Quepos monthly achievement report October 2016

Surfs up, mae!

Objective
One of our objectives at GVI Quepos is to improve access to education and wellness to the
community of El Cocal. We carry this out in many ways through our childcare program and
teaching English program, as we are working with the children and adults of the community to
give them lifelong skills that will stay with them in the future. For the adults, learning English is
vital for working in the tourism industry, which is a huge source of jobs in Quepos. For the
children, while teaching them the content of our lessons, we are also reinforcing basic social and
behavioral skills which are very important for their growth. While these classes are the main thing
we provide for El Cocal, they are not the only thing, and we are always looking for interesting and
unique ways to work with the community. Our goal is to bring the community together as much
as possible so that healthy relationships and a sense of security can be formed.
Summary
This year, GVI (in partnership with Christian Surfers Quepos) brought back the Corona Cocalea,
which is a surf and bodyboard competition that takes place in El Cocal. It was a successful event
and lots of members of the community gathered to watch.
Report
This month, GVI staff and volunteers put on an event together with Christian Surfers Quepos for
the community of El Cocal. The event took place on Sunday October 16th, 2016. This was called
Corona Cocalea, and it was a surf and bodyboard competition that look place on El Cocal Beach.
This was not the first Corona Cocalea; it was the third. The first and second were in 2013 and
2014 and were run by Quepos Bodyboard with the help of GVI. In August, we received an email
from a former base manager from GVI Quepos. She told us about the event, and as we are all new
staff since the last Corona Cocalea, we asked for more information. She then connected us with
Christian Surfers Quepos, which is a religious/public service organization here in Quepos, very
close to El Cocal. Christian Surfers had also taken part in this event in the past with GVI and was
eager to do it again with us. We organized a meeting with Angelica, the former manager of Quepos
Bodyboard, and got the ball rolling. We spent the next two months planning and preparing
together.

We started to advertise by word of mouth as soon as we could. One of our field staff, Ana, has a
friend who is a graphic designer so she designed a flyer for us. As soon as it was ready, we hung
big A3-sized posters in all of the pulperas (small grocery/convenience stores) in El Cocal, as well
as one in the school. We invited the older kids from our classes to walk with us through El Cocal,
promoting and hanging out small A5-sized flyers to anyone who was interested. It was a pleasant
surprise to see how many of the kids and teenagers knew what Corona Cocalea was and were
excited that we were bringing it back.
Inscriptions opened up one week before the event. Anyone who wanted to participate needed to
come to the GVI classroom in the school and pay an inscription fee of 2.000 CRC (approximately
$4 USD). The exception to this was for people who didnt live in Quepos; those people could
inscribe by phone and pay on the day of the competition. On the Thursday before the competition,
we only had one inscription, but by the end of the night before, we had nearly 40. There were
competitors from Quepos, Manuel Antonio, and even Jac.
We worked closely with the local community to organize the event. All of the hot food was served
in our community center (built by GVI and funded by GVI Charitable Trust). With donated
ingredients (rice, chicken, etc.), several women from the community cooked lunch for the
participants, which was included in the participants inscription fee. Community members also
had the opportunity to take advantage of the crowd; they used the kitchen of the community center
to cook things like soup, tamales, sandwiches, desserts, etc. and sell them. Having food available
for everyone instead of just for participants was great because a lot of people ended up staying
until the end. If there werent food, lots of the people probably would have gone home for lunch
and not stayed.

There were four categories in the competition: sub 14 bodyboard, sub 18 bodyboard (which was
changed to Open [all ages over 14] in order to allow young adults to participate), surf, and female
bodyboard. During the competition, Christian Surfers took care of all of the announcements. GVI
volunteers handed served water and butter and jelly sandwiches to the participants who were there
on the beach. We also helped to prepare the prize bags for the first, second, third, and fourth-place
winners of each category16 prizes in total. The prizes included donated items such as stickers,
surfboard wax, surfboard covers, and hats. The prizes were assorted as various organizations had
donated different items. The bags for the prizes were plain paper bags that had been decorated by
one of our long-term interns. One other thing the volunteers (and country director) did was sell
used clothes, sheets and books that we didnt need in the house anymore for very low prices to
raise money for the community center.

The competition was a success and lasted about seven hours from start to finish. Then the
competitors went to eat in the community center. After everyone was finished eating, there was a
ceremony where the winners were announced and given their prizes. Lots of pictures were taken
and all of the competitors were happy. It was amazing to see the great sportsmanship they showed
when the winners were announced because it was clear to see that they all supported one another.

We finally left El Cocal around 4:00 p.m. It was the longest day (nine hours) in El Cocal that any
of the volunteers had ever had, and probably for most of the staff too. We were exhausted but it
was completely worth it. I think its safe to say that the Corona Cocalea will be an ongoing
tradition for GVI.
Emily Dick
Scholar