For more than a decade I’ve been bringing food, clothing and other items to various humanitarian programs in Juárez and Palomas as well as documenting conditions there and helping raise funds. I realize that this kind of work is mostly maintenance or survival; it’s not bringing about larger cultural or innovative changes. Border Partners, a small non-profit headquartered in Palomas, however, is making innovative changes that could impact life all along border and in the US as well.
Last year they celebrated fifteen years of dedicated work for tiny (pop. almost 7,000) Palomas. What was especially important was their innovative work with what is called biochar. This involves burning pecan shells in special stoves and using it for heating inadequately insulated homes in Palomas and also improving the poor soils so that vegetables can be grown. Biochar composted with manure and mixed with the local soil helps hold nitrogen in the soil which can be released to plants. Composting prevents the release of CO2 and methane which is released into the air when manure is left to rot in piles.
The goal is to create a culture of growing vegetables in what has historically been a “vegetable desert.” Community greenhouses have been built as well as eight greenhouses in local schools and two in communities to the south. The intent is to show students how to grow vegetables and to learn the importance of better eating habits. Peter Edmunds, one of the founders of Border Partners, believes that students are more open to dietary changes than their parents.
This is a cultural change. Health is a huge issue. Seventeen percent of Mexican adults aged 20-79 have diabetes. It is the second largest cause of death after heart disease.
The hope is that this technology can be replicated in other border areas where fresh vegetables are basically non-existent. For example, for many years I have been assisting several humanitarian organizations in the area south of the Santa Teresa port of entry and on the west edge of Juárez, an area where there is no evidence whatsoever of vegetables or greenery in general.
This innovative work is combined with a host of existing programs such as:
Providing food.
Free health services.
Computer training
Exercise classes.
Nutrition workshops. There’s now a national initiative in Mexico to get rid of junk food in schools by March of 2025.
Aid to seniors.
Free eyeglasses via the Lions Club.
A Youth Center. Border Partners has submitted a grant request for funds to enhance its sports programs, believing that getting kids involved in sports might help divert them from joining a cartel. The Center would be open six days a week for kids from 10-17 and would offer six different classes each week – robotics, guitar, dance, carpentry, making heathy snacks and painting.
Now Border Partners has come up with another innovation – papercrete – via a grant from the North America Development Bank, a sub agency of the US EPA. Papercrete is a mix of recycled paper (cardboard) water and concrete that can be formed into blocks for use in construction. It has many advantages.
It has a higher insulating value than regular cement blocks.
It is lighter and, therefore, easier to use.
Making it is less polluting than using just cement.
Using the recycled paper for papercrete is a productive use for what would otherwise just be garbage.
The two main goals of the project are:
To introduce this product to local residents. Not only can it be used to build new homes, but it can also help insulate older homes. Many homes have metal roofs which could be insulated with papercrete, making the homes cooler in the high heat of summer and warmer in winter. And eventually local residents could find employment making it.
To improve air quality in the area. When I was there on Tuesday, November 5, Edmunds and Border Partners’ General Manager, Juan Rascón took me east of Palomas to the city dump, a huge smoldering hole in the ground full of every type of trash, including truckloads of paper. Putting that paper to productive use instead of dumping it in this foul pit would improve the local air quality. The goal is to divert as much as 70 tons of paper from the dump in the coming year. Saving paper from being burned or buried in a landfill prevents the release of over 1,200 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere. The US landfills 730,000 tons of paper a year, enough to build over 100,000 small houses. Border Partners is going to share its expertise in building via the internet so anyone anywhere can build a papercrete house.
A third goal would be to increase employment in Palomas. Five part-time local workers would make the papercrete.
Border Partners has four overall goals for Palomas and the smaller communities to the south. Papercrete fits all of them.
1. Education and teaching residents a new resource.
2. Health and providing a healthier home environment and improved air quality.
3. Sustainable technology
4. Economic growth with a few new jobs in a community with little employment opportunity.
The border areas – Juárez and Palomas – I have been assisting for almost fourteen years now are full of dedicated and persistent leaders who provide for basic needs in an area where there is little government support. The struggle to meet those needs doesn’t, however, leave much time or resources to make larger cultural changes.
Border Partners, led by founders Peter and Polly Edmunds, General Manager Juan Rascón, Program Manager Victoria Ibarra, Botanist Joel Carreón and other staff members has been able to do that with biochar and now papercrete. The hope is that these innovations can spread to other border communities and perhaps the US as well where the cost of housing is so prohibitive.
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Morgan Smith, a retired lawyer and government official from Colorado who now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Smith writes regularly on border issues. He has been going to the border – mostly Juárez and Palomas – at least monthly for the last 13 years to document conditions there and assist a variety of humanitarian programs and, more recently, migrant shelters. The column appears in the Rio Grande Guardian with the permission of the author. Smith can be reached by email via morgan-smith@comcast.net.
