Costa Rica Rural Community Empowerment Project

- history - goals - who's involved -

How it began...

Initiated in 2004, the Heart of Gold project is the central undertaking of a mutual learning and research alliance between Vancouver Island University [VIU] (formerly known as Malaspina University College), Nanaimo, BC, Canada and the rural Los Santos Region of Costa Rica. The project is managed and operated by a small number of highly committed rural tourism students and a faculty member within the Department of Recreation and Tourism Management at VIU. Tied to the department's academic emphasis on sustainable rural development and it's commitment to out-reach support for rural communities-in-transition on Vancouver Island, the Heart of Gold project advances the program's community empowerment activities into the international arena.

During Phases I and II [2004 to 2007], the project initiated a community-university research alliance between the rural agricultural communities of Santa Maria de Dota and San Marcos in the Los Santos Region, Costa Rican universities and environmental organizations, and VIU. This collaborative research alliance seeks to create alternative forms of sustainable economic development in the Los Santos Region of Costa Rica. The project has three major research themes:

1. Agro-tourism design/implementation and its link with Direct Trade models of coffee production;
2. Sustainable ecotourism development models in rural farming communities, and
3. Forest protection-based models of educational tourism development.

In the Spring of 2008, Vancouver Island University's Heart of Gold project adopted a new focus for future research and student learning experiences in the Los Santos region of Costa Rica. As the project has been in process since 2004, strong community connections have been made within the communities of Santa Maria and San Marcos. The project did begin with a primary focus of assisting organic farmers with value-added aspects of coffee production, however all parties involved felt that they were ready for a bold new direction in this community-university economic diversification endeavor. That bold new direction is the creation and development of the Los Santos Eco-Trail.

Our work in Costa Rica to date has resulted in regional awareness of the empowerment project, linked local communities through workshop and educational gatherings, generated educational materials for local residents on alternative coffee production models and community-driven tourism initiatives, initiated agro-tourism educational tours and home-stay accommodation on five local organic coffee farms, generated forest based economic activities data for the Nubotropica Foundation's rainforest protection campaign, initiated the development of a full risk management plan for operations of the project in Costa Rica, and initiated an ecotourism network for local businesses and home-stay families. All of these outcomes are 'on-going' in addition to the major undertaking of the Los Santos Eco-Trail.

Our method of participatory action research is based upon the principles of

1. participation: building trust and respect with communities, and then
2. working with communities to identify actions or solutions to their community challenges and issues, and
3. the two-way transfer of knowledge and skills between our students and faculty and our Costa Rican counterparts.

Download Brief Report for 2007-2008

"I want to live, I want to give... I crossed the ocean for a Heart of Gold." (Neil Young)