The Valle del Yaqui Project : building the capacity of Yaqui women to help themselves

Abstract

A case study and evaluation, of a low-income housing program for single Yaqui mothers in Mexico, the Programa de Vivienda Ecologica (PVE). The PVE Program is a response to the desperate housing needs of the Yaqui, which employs micro-credit lending strategies to finance the purchase of a home. The financial model allows the PVE Program to also deal with the issues of economic, social and political integration that that the Yaqui, one of the oldest and poorest native communities in the American continent, suffer. The PVE goal is to create more culturally, economical, and ecologically appropriate housing. The thesis uses economic and housing data from the Mexican government to explore the root sources of the housing problem the poor in Mexico face today. It also looks at the Yaqui's own response to the PVE program through interviews of program participants conducted in the field. A recent collaboration with US and Mexican Universities, is also investigated, and evaluated both for its capacity to contribute to this housing program, and its impact on the education of the students.

(cont.) Since both the PVE program, and University service learning outreach programs, are based on the pedagogical model of Participatory Action Research, the nature and role of these types of inquiry is explored since it forms the basis for 'reflective practice', and 'reflective engagement', the two forms of evaluation that both the students of the University Program and the PVE housing initiative are asking their members to engage in their efforts to encourage more socially and environmentally engage future citizens.