Es complicado! I've been there 7 times now for a variety of meetings and things. But this one is a little different. Let me give you a little bit of history first, then bring you up to date on what is going on for the next few months.
History
Our parish, Guardian Angels in Oakdale, MN, has had a relationship with a small community in Nicaragua for over 25 years. They just sent a delegation here to visit us for a couple of weeks in September. We had a true family getogether. We took them to dinner, showed them around, sat and played games and songs, and shared our hopes and dreams for a few weeks. This relationship started out as a church to church thing between our pastor and their pastor at the time. It has since become something between our whole parish, and a small "community" within their parish. This community is pretty well developed. They have by laws, and a coordinator, and a governing board, and a novitiate, and a small loan program. They celebrate together, they grieve together, and they dream together.
In the beginning, we sent things there - like money. We paid for a roof on their baseball stadium. We sent some money to purchase a herd of cows, which someone there managed and produced some milk for their kids. We collected used typewriters, and someone there, I have no idea who, set up a small commercial school to teach people how to type, because there were jobs in that field. We now call these things "projects". They worked, they were fun for us to do, and a few people there got some benefit. BUT . . . no major change in the way of life. We wanted to do more.
We formed a relationship with another group, called AKF. This Nicaraguan group was our eyes and ears, and provided transportation and translation and insight into our small community. Over the years, they have facilitated this group, and helped them grow and mature, and educated them, and raised their vision of what they could accomplish, etc. We moved from "projects" to "accompaniment" - "hermanamiento", or "solidaridad". Depends on how you want to think about it.
A New Approach
Over the years, AKF and we have developed a new vision of this thing. We have moved to "they are in charge", or something like that. We are now trying to do "sustainable development" but a version that comes FROM the people. "Self initiated sustainable development" - something like that. The other is a Jeffrey Sachs term, and I don't really like it. I'll come up with something better as we go along. Sachs has this vision of ending world poverty. He thinks that if you put a lot of resources into a village you can get them "over the hump", or out of the circle of poverty in which they are trapped. If you can provide education, water, and some sustainable economic base - they should be able to lift themselves out of poverty. If you look on the WWW, you will see a lot of references to this effort. His book on this is worth reading.
Well, I think Mr. Sachs is wrong. I know he has the UN behind him, and he is putting big bucks into a lot of small towns in Africa and elsewhere - but I think he is overlooking one small item. The people who are in poverty, who are in developing nations, are in that situation because of how they think and operate. They, and their entire infrastructure - government, courts, law, police, banks, etc. are working with a different view of how wealth is created. He thinks the poverty problem is caused by a happenstance of geography, and climate and other accidental features. I think a large part of their situation comes from their world view. His Millennium Villages are doing very little to change that world view. There is some education, and there is some exposure to outside ideas - but world views change very slowly, and that is not at all his focus. And, virtually ALL of the resources and ideas and energy of his efforts comes from OUTSIDE. The people already have a world view that someone else is in charge, that wealth is something you get from elsewhere, and this approach only confirms them in that view. What we should do is change how they and we both think of what THEY are ABLE to do. We need to work on changing both of our world views - together.
World View and Culture is Key
I won't take time here to try to persuade you of this - as I have ALREADY done that in this blog! You can refresh your memory of that, by skipping back a bit to this entry:
http://carlscheider.blogspot.com/2011/01/culture-and-developing-nations.html
Assuming you have digested that - or that you don't really care and just want to see what I am up to now - you will have to read along as this thing develops. I have already run on so long that you are likely bored to tears as it is. Briefly, I am heading down there to assist a Rotary effort at doing this - they are taking an entirely different approach, one where they are enabling the local folk to change their own world. Not a project, not an accompaniment, and certainly NOT a mission. (More religion they do not need, of that I am certain! They could send missionaries to us, I think.)
AND, I honestly have no idea how I can hep with this - we are making this up - but I will be with an experienced team of people, who will, no doubt, teach me a lot about how this works.
I plan to post pictures, and movies, and lots of ideas. I also plan to learn a bit more Spanish, and to try to lose my Italian accent! Que lastima!
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