• Focus the knowledge and research techniques of modern science and technology on the immediate problems of development.

• Bring powerful ideas to fruition as innovations that create real opportunities for local and family enterprise in rural communities in low productivity countries.

• PRISM PERU is a not-for- profit corporation whose mission is to foster local and family enterprise in rural communities in low-productivity countries.

• PRISM PERU researches powerful ideas and develops them into innovative opportunities to increase productivity.

• We want to offer impoverished rural families a realistic alternative to either urban flight or further degradation of their environment. We are, therefore, dedicated to creating sustainable, rural enterprise that provide the opportunity to work and prosper

• PRISM PERU believes that the human and natural resources needed to do this exist in rural communities. Once we examine them from a new perspective, we can see how their potential can most effectively be turned into new enterprise.

• On this basis PRISM PERU works as partners whit these communities, and with public and private institutions that serve them. Together, we develop enterprising ways of producing more with the resources that are available.

• In doing so, PRISM PERU promotes interdependence between our partner communities and the modern world. We want rural communities to become competitive through ventures founded on excellent performance, good management and appropriate high technology.

• PRISM PERU blends the efforts of many individuals who share this commitment. We have few institutional requirements that are not directly projects – related. We are not a consulting organization.

• Rather, PRISM PERU exists to be a positive force for change

 

Ferreñafe Agro-Sanitation Zone Oro Verde, like Shobuj Shona, is translated “Green Gold” –a clear reference to a duckweed crop’ s intense verdant appearance and to its significant market potential. PRISM was recently granted legal rights to “Oro Verde” as a tradename for agricultural products in Peru.Ferreñafe is a farming community of approximately 60,000 on Peru’s northern coastal desert, situated near the city of Chiclayo about 200 miles south of the border with Ecuador.

In 1991, Ferreñafe began to treat its wastewater using two oxidation ponds. This 3-hectare system replaced a trickling filter system that has been out of operation for over twenty years. However, neither the regional water authority nor the provincial government has the resources to operate and maintain these oxidation ponds or their associated pumping station. The ponds have, therefore, been abandoned almost from their inception and all wastewater now passes directly to the nearby ocean as untreated sewage to contaminate the beaches, just as it has for the past twenty years.

Of course, a great deal of the wastewater is illegally diverted for irrigation by farmers who own land adjoining the sewage canal. The ongoing cholera epidemic has done little to inhibit use of wastewater for irrigation of local vegetable truck farms.

The Oro Verde project in Ferreñafe is designed to treat the wastewater of the community of Ferreñafe, Peru, while also growing a valuable crop of Lemnaceae. The project will benefit the entire community by decreasing the local risk of enteric infection – particularly cholera – and increasing the local availability of edible protein. Structured as a producer-owned profit-making enterprise, the project will significantly increase the income of the poor agricultural workers who make up the Producers Association.

Preliminary work on this project, financed by the Canadian Office of Forestry Development in Peru, was completed in 1991. This included studies on the growth characteristics of native species of Lemnaceae in experimental ponds, the response to high levels of dissolved salts in the water, and the nutritional value of one species, Lemna gibba, given as part of a balanced feed to chickens. This preliminary project ended successfully in December with results that were promising enough to secure commitments to fund the first phase of construction, a 10-hectare agro-sanitation zone to be in operation by the end of 1992.

The Ferreñafe Agro-Sanitation Zone moved into its first phase of construction in March, 1992, breaking ground on 3 hectares of Lemnaceae lagoons. This was accompanied by the complete redesign and construction of a more efficient harvester, the construction of solar dryers, the creation of a 16-member Producers Association (half of whom are women), and the installation of a water quality laboratory .By the end of 1992, this enterprise should be capable of producing annually over 240 tons of Lemnaceae meal worth over $60,000.

As this report is being published, the Producers Association has started construction on the final 7 hectares of land planned for completion in 1992. It is also completing the engineering needed to guarantee the capture of all of Ferreñafe’s wastewater once the 10-hectare site is ready for full operation.x

HISMIS Project

The HISMIS Project –the “Health Information System/Management Information System for the Ministry of Health of Peru” -is PRISM’s most ambitious project to date. Undertaken in 1990 for three years at a total cost of $4.5 million, the HISMIS Project aims to support over 600 public sector health centers throughout Peru with a complete computer-based information system. This system handles administrative matters such as personnel and inventory at 28 regional centers scattered around the country .

More importantly, it collects key information on every patient visit and produces a wide range of epidemiological reports to assist health providers in planning how to deliver better services to more people at lower cost.

The HISMIS System went into full implementation during 1991 with a network of 10 regional computer management advisors from PRISM. These advisors worked with the informatics units of 28 regional and sub-regional offices of the Ministry of Health to install hardware and software, train personnel, and re-organize their operations. Meanwhile, training teams -specialists in either the HIS or MIS components -criss-crossed Peru giving training sessions to health center personnel who, finally, will bear primary responsibility for data collection.

By the time 1991 ended, all 28 planned computer centers were in operation and all but a few of the most remote or difficult areas of Peru had been reached by the training program. A number of unavoidable holdups in USAID financing, due to unresolved problems of debt repayment between Peru and the United States, seriously interfered with the smooth implementation of the HISMIS Project. Nevertheless, the project team adapted each time, reprogramming their efforts to meet the realities of each situation as best they could, and finished the year virtually on-schedule in HIS and well-advanced in MIS.

The HISMIS Project had just entered its last phase to strengthen the support systems for the national health information system, when events in Peru indefinitely paralyzed further effort. The presidential coup d’etat, which suspended Peru’s constitution and dissolved the legislative and judicial branches, led to an immediate suspension of all U.S. aid with the exception of food and some activities in the non-profit private sector.

As of April, all but four of the HISMIS team members were placed on indefinite layoff to wait out the political crisis. While there is little hope that funding can be resumed before 1993, PRISM has done everything possible to consolidate the gains that the project has made thus far and, with a small emergency fund authorized by USAID, is turning over all remaining equipment and supplies to the Ministry of Health in an orderly and technically acceptable manner.

Meanwhile, PRISM’s network of regional computer management advisors has been contracted directly by the Ministry to continue to provide service support during this difficult period. While this crisis has not been pleasant for PRISM staff in Peru, everyone takes a certain measure of pride in the extent to which the people in the Ministry -for whom the system is intended – have moved to take up the slack to keep running the system that we together have built. 

INFORMATION –BASED MANAGEMENTThe HISMIS and Community Health Centers projects mentioned in this report fall within the framework of Information-based Management. Among PRISM projects From previous years, a quality management project with the Ministry of Health -which we called CYMOS:  Spanish for “In-service Monitoring and Training” -remains at the core of our designs for future projects. The concepts of information-based management are powerful but theoretical and abstract. We intend to capture them with practical examples from over five years of experience in a professional book on the subject which we hope to publish in 1993. The title planned for this book is “Information-based Management, Equity and Efficiency.”

It is even more importan4however, that we give these concepts concrete form in organizations that make a difference to the people we seek to serve. HISMIS will do this when it is again financed in 1993 after Peru’s government begins to restore democracy to this country and U.S. economic sanctions are lifted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Paul Skillicorn –  Honorary President
Ramiro F. Prialé – Executive Director 
Rainer Spitzer – Tresaurer Director
Enrique Jessen – Forestry Director
Alfredo Arosemena – Legal Director

Officers:
Ramiro F. Prialé, Executive director
Rainer Spitzer, Treasurer 

Collaborating individuals:
Rodrigo Arosemena
Juan José Salazar
Sandro Esposito
Manuel Cáceres
Jefferson López

Ramiro F. Prialé – Executive director

Ramiro F. Prialé is candidate to Doctorate in Management at the University of Sevilla, Spain. He brings to PRISM a wealth of public and private sector experience in information processing, government, education and psychology. Among the notable positions he has held in Peru are:  former National Secretary of Informatics, Systems and Computer Director for the Cotton Development Foundation, and consultant. to the Organization of American States and informatics advisor to the Panamerican Health Organization.Ramiro has been involved in PRISM’s operations since accepting a director’s seat on the board in 1986. When PRISM began working with the U .S. Agency for International Development’s Child Survival Action Program in 1989, Ramiro was named Technical Director of the Health Information Systems and Management Information Systems (HISMIS) project. As HISMIS technical Director, Ramiro bore responsibility for all aspects of the project, including planning, design, testing, programming, implementation, and training. He coordinated the work of 5 teams comprising 42 professionals and staff while maintaining close liaison between USAID, PRISM and the Ministry of Health.   Ramiro´s commitment to Peru and its development is a tribute to PRISM. His capacity to negotiate delicate and difficult situations has kept the PRISM effort in Peru on track through a number of very tough years. We all continue to learn from his example and benefit from his guidance.        

The current developments in Perú are inspired by two historic figures and their proposals: the Al Gore´s documentary “An inconvenient truth” and the Green Revolution of Norman Borlaug, both winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Both ideas are related to the future of the planet.

The Green Revolution.-In difficult moments, we like to recall the sorry that Norman Borlaug – winner of the Nobel Peace Prize as the “Father” of the Green Revolution – told Richard Crichfield for his truly wonderful book. “Villages”, published in 1981 by Doubleday.Dr. Bourlag worked for 17 years in Mexico to develop high- yielding varieties of wheat. In 1961, experts at research stations India, Egypt, and Pakistan told him the seeds wouldn’t adapt. Luckily, some of the junior –level trainees, working outside channels, proved that the Mexican wheat would grow if planted and fertilized right.

In the New York, the Rockefeller Foundation, the major financial backer, almost canceled project.

Four years later, in 1965, India and Pakistan each agreed to put the wheat out in a major demonstration project. Dr. Borlaug planned to ship 500 tons of seed via los Angeles. The Watts riots broke out and blocked access to the pier. But. Eventually, the ship was loaded. Then the Pakistani check for $100.00 to the Mexican government bounced. Mexico demanded immediate payment.
Rockefeller wanted to know why the Mexicans handn´t been paid. Dr. Borlaug stopped taking calls from New York.

Then Pakistan and India went to war. Pakistan was afraid that India would embargo its seed when the ship stopped Bombay.

Dr. Borlaug arranged for the ship to stop at Singapore where the seed was trans-shipped to Pakistan. He then flew to Pakistan to discover that the Pakistanis were getting only 20-30% germination. The seed looked “miserable”; it had been damaged by over- fumigation while it was still in the warehouse in Mexico. He changed the planting and fertilizing protocols on the fly to adapt and overcome this latest obstacle.

Eventually, despite all disasters, the harvest turned out to be “fantastic” and the Green revolution was on its way.

An inconvenient truth

This outstanding documentary states a fundamental thruth. Even more, it represents an agreement among the world’s experts: global warming is real.It is caused by human activity.  Mankind and its governments must begin immediate action to halt and reverse it.

If we do nothing, in about 10 years the planet may reach a “tipping point” and begin a slide toward destruction of our civilization and most of the other species on this planet.

After that point is reached, it would be too late for any action.

These facts are stated by Al Gore in the documentary.

We fully support and agree with Roger Ebert (Chicago Sun-Times / June 2, 2006) in every aspect of his position regarding this documentary. In his words “You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to.”Reverdecer project is the Prism-PERU response and contribution to Al Gore´s fundamental idea. We will help to preserve every single tree within the rain forest of the Amazonas jungle. 

Under the motto “adopt a tree” this Prism-Perú project will foster an unprescedent initiative to preserve the rain tropical forest, starting over an extension of 20,000 Ha of trees, in the Amazon jungle.

See how you can contribute to extend and fund this initiative; in the following pages.

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT (1992)

The PRISM Group’s past year has been proof that there are easier things to achieve in life than to try to change the world for the better with new ideas. Happily, it was also proof that, with perseverance, a good idea can be realized.

In this annual report, we share some genuine successes in advancing the core ideas in development to which PRISM is committed. We also describe some difficulties which we are meeting and overcoming. On balance, we find ourselves in the middle of a demanding year but an exciting year, as well. The following pages attest to both aspects of our recent experiences.

In particular, we are pleased to report on the growing accomplishments of Lemnaceae-based agriculture and wastewater treatment systems in Bangladesh and on the first implementation of a Lemnaceae-based facility in northern Peru. The potential of this technology and its positive impact on rural development are being taken seriously by many thoughtful experts in both donor and scientific organizations. Duckweed has made the transition from a novel idea to a working technology, and one that can be replicated again and again to serve rural communities.

The support of the following organizations was particularly important in ensuring PRISM’s success during this year: Catholic Relief Services, The LeBrun Foundation, The Richard Lounsbery Foundation, The Kumudini Welfare Trust, the Canadian Office of Forestry Development in Peru, UNICEF, The Weyerhaeuser Family Foundation, MotherCare of John Snow, Inc. and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

PRISM blends the efforts of many individua1s who share our commitment. This year, we are pleased to highlight two of these: our country directors for Bangladesh and Peru. Mohammad Ikramullah and Ramiro Prialé have been colleagues, compatriots and good friends for many years. We wish to express our gratitude to them for the crucial efforts they have made and continue to make in fostering PRISM’s projects.

To them, as to those of you who have so generously helped PRISM in its work, we offer our deepest thanks.

Paul Skillicorn

President (former)