Project summary

This project to build an experimental large reed boat, a boat shelter and a tourist house in an Uru village near Lake Titicaca was developed through an alliance between ILCA and the Rotary Club and Inner Wheel of Sudbury Talbot, Suffolk, in England (part of Rotary district 1080). Some 30 Sudbury Suffolk Rotarians and 10 Inner Wheel Club members participated in the project in fund raising ventures and frugal dinners to consider the project advances.

ILCA made another alliance with the Military Engineering School (EMI) in La Paz, Bolivia, so that a recent graduate in civil engineering, Ing. Carlos Tapia, could help with the plans and supervise the work for the boat shelter and the tourist houses. His careful use of funds permitted the construction of two tourist houses instead of one. In the Uru community of Irohito (Ingavi province, La Paz, Dept.) in Bolivia, 30 members participated actively in the project, although some 50 families benefit from the final results of the project. The project has helped project ecotourism in the region as an alternative source of income for the Urus.