Day 5

This morning we drove to Sunchales, the heart of the milk production where the biggest production facility in all of South America is. It rained very hard the night before, 15 centimeters, and so the sides of the road were covered. There was also a wreck on the road, a truck loaded with limes flipped over completely and so traffic was slowed down and we got to Sunchales an hour late. Five members of the rotary club were there and also the local tv station. The cl ub members included Hector, the president, Americo, Soledad, Maria Estela. Bekah did the interview, we had coffee and they gave us gifts and then we went off to Sancor Seguros, the multinational insurance company in a beautiful two year old building with 600 employees in the building and 1,800 across the country. also they have branches in Brazil, Paraguay,and Uraguay. It is a smart building with rain water collection, solar heating, window blind system that adjust to the sun for interior lighting and temperature control.
Sunchales is the center of cooperatisim in the country. It started with and agricultural cooperative, then a milk cooperative, and in 1945 the insurance cooperative. Sunchales is only 25,000 people but Sancor chose to locate their international operation center here because of the commitment and history of the cooperative movement here. It is very strong and permeates the community. Sancor has their own airport and their foundation supports an institute that we visited in the afternoon. Their building is very hi-tech and the video presentation of the history of the company was of extremely high quality. In fact the whole corporate culture was amazing.
We ate lunch downtown, Bekah and I wet to visit a woman who is a painter and illustrator of children's books, Vanina Margaria. Her work and imagination is quite wonderful. She and Bekah had a good conversation about art, writing, the interplay of writer and illustrator, and the process of children book publishing in Argentina.
The rest of the group toured downtown with Soledad. Then we went to ICES which is the institute funded by the Sancor Foundation. They operate a secondary school and what they call a third level. It operates a bit like a community college with three and four year programs in systems management, accounting, and cooperative design and management. Students study third level here and then finish with one or two years at the university in Santa Fe or Rafaela. They also have instituted student run cooperatives in all of the primary and secondary school and train teachers as advisors. They are in all the schools in the region and have 100 such student coops in the country with the plan to take these skills, vision, and values to all of the schools in Argentina.
Back downtown we toured the municipal museum with artifacts from the immigrant times. A nice collection. Many of the immigrants came from Piedmonte. The ICES director claimed that the Piedmontes were somewhat insular and that the community spirit and cooperative nature came with the immigrants from Fruli and Venetsia.
Back in Rafaela with time to get organized for the inter club meeting tonight with another presentation.