Winter 2008

Jane Freeland, who convenes NSC’s Education Working Group, talked to Claire Plumb about how an interactive project led by the Leicester Masaya Link Group (LMLG) is helping British children learn about global citizenship. Claire recently led a Leicester City Council delegation to Masaya.

As part of our education campaign, the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign (NSC) and town twinning groups have been discussing how to make more strategic use of the experience of years of solidarity with municipalities and communities in Nicaragua. The insights of this work into Nicaraguan daily life illuminate more vividly than any abstract analysis how Nicaragua’s problems derive from global systems involving us all. LMLG’s Food for Thought programme is an innovative example of how solidarity links can be built which draw on the experiences of both communities and are truly reciprocal.

Environmental Network for Central America

Over the past three years ENCA has supported an impressive variety of projects in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica. They include environmental educational campaigns involving local radio broadcasts in Honduras and World Environment Day celebrations in El Viejo, Nicaragua; donations to banana workers in Managua; solar equipment for a clinic diagnosing pesticide poisoning among sugar and banana workers in support of legal actions: help for a eco-tourism centre; seed funding for organic production in Nicaragua and Costa Rica; and support for the Environmental Movement of Olancho (MAO) in Honduras which is at the forefront of environmental protests that have been met with serious threats and assassinations. Our donations are usually modest but we are always amazed by how much can be achieved.

Nicaragua

Since 2001, thousands of young women and girls have been killed in Guatemala in an epidemic of unsolved murders. The numbers paint a horrific picture – 481 deaths in 2004, 338 in 2005, 471 in 2006 and 431 in 2007, according to Grupo de Apoyo Mútuo (GAM), a well-respected Guatemalan human rights organisation. In the first six months of 2008, the figure stood at 214.

The majority of the victims were young, poor women between the ages of 13 and 30. Many were students, housewives, factory workers, domestic employees or workers in the informal sector; some of the victims were professionals. Faced with this growing wave of brutal killings, the Guatemalan government has failed to bring those responsible to justice. The low priority of the issue is reflected in the scant resources allocated to investigations and the almost complete absence of prosecutions – there have been rulings in only 20 femicide cases since 2000.

In Nicaragua, work in the informal sector is often family based, carried out by campesinos, the self employed, crafts people and those running small businesses. While crucial to the economy, this type of activity is not supported by the state, making it an increasingly impoverished sector that lacks any formal structure. Those who work in it have no access to finance, new markets, social security, assistance or education. They often live in conditions of extreme poverty and child labour is common.

In 2002, following false accusations of murder against people selling goods at traffic lights, the FNT (National Workers Front) made organising informal sector workers a priority by setting up the Confederation of Self-employed Workers (CTCP). The CTCP is now made up of five federations - money changers, transport workers, traffic light workers, bus stop workers and a general section - with 39,000 members.

Tourism and Responsibility: Perspectives from Latin America and the Caribbean

By Martin Mowforth, Clive Charlton and Ian Munt, Routledge 2008

This is a timely book on an important topic but holiday reading it isn’t. Its basic tenet is that tourism in all its forms is deeply rooted in the power of the global free-market economy. In this context, “responsible” tourism as a tool for development and poverty eradication struggles to make headway.

While this will come as no surprise to most CAR readers, the book’s conclusion still feels unsatisfactory. After posing the question “how can power be exercised responsibly?” it suggests there “is no clearly defined way to practice tourism responsibly” and we should focus on learning “about the place and people that we are visiting”.

A year ago, CAR covered the progress of the English for Community Tourism project in the Miraflor Nature Reserve near Estelí and the production of a teaching toolkit. Now the materials look set to boost English teaching in secondary schools. As part of a commitment to improving the education system and making it more accessible, the Ministry of Education is reforming primary and secondary syllabuses and training teachers in more participative methodologies. Maths and science are current priorities, while materials printed and recorded by the NEST Trust could give a boost to English language teaching.

Imagine trying cook on a wood fire in the dark, your kitchen filling with choking fumes from a kerosene lamp. Then the lamp runs out and next day you have to travel 20km to get more fuel. That is the routine for many families in rural areas of Nicaragua because half the population isn’t connected to the electricity grid.

This is where a project in Masaya run by the Association for Community Integration and Development (Spanish acronym - ADIC) is trying to make a difference. Working with the Leicester-Masaya Link Group (LMLG), it helps farming families by installing basic solar panel kits to generate electricity. Each kit provides enough electricity to serve three to four light bulbs and a socket for a few hours use of a TV or radio. 

Over the past year the Leicester Masaya Link Group (LMLG) has been involved in a fascinating project to raise awareness about and implement renewable energy technologies in Nicaragua and Central America. The project, funded by the European Union and Britain’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, involves working with a rapidly expanding network of partners across the region (with an emphasis on Nicaragua and more recently Guatemala) to identify and overcome the political, social, cultural and economic barriers to developing renewable energy.

LATIN AMERICA

Cautious optimism greets Obama victory 

Congratulations poured in from Latin American leaders, media and the general public in response to the election of Barack Obama to the White House in November. For Latin Americans, the victory represented a capacity and desire for change many had believed impossible under the previous inertia of the US electoral system. Afro-American communities in Latin America celebrated with extra enthusiasm.

There is cautious optimism the new administration will end the divide-and-rule
bullying of the Bush administration, which attempted to coerce Latin American
countries to accept the Washington economic model through “free trade” agreements and foreign policy initiatives driven by counter-terrorism and the war on drugs.