity just shipped an 8 x8 40′ container with 325 computer systems. They will augment existing labs, start new labs, and support various NGOs in the dept. of Quetzaltenango. They have volunteer techies working with Guatemalan counterpoints on prepping machines, teaching basic repair/maintenance classes, and organizing a spare parts warehouse that will support the over 1000 computers in the labs.
If you are interested in getting involved, there are many options. For one, donating funds, computers, printers, etc. to Partners in Solidarity is easy. Check out their website to learn how to donate. Or you could volunteer. Visit NextStep Recycling’s project partners to see how you can help. Want to learn Spanish? One of NextStep’s project partners INEPAS pays its bills by operating an awesome language school in Xela. Visit INEPAS to learn about taking Spanish classes in Guatemala.
Outside of Partners in Solidarity, Matthew is an elementary teacher based out of Eugene, and currently preparing to spend the next year teaching at an international school in Venezuela. Feel free to contact him by email.
