News



Children of Belize
A young Guatemalan boy
















Fall/Winter 2015

   Pangea Proxima is proudly holding our 3rd Annual Holiday Drive. Our holiday drive benefits a poor community living on the periphery of Mexicali, where we built a straw bale house for an elderly couple. Please view our "Projects" page for more details about the holiday drive. Thank you for your support! 

Spring-Summer 2014
   Two of Pangea Proxima's international consultants, Helmut and Trevor, worked on a thorough plan to increase Pangea Proxima's consulting abilities. Many of our future consulting efforts will be concentrated on helping to promote small to mid-sized businesses, non-profit organizations and local governments increase their revenues, effectively manage budgets, and realize their goals. For the first time, we will enable many smaller entities to utilize GIS cutting-edge technologies in order to target their audiences, display their work and develop intelligent strategies for their future work. We are proud of our business strategy which will lead to a healthier, more balanced economy and more jobs.
   The following dynamic maps were originally created by Trevor and display "green" businesses in the California region at the macro level and downtown San Diego at the micro level overlaid with congressional borders. These types of maps help businesses and politicians make better decisions regarding development.
 
   

Winter 2013-14
   Pangea Proxima led a holiday drive to benefit the poor community where they helped build a straw bale house for an older couple. We collected toys, blanket, clothes and food for the community the first two weeks of December and delivered a truck with a camper shell packed full of the goods during the third week. The neighborhood's residents prepared a lovely lunch for the Pangea Proxima team members who delivered the donated items. The children of the community were shocked and happily surprised by all of the holiday gifts. We want to thank all of our families and friends for their generosity in donating all of the items to make our first annual holiday drive a complete success! 

Summer 2013
   On May 2nd, Trevor, the founder of Pangea Proxima began an overland trip through Mexico and Central America in order to promote our services and build relationships with the Latin American governments. He visited and met with officials from 24 government offices including every Ministry of Education, Ministry of Health and Federal Bureau of Statistics and Census offices throughout the entirety of Mexico and Central America. 
   In addition to building relationships with governments, Trevor was able to visit a library he helped build the foundation for in El Remate, El Peten, Guatemala, recruit more international consultants for our team and initiate new projects for the organization. 

The most promising potential projects for Pangea Proxima resulting from this trip are:

  • Establishing a rural health clinic in the remote area of Pavones, Costa Rica. Golfito, it's municipality is one of the poorest regions in the country. The proposed clinic would serve 12 communities with about 15,000 residents and many tourists. Currently, their closest small clinic is about an hour drive on a dirt road, which tends to be impassable several times a year. Edgar Brennes, the founder of the first school of architecture in Costa Rica decided to join Pangea Proxima as an international consultant, specializes in tropical design and will be designing the clinic. The clinic's design will include a distance learning component and community organic garden open to the residents.
  • Creating a water cistern reserve system for the dry months for the coastal community of El Zonte in El Salvador. After discussions with leaders of the community and a review of the current system, we agreed that a budget and green friendly new system would be created by volunteers from used tires stacked in a silo-like shaped structure with a layer of concrete covering the inside and outside of the tire structure. The new system could conceivably feed into the existing system which currently supplies the nearby communities with their drinking water. This community is also very interested in establishing a distance learning center and organic community garden in order to teach and promote health.
  • Establishing a sustainability center and community school on the outskirts of Puebla, Mexico. After several positive discussions with government officials, they want to partner with Pangea Proxima to build a center near the center of town which will promote a sustainable living style throughout the area. The center would display modern building techniques as well as alternative local modes to produce energy and an organic community garden.

   After crossing 16 borders and camping in the back of his truck for two months, Trevor safely returned to San Diego, exactly 2 months later on July 2nd.

   Trevor presented at the annual ESRI International User Conference one week after returning to San Diego. He gave a presentation about his research project about Teenage Pregnancy in La Paz, BCS, MX which heavily utilized GIS and spatial analysis to help locate the ideal locations for new programs to support young parents and break the cycle of poverty. 
   
ESRI is a mapping software company and its annual conference is attended by over 16,000 people.

Winter 2012-13
The past few months have been quite an exciting time of growth for Pangea Proxima. Here is an example of our work and direction:

  • On-going consulting work for San Diego based Global Analytics creating patents based on micro-lending concepts. 

  • We have compiled 63 lesson plans and multimedia items for our project to educate children about sustainability.   

  • Eight new international consultants joined our Pangea Proxima Team. They specialize in GIS, natural building, sustainable landscapes/organic gardening and international development. These new team members live in Brazil, Bangladesh, U.S. (Vermont, Florida, New York, California), Nepal and Austria.

  • We have had fruitful meetings with several prominent businesses and non-profits (4 Walls, International Relief Teams) who have similar objectives for counseling and partnerships.   

  • Our website eclipsed 4,000 visitors over the past year.

  • There were new blogs written about distance learning and empowering communities by our team members.

  • Monthly meetings have been established for our International Consulting Team.


Summer 2012
Pangea Proxima has been staying busy with the following activities:
  • Patent work with Global Analytics. 
  • Sustainability Lesson Plan Creation. 
  •  Volunteered with the Conservation GIS group at the ESRI International User Conference. 
  • New international consultants added to Pangea Proxima specializing in GIS, health assessments and programing.


 If you would like to know more about the details behind these news items please go to the "Projects" page. 


We would also like to thank you for visiting the Pangea Proxima site. We had our 2000th visitor to the website since the counter was added in April. Our audience originates from 36 different countries around the world including Panama, Korea, Russia, Colombia, Czech Republic, Vietnam, South Africa, India, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Norway, and Malaysia. 

THEY are what WE are about.




April, 2012
Pangea Proxima has been working on the following projects over the past month and a half:
  • Working with the Community Relations Department at Guacalito de la Isla on the details of the scope of the project to develop the worker communities in the area surrounding the new resort in Southwestern Nicaragua. The first three phases of the project was mapped out by Pangea Proxima and an initial budget proposal was introduced.
  • Details have been developed for helping the Ministry of Education in Costa Rica locate their missing schools in the nation's forests, jungles and mountains. A presentation will follow upon arrival to Central America for the Guacalito project. 
  • Four new international consultants have been contacted and recruited. Their specialties are in the areas of GIS, distance learning/education technology and carpentry. Recruiting international consultants will continue to be an on-going project for Pangea Proxima.
  • A local San Diego presence is being established through mixers and business meetings.
  • A new international language translator has been added to the website for a global audience including Chinese, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Dutch, Malay and Polish speakers. 
  • A new global visitor tracker has also been added to the website.
  • A new blog entitled "Costa Rica: Making Strides with GIS" was added. It describes my February meeting with Alan Ramirez, the manager of the GIS department of INEC, at his office to discuss Costa Rica’s situation with GIS. You can read it by clicking here.

March 3-14, 2012
Pangea Proxima will be teaming up with Canadian Vision Care and some Costa Rican optometrists to  administer free eye examinations, treatments and give free prescription glasses to poor people living in the rural areas of the Guanacaste and Limon provinces. Pangea Proxima is happy to assist this great project by translating for the Canadian doctors and Costa Rican patients. !Pura Vida! 

Feb 29, 2012
Pangea Proxima had a successful meeting with the Ministry of Education in Costa Rica today. Currently, there are 5,000 schools located throughout the country. The CR Ministry of Education only knows where 71% of the country's schools are located. This is due to 29% of the schools being located in rural areas (jungle, forrest and mountain regions). Pangea Proxima's lead consultant, Trevor Stine, presented a realistic plan to dramatically increase the current percentage of known schools and establish contact so that they may assist those schools. The idea presented by Trevor, also keeps in mind budget constraints for the country. The CR Ministry of Education was extremely receptive to the idea and wants to work with Pangea Proxima to develop the current idea over the duration of 2012. Pangea Proxima is looking forward to the helping Costa Rica increase access to their educational system for all of its citizens.

Feb 27, 2012
Pangea Proxima met with the organization in charge of the Costa Rica national census report (INEC). During this Allan Ramirez (Director of Digital Cartography) presented the history and current status of how the country has mapped their census data. You can read more about this meeting in a blog soon to follow.

Jan 11- Feb 13, 2012
Pangea Proxima has just completed a month long trip to Nicaragua. 
San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, February, 2012
Activities and achievements included:
  • Securing its first project concerning sustainable community development in Nicaragua.
   To learn more about this new work, please go to "Projects" and read “The Guacalito de la Isla Project”
  • Securing a second Central American site for an experimental straw bale wall system
      To learn more about this work, please go to "Projects" and read “Pangea Proxima designs experimental straw bale wall system to withstand high levels of humidity”
  • Natural builds with Casa de Tierra
      To learn more about our work together, please go to "Blog" and read “Casa de Tierra: Doing it the right way through natural building” 

   Several valuable connections and friendships were made with like-minded community leaders and organizations of the San Juan del Sur area that are working to improve the quality of life in Nicaragua. These groups included:
  • Comunidad Conect
       To learn more about this connection, please go to "Blog" and read “Comunidad Conect making a difference in San Juan del Sur”
      To learn more about this collaboration, please go to "Blog" and read “Pangea Proxima successfully connects Fundacion Tierra and Canadian Vision Care”
      To learn more about this connection, please go to "Blog" and read “David Gullette: Dreaming Nicaragua”
      To learn more about these connections, please go to "Blog" and read “Nicaraguan Potable Water Projects”
      To learn more about these connections, please go to "Blog" and read “Sprayed by the firehose of wisdom at the Fica de Nubes”     

A huge thanks goes out to Michelle and Austin Drill, from Casa de Tierra, who made this educational trip possible through their generosity and hospitality. 


Michelle & Austin Drill (Casa de Tierra) teaming up with Trevor Stine (Pangea Proxima) in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua
Also, I would like to thank all of my like-minded friends and family for their continued support in our journey to make a positive force in the beautiful and fragile world we live in.


Week of January 8-14, 2012
 Pangea Proxima is currently in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. The past week was spent plastering a primary school with natural materials, making earthen bricks for a new preschool, connecting with community development leaders and securing a second experimental site in Central America for two straw bale structures. One of the experimental straw bale structures will have a wall system designed by Pangea Proxima to impede the effects of humidity levels in the region. 


Week of January 1-7, 2012
   Pangea Proxima is currently in Central America promoting its services and concepts to the governments of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. This promotional trip will also act as a time to connect with other like-minded experts who use sustainable development methods. 
   Pangea Proxima has already met with the Costa Rican offices of Minister of Education and Minister of Health during the first week of January. Official presentation and promotion will occur during the second and third weeks of February. 
   In other breaking news, an ideal location bordering the Cabo Blanco Nature Reserve in Costa Rica has been found and agreed upon by the owners of private land to set the basis for experimentation of a straw bale wall system. The unique wall system was designed by Pangea Proxima to withstand the high levels of humidity in the region. The land owners are green builders and architects from the United States who have won numerous awards for their designs. 

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