Home | Community | Projects of Tamarindo Association

Projects of Tamarindo Association

12 September, 2011 10:43:00 Kacey Schneider

The Tamarindo Association is a community development organization whose aim is to both improve and protect various social, political, and environmental aspects of Tamarindo. The Association works with members of the Tamarindo community, as well as the government, to create and implement long-term plans to better help the town of Tamarindo. Currently, the Tamarindo Association is working on many ideas that will benefit Tamarindo in several different ways. Some of these proposals include procuring a new police station, having a concert or rodeo fiesta in Tamarindo during December, creating a Tamarindo public school, implementing a lifeguard program, and proposing a new canton. The priority project of the Tamarindo Association is relocating the police station in town. They already have the land for it: the Municipalidad has given the property located next to the plaza where the Tamarindo Gym and Gil’s Restaurant are located as the spot for the new station. Now that the land has been officially designated and reserved, conversations between the Association and the Municipalidad are starting, in terms of when construction will begin and who will be contributing the rent. Hopefully the project will begin soon, and the police station will be built quickly, starting in December. An event planned for December will be either the fiesta rodeos or a large concert to help raise money for the new police station. Unfortunately, due to many reasons including weather, the previously scheduled rodeo fiestas that were planned for July in Tamarindo were cancelled. However, Leyden Briceño, the president of the Tamarindo Association, explained that they hope to postpone the fiestas until December. She added that there was a possibility that instead of the fiestas, Tamarindo would host a large beach concert and/or parade with many different cultural activities instead. The Municipalidad already gave the permits for the concert to happen around Christmas or New Years. Briceño explained that in December the fiestas are often in many of the surrounding towns, so a different type of event – such as the beach concert – might be a more fun and effective fundraiser than another rodeo. Also on the list of priorities is establishing a public school in Tamarindo. The town has many students living here, yet there is no school for them in Tamarindo; instead, they go to the surrounding towns to receive an education. The Association wants to change this, and they are moving forward with the Minister of Education to start a school; they already have a location in mind, and they hope to have a teacher by February. As further progress is made with this, more information will be available to the public. In that same vein, the Tamarindo Association, along with Witch’s Rock Surf Camp, Donna Lee Restaurant, and TIDE Academy, is also trying to implement a lifeguard program. Since the beach is such an important part of Tamarindo life, having a lifeguard program is a necessity that the Association is trying to execute. Starting with Tamarindo, they hope to eventually include all ninety kilometers of beach in the program, and they have submitted a proposal to the Municipalidad so that this program can be included in the budget. They have requested that the land next to Witch’s Rock Surf Camp be used for the program base, where all the supplies and first aid kits will be kept, and then they aim to have lifeguard towers put around the beach. All of the Tamarindo Association’s goals are to try and create more of a sense of community in Tamarindo; projects such as building schools and improving police stations help bring people together and provide safety and services that are characteristics of any well-established towns. The other main project they are working on encompasses all of these ideas overall. The Tamarindo Association, along with other town Associations, is working on proposing a new canton for this area. Right now, Tamarindo is part of the Santa Cruz canton, along with eight other districts. However, Tamarindo is trying to change that so that a new canton is created along with five other districts: Veintisiete de Abril, Cartagena, Cabo Velas, Tempate, and Cuajiniquil. These six districts together include approximately 50 towns and associations such as the Tamarindo Association. Recently, these districts had their third meeting to move forward with their goal of creating a Union Sonal, where all of the towns join together to form this Union so they can start creating their own rules and petitions to send to Congress. When discussing this with Briceño, she stressed that this is coming along well, but, like everything in Costa Rica, it takes time and people need to be patient. She sees great things and development happening in Tamarindo in the next five years, and this canton will most likely be one of them. However, big changes, such as this one, do take time. The Tamarindo Association is always working to better improve Tamarindo, and they encourage people to be involved. As Briceño stated, “This is our town. This is where we live. We need to take care of it.” Hopefully these projects will help to do just that.