In this edition of ¡Abrazos! de Mulukukú
you will find,
A letter from Dorothy,
A unique take on the Beatitudes, Blessed Are
...,
A column from the
WEN,
Award & Tour
news!
FYI, regarding our new 501(c)(3)
status,
A Call for
stories, from you!
And a new Photo
Gallery.
[We are currently ...
Under Construction ...
Dear Friends,
Greetings to each of you. The warmest of thanks to all who made
possible our victory over the persecution of the former government administration
who did everything in its power to destroy our work. I am very grateful
to be back in Mulukukú with the Women’s Center staff doing the work
that you, our friends, make possible.
Nicaragua, Land of Contrast
The rains have come with a vengeance, leaving many families homeless
throughout the country. Tropical foliage is burgeoning. Nicaragua
is a land of excesses, be it weather, natural disasters, violence, corruption,
or poverty. The United Nations states that Nicaragua has now displaced
Haiti as the poorest country in Latin America with 80% of its people living
in poverty and 45% in abject poverty.
Nicaragua is also a land of beauty, art, poetry, song, and hope.
In the face of unbelievable obstacles, groups of poor people refuse to
surrender their dream of survival with dignity. Throughout the country
there are small groups with projects of planting trees, resisting destruction
of the forests, refusing dislocation from their homes, defending the rights
of indigenous people to their traditional lands. Women and their
children are casting off their lives of marginalization and abuse.
These groups are answering structural violence with organized nonviolence.
Since the poor are abandoned by official institutions, the poor themselves
are building new cooperative local initiatives to answer their human needs.
Solidarity has never been more important than now.
Rampant global capitalism depends on the maximum exploitation of
people and natural resources for the profit of the few in charge.
Never in the history of human affairs was so much stolen from so many by
so few (CORNERSTONES, May 2002, publication of the Right Livelihood
Forum.)
The New President and
My Return
President Enrique Bolaños took office on January 10. He
surprised the country by immediately acting independently of former president,
Arnoldo Alemán, still head of the Liberal Constitutional Party and
president of the National Assembly.
President Bolaños invited me to return to Nicaragua, signaling
his intention to lead a government of friendly relations with Non-Governmental
Organizations and respect for human rights, as well as to affirm the rule
of law. His action also affirmed the right of Nicaraguans to organize
to meet their needs.
As many of you know, I returned on February 22 into the loving arms
of dozens of friends and co-workers. My first days in Managua were
busy with meetings with officials of the new government administration:
the Minister of the Interior, the Director of Immigration, the Human Rights
Commission of the National Assembly and the Minister of Health. Lucia
Salvo, the Minister of Health, presented her entire top management team
to me, each of whom explained his or her area of responsibility and placed
themselves “at my service.” The meeting closed with the Minister
presenting me with an armful of lovely roses, and was follwed by drinks
and sandwiches.
All of this was quite dizzying since a little over a year ago, the power
of five government ministries, including the National Police and forensic
investigators, came down upon the Cooperative and me personally.
Present Day Nicaragua
I believe that President Bolaños is a good person and would truly
like to relieve the misery of the people. He can do little, however,
since the Nicaraguan economy is locked into structural adjustment by international
banks which demand that the external debt be serviced as top priority.
The needs of the poor for health, education, housing, and security are
excluded from this formula.
What President Bolaños has done very dramatically and successfully
is mount a campaign against corruption in the previous administration of
Arnoldo Alemán. One former minister and a dozen other functionaries
are in jail. Several have fled the country to Miami and Costa Rica,
including the former Minister of Health, who is wanted in connection with
the theft of large quantities of medicine from the Ministry of Health.
The investigation of corruption has linked members of the hierarchy
of the Roman Catholic Church with Arnoldo Alemán. However,
the special investigator who uncovered this connection was promptly fired
by President Bolaños. It seems the Church is not to be touched.
Former President Alemán is still at liberty but the net is closing
more tightly around him as evidence grows of his stealing from the state.
The Clinic and Women’s
Center
Though the Clinic and Women’s Center were forcibly closed by the government
for more than two months last year (and one month of the year previous),
there were more than 11,000 patient visits made by year’s end. Priority
continues to be the care of women: pre- and post-birth care, spacing of
the birth of children, and screening and treatment of cervical cancer.
Through the years of our work more than half of patient visits are by women,
less than half by children, and a few by men.
Increasing poverty is making it more difficult for women and children
to pay transportation to Mulukukú, so we are increasing the frequency
of mobile clinics and taking services closer to out-lying communities.
Clinic Staff
Many of you supported the education of Gloria Montenegro, Health Promoter.
We are happy to report that she has completed her basic nursing course
(equivalent to Practical Nurse in the states) and is back working at the
Clinic. Next year, Gloria will begin classes toward a Registered
Nursing (R.N.) degree.
Maria Elena Guerrero, our nurse-midwife for several years, has been
elected a member of the Regional Council of the North Atlantic Autonomous
Region (RAAN). This is the government body that is charged with the
management of the region and its resources.
Vilma Ayon has joined the staff as Administrator. Vilma is well-prepared
and is bilingual. Her presence will allow me to devote more time
to developing health programs. In the near future we also hope to
add a physician to the staff along with a laboratory technician and part-time
pharmacist.
Community Focus
After long discussions and analysis of the critical situation of health
care in the entire region, the Clinic and Women’s Center staff have decided
that future work will be concentrated in the communities. We will
work in partnership with organized groups of people who are willing to
make the commitment to work on health measures to create healthier communities:
clean water, latrines, hygiene, control of pests such as mosquitoes, care
of the natural environment, and the protection of the rights of women and
children.
Services will continue to be given in Mulukukú. Many services
cannot be transported, such as laboratory, colposcopy, and pre-cancer treatment.
However, we are working on a project to do cervical cancer screening in
the RAAN.
Physical Plant Improvements
A surgical unit will be coming soon for minor and low-risk surgeries.
This unit has been donated through the efforts of the First Presbyterian
Church in Galveston, Texas. Offices for the Legal Office and Social
Promoter and storerooms are being built underneath the elevated dining
room. Improvements are underway to meet the requirements of the Ministry
of Health. An excellent electrical system was installed by volunteers
from the states.
Delegations and Volunteers
In January, for the 12th consecutive year, the Manchester College medical-dental
delegation came to Mulukukú and held two weeks of clinics in the
distant mountain community of Hormiguero. In June, for the seventh
year, the First Presbyterian Church in Galveston with faculty, staff, and
students from the Medical and Dental Schools of the University of Texas
held 10 days of clinics in Mulukukú and Santa Rita and made the
long trip for several days of clinics in Wani. Volunteer physicians
served with the Clinic both last year and this from the excellent group,
Doctors for Global Health. We are very grateful for the work of volunteers
and especially appreciate the people-to-people friendships.
ProNica Interview Highlights
Nonviolence
The April, 2002 Issue of ProNica’s Newsletter: News From Nicaragua
featured an interview I did with freelance writer, Marty Johnson.
I would like to share a few useful quotes from this publication of the
Southeastern Yearly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers.)
We know some of you probably receive this newsletter, but most do not.
ProNica operates in St. Petersburg, Florida and Managua, Nicaragua.
When asked, “What can we do to help?” I answered that much of the hard
work needs to be done in the United States.
“I think that it’s very important that groups, especially groups who
are believers in nonviolence and believers in making friends out of enemies
should be very bold and propagate that vision ... so many people in this
country do not know about nonviolence. They think that if someone
hits or threatens you, the only way to respond is to hit back or threaten
back. So people in our country must withdraw support from that leadership
that promotes violence ... because now that is just sending us backward
instead of forward.”
Marty then asked, “What circumstance has most influenced your thinking?”
“I think the fact that I grew up in the United States, as a person of
color. I am brown; I’m a brown person. My heritage is Mexican
and Filipino. I grew up in the ’30s, and really learned first-hand
about racism. Now, Southern California was not the deep South, but
there was plenty of racism. And plenty of prejudice. I remember
when I was a little girl, reading a sign on a restaurant: No dogs
or Mexicans allowed. Now this is the ’30s, you know. So I grew
up being very sensitive to racism, very class conscious, and I always had
a very strong sense of justice. Also, I felt very left out of the
mainstream because my skin wasn’t white, and I came from poor people.
I think many people who come from poverty, people of color, tend to be
workers for justice, in a way to try to make amends, to try to make the
world better, the world right, to try to heal themselves.”
All strength to each of you in your work to make this a better, kinder
world,
Abrazos,
Dorothy
Dorothy explains that these lines were written to be shared with her
dear friends the night she left the clinic when it was threatened with
closure by the government. What was expected to be a small community
gathering attrached over 2000 people! Testimonials were given all
night about healings that had taken place at the clinic and lives that
were saved. For the full story, click on the lovely pastel by Lynn
Starun of Christ Church, New Jersey, where Dorothy spoke:
Blessed Are
...
¤ Blessed are the mothers who
struggle daily for a few tortillas and fresh cheese for their children.
¤ Blessed are the children
who go to sleep hungry.
¤ Blessed are the men, who
by war, know only violence and unfulfilled promises, who offer their hands
in friendship to former enemies.
¤ Blessed are the violent men
because they have God trapped within.
¤ Blessed are the health workers
in the mountains: curanderos, parteras, raiceros, who struggle with so
little to ease the pain of campesinas, campesinos and their children.
¤ Blessed are the women who
raise their heads and declare, “no more” to abuse, to illiteracy, to early
death. “I am the daughter of God, made by Her hands and in Her image.”
¤ Blessed are the poor and
their friends who together are building the beloved community where there
will be no hunger, nor violence, where the Earth and all God’s creatures
will live in peace and joy!
