Winds of Peace Foundation

Steve Sheppard | March 18, 2012

During our drive last night on the way to meet some friends for dinner, my wife Katie described a book that she has been reading as part of her volunteer work with Decorah Reads!  It’s a program that connects middle school students with reading mentors and Katie has enjoyed being a volunteer for several years.  Her current book is entitled, Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements, the story of a boy who literally becomes invisible, and the blind girl who befriends him.  As Katie described the unlikely story line, I was immediately struck by a conundrum that became my title above: how would you connect someone who is blind with someone who is invisible?  Physics and biology aside, it’s a fascinating puzzle.

Over the years I’ve known enough blind people to recognize the cultivation of other senses they exhibit in navigating daily life with efficiency and grace.  For many, the enhanced senses of touch and hearing, especially, cultivate an awareness of the world that sighted individuals can only dream about.  This was made clear to me years ago during a time when I was recording programming for the Minnesota Blind Radio network.  My weekly shows were broadcast around the state of Minnesota on a closed blind radio channel.  Nonetheless, I was shocked one day when, walking and talking with Katie on the St. Olaf College campus, a young man with a white cane approached me and asked, “Is that Steve Sheppard?   I’d know that voice anywhere!  I listen to your programs every week!”  His audio acuity as evidenced in a chance pass-by on the sidewalk demonstrated a remarkable ability to “see” me, in some ways better than sighted individuals might have.  (For one thing, he didn’t have to contend with my face.)

I confess that I’ve never personally known anyone who is physically invisible; I suppose that I may have met such an individual and simply not seen him/her.  But I imagine that similar compensations must develop in anyone who cannot be seen by others.  Initially, it must be downright exciting to go anywhere, to do anything, without being seen.  The condition could certainly open doors closed to everyone else, and the fun one could have is nearly beyond imagination!

But for the blind person, I doubt that there is often a feeling of preference for blindness over sightedness.  Heightened other senses notwithstanding, sight is a gift, to be treasured, to be strengthened, to be used with every other faculty we may have in order to discover the truth of our lives.  It’s not that blind people cannot do this, but that they have one less tool to use in pursuing it.  And for the invisible man or woman,  I think eventually it must become frustrating to realize that no one will ever really know you’re “there,” that your very existence is unrecognized by anyone else.  The anonymity in moving about covertly, privately, becomes overshadowed by the sense of an unseen and unfelt existence.  In the end, blindness and invisibility are both conditions with which we all must contend in pursuit of the truth.  Blindness is not always about physical sight.  Invisibility is not always about defying physics.

The characters in Katie’s book eventually must discover each other through touch, and likely that’s the remedy for the rest of us, as well.  We must come to know and touch the “other.”  Only when those of us who are blind have taken the opportunity to reach out and discover the invisible can we begin to understand their existence and the realities of their hidden lives, to meet the needs for which they have desperately searched  in an opaque world.  When we do that, those apparitions begin to materialize for us, to become real, to be human.  And when their invisibility starts to fall away, an interesting thing happens to the rest of us.  We begin to see.  Only vaguely, perhaps, at the start, but the shapes and forms and intents in our lives begin to hold some very different meanings.  That which we have previously beheld through touch and sound or fear and surmise can become vision, and lead us to a very different way than the way from which we have come.

As I jockey myself between the often radically different cultures in the United States and Nicaragua, I find some important truths within the worlds of the blind and the invisible….

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Tags: Nicaragua, Stewardship, Well-being

Steve Sheppard | February 19, 2012

I was privileged to host the adult forum at my home church, 1st Lutheran Church in Decorah, over each of the past two weeks.  Essentially I was asked to talk about the work of Winds of Peace Foundation and specifically our experiences in Nicaragua.  I have presented at church previously, perhaps 5 years ago and with not too much experience in my resume.  But this time I felt as though I could speak more knowledgeably, more experientially, and more personally about the foundation work in which I am fortunate to participate.   Having a total of 90 minutes to tell stories of Nicaragua and its various peoples is not a great deal of time, but it’s enough to convey some of the most salient histories and realities of our Central American neighbor.  I enjoyed it and expressed my gratitude for the invitation to represent Nicaragua’s circumstances both past and present.  Of course, that necessarily included some less-than-flattering revelations about how the United States has acted as a neighbor, always a touchy topic with any U.S. audience.

My objective in speaking with any audience on this subject is to spur some different thinking, to tweak a conscience here or there, or at least generate some curiosity about the circumstances encountered in Nicaragua.  If I’m really successful, people might even walk away with an interest in the plight of the poor anywhere in the world.  I have no allusions about spawning a movement or changing people’s life priorities, but rather seek to plant a seed of thought or doubt that might, in time, be nurtured to flower in some future springtime moment.  My audiences over the past two weeks have seemed interested and attuned to my stories, and for that I am always grateful.

Among my reflections was the topic of gratitude.  It is relatively easy, of course, to recount the gratitude of Nicaraguans who are recipients of support from WPF.  There should be no surprise about that; people who are in dire need will treasure even the smallest help.  But there is also my own sense of gratitude for the life lessons that I have been taught by people who, by some measures, have seemingly nothing to teach.    That may be the bigger grant that is bestowed during the work being done in Nicaragua, the gift of seeing life in a different context, of witnessing courage, perseverance and hope in very difficult circumstances.  My gratitude is already endless and yet still growing.

And at the end of my stories this morning, I experienced gratitude in yet another form.  A number of listeners told me that they felt grateful, not simply grateful that I had agreed to make presentations on a couple of Sunday mornings, but that I had raised an awareness about some very marginalized people in another part of this world who do count for something.  Whether through the photos which I shared or the stories that I told, for some a connection had been made.  And for them, it was not merely the realization of that connection which moved them, but a sense of thankfulness to know a little bit about a very few Nicaraguans for a very short time.

90 minutes may not allow for any deep intimacy, but it was enough to touch some hearts.  That was good work for a Sunday morning.  Maybe I could do more of it….

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Steve Sheppard | February 9, 2012

Over the years, Winds of Peace has supported the presentation of the annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum in its several venues.  This year will be no exception, with the event scheduled for March 1-3 in Minneapolis.  The format has changed somewhat, at the recommendation of the Nobel Committee;  this event is the only one of its kind that is authorized by the Committee and they truly desire to create greater attendance and exposure to its messages and uniqueness.  Our hope is that the changes implemented will result in a Forum that is at least as energizing and informative as past versions, and maybe even better!  The local organizers have sent this message for anyone who might have interest in attending:

This year the Nobel Peace Prize Forum is launching something entirely new. We invite you to join us for the Business Day on March 1^st to explore how trade, business innovation, sustainability and international investment play a role in the price of peace. Featured keynotes on the Business Day include Saki Macozoma, a prominent figure in South African business and politics who has worked closely with Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk and Desmond Tutu, and Alf Bjorseth, the CEO of an international renewable energy company who has travelled to areas of unrest and diffused tension by providing these communities with reliable, affordable and renewable energy.

And this is just Business Day.  The Forum is also comprised of additional days filled with inspiration, dialogue and connections dedicated to Arts and Music, Education and Global Studies.

The Nobel Peace Prize Forum is a unique civic learning experience. Each year, this dynamic, global event brings Nobel Peace Prize Laureates together with civic, academic and business leaders for presentations and workshops that feature individuals who have changed the world in large and small ways. The roots of the Nobel Peace Prize Forum are wide and deep: 2012 marks its 24 year. More importantly, these interactive forums change lives. A recent survey shows that almost half of the 2011 attendees believe their lives and their thinking were “substantially changed” as a result of their participation at the Forum.

Please visit our website to learn more: http://nobelpeaceprizeforum.org/2012-program/. 

This event is a gathering that has the ability to nurture the gifts sought in this spot-on blessing:

May you be blessed with discomfort at easy answers,
                       half-truths and superficial relationships
                         so that you will live deep in your heart.

 May you be blessed with anger at injustice, oppression,
                          and exploitation of people and the earth.
                  so that you will work for justice, equity and peace.

         May you be blessed with tears to shed for those who suffer
                  so you will reach out your hand to comfort them
                            and change their pain to joy.

And may you be blessed with the foolishness to think
   that you can make a difference in this world,

so that you will do the things which others say cannot be done.  

The Forum just might provide a little of each….

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Steve Sheppard | January 2, 2012

I had no more completed my December 5 entry here (“On Being Cooperative”) when I received notice that the New York Times had published an article authored by William Neuman about the state of the fair trade movement.  There is a schism forming which essentially would allow the larger producer plantations to participate in the fair trade designation.  The U.S. branch of Fair Trade favors their inclusion, suggesting that even more of the poor people who work on these plantations would benefit by the “trickle down” theory of wealth-sharing (my slant).  The folks at Fair Trade International oppose the change, citing the likelihood that the large farms will easily squeeze out the participation of small producers, the very people who were targeted for help in the fair trade movement.  (Take a look at the positions in the Times article.)

Timing is everything.  The Foundation’s primary collaborators on the work we have been doing with coffee cooperatives in Nicaragua had just completed an article about the development and challenges of coffee cooperatives when the Times article was published.  So after you’ve had the opportunity to read the relatively short Times article, take a look at the perspective of some folks who are working intimately with cooperatives at all levels: first, second and third-tier.  It makes for some interesting comparisons, and may help you decide which side of the fair trade argument you might be on.  It just may impact the way that you buy coffee or any other so-called fair trade products….

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Steve Sheppard | December 27, 2011

At this time of year I receive many newsletters and periodicals from other organizations who work within Nicaragua.  Most are headquartered somewhere in the United States but have staff or the majority of their operation within Nica.  I’m familiar with many, but not all, and I’m always interested to read about the good work that they are doing on behalf of the people of Nicaragua.

I know they are doing good work because they say so.  Their newsletters are full of pictures of partners who have either raised a successful crop, started a new business, raised some farm animals or otherwise benefitted from the presence of the donor.  I’ve even profiled some of our own partners here and elsewhere on the website as we attempt to share the methodologies and resulting successes (we hope) of our work.  It’s a natural outgrowth of organizations which, at some point in their work, need to justify their efforts and tout their results.  If they don’t, perhaps nobody will.

But as I have read these reports (often with a request for additional donations), I have increasingly found myself thinking beyond the efforts of the charitable organization and looked for the presence of Nicaraguans themselves.  They are always in the picture, if not within the focus, and it is their success and results which should matter more than the metrics of the donor organizations which support them.  I’m convinced that such is not always the case, particularly when I read what is being measured as success.

One of the hallmarks of Winds of Peace is the degree of accompaniment and follow-up involved in our partnering.  So we gain a pretty good, first-hand picture of the impact of funding, the efforts of the funded, the changes experienced, the goals attained and the objectives missed. We’ve had the experience of hearing governing boards explaining what went wrong in credit.  We’ve had boards of directors take us to worksites where the aspiring entrepreneur shows off the gains of his/her efforts.  We’ve experienced long and short-term successes, as well as long and short-term failures, taken some risks we shouldn’t have and perhaps rejected some proposals we should have supported.  Those realities are simply part of the work that we are in.  But we should never forget that we are merely facilitators, catalysts in this process of development, and that the real work is always the province of Nicaraguans.  It is their persistence, their tenacity, their commitments which make for our organizational metrics.  Even where the actions are provided from the outside, they require the engagement of Nicaraguan participants to make the effort work.

Our organizations might point to any number of successes in our colorful, uplifting media, but triumphs are truly not ours to sound.  The hard work- the good work, where it is being done- is performed by Nicaraguans whom we serve.  We might suggest that the work is really a partnership, that successes are shared benefits.  But let’s not lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day most of us return to lives that are stable, predictable, secure and relatively comfortable.  For most of our Nicaraguan partners, such respite is not the case.  The unpredictability, uncertainty and day-to-day reality makes for a very different context in which to execute the plans, provisions and outcomes that our carefully-considered projects have imagined.  Simply stated, it ain’t easy.

My post-holiday reflection may seem to be wandering here a bit.  But don’t misinterpret my thoughts: I deeply appreciate the work that is being done all over Nicaragua in a spirit of intense commitment and support by many outside organizations, including Winds of Peace.  It’s just that before accepting any kudos or pats on the back for whatever impacts may be made, we need to recognize where the hard work, the good work is being done, and by whom….

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Steve Sheppard | December 5, 2011

The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives, highlighting the contribution of cooperatives to socio-economic development, particularly their impact on poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration.  With the theme of “Cooperative Enterprises Build a Better World”, the Year seeks to encourage the growth and establishment of cooperatives all over the world. It also encourages individuals, communities and governments to recognize the agency of cooperatives in helping to achieve internationally agreed upon development goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals.                     -U.N. IYC Webpage Introduction

It’s about time.  Finally, there is light being shown on a methodology which has for too long been relegated to the very back pages of economic and organizational development.  Like one of its cousins in the U.S., employee ownership, cooperativism has the potential to create sustainable and meaningful change for organizations and individuals alike, and the U.N. declaration hopes to advance that awareness around the world.  I know that we will be taking note with our partners in Nicaragua.

The themes are entirely consistent with the focus and methodologies that Winds of Peace has employed over the past year, in particular:

Cooperatives are not a panacea or even a simple way of organizing an economic enterprise.  In fact, when done with excellence, coops are a more complex way of doing business.  There is a demand for more and better communication among the participants.  Participants come to expect more information about the causes-and-effects of their business, decisions are more frequently made by participant teams rather than one individual, participants expect to have a greater “say” in the business, the organizational configuration often more closely resembles a circle than a triangle, and coops as a result sometimes respond more slowly to changing circumstances.  But when done with excellence, coops can promote business growth, learning, entrepreneurial skills individual development and accelerated wealth creation faster than more traditional forms of ownership/management.  It’s why the U.N. has taken such a visible stand with its declaration.  And it’s why Winds of Peace has provided increasing support to the coops of Nicaragua.  The good news is that we know what the excellent practices consist of and that they can be learned and replicated anywhere.

Read the advantages cited by the IYC in its description of coop strengths:

• Cooperative enterprises build a better world.
• Cooperative enterprises are member owned, member serving and member driven
• Cooperatives empower people
• Cooperatives improve livelihoods and strengthen the economy
• Cooperatives enable sustainable development
• Cooperatives promote rural development
• Cooperatives balance both social and economic demands
• Cooperatives promote democratic principles
• Cooperatives and gender: a pathway out of poverty
• Cooperatives: a sustainable business model for youth

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Tags: Nicaragua Cooperative

Steve Sheppard | November 17, 2011

I passed another of those milestones not long ago, euphemistically called employment anniversaries when they are little more than giant ticks of the clock.  For six years now I have had the privilege to represent Winds of Peace Foundation and talk with whoever might listen about the circumstances and causes-and-effects contributing to Nicaragua’s standing as the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  It’s fantastic work, made especially so by the people I have encountered there, but also due to the continued presence of Founder/Patron Harold Nielsen, my colleague in Nicaragua Mark Lester, and the unwavering support of office administrator Bobbie Jones.  They have all made me feel as though I belong in this role, and from that posture I have become ever-more confident in representing the work that the Foundation has undertaken.

Part of that representation has taken the form of essays, or blogs, which I have placed here.  These musings have been a valuable asset for me to help sort out a multitude of mixed feelings that have occurred to me over these years.  Working between two very distinct cultures and world views, I have often encountered contradictory feelings on a wide range of issues, both political and social in nature.  Writing about such issues has helped me to process those feelings, as well as provide a forum for sharing them with people who have an interest in what Winds of Peace is doing.  I have logged over 100 of these meanderings here; for that I beg your pardon and indulgence.

So it was not unusual this week that I completed writing a piece in follow-up to the November general election in Nicaragua, one in which President Daniel Ortega was re-elected for another five years, to no one’s surprise.  A number of elements surrounding the election felt eerily similar to what I am experiencing here in the U.S. as our own election season gathers steam.  Consequently, I wrote about those similarities as I saw them and drew parallels between the two processes.  It was tough writing for me, and I never got into the flow of the essay in the way that I often do when composing.  When a chance conversation with Mark touched on the aftermath of the Nicaraguan election, I asked him whether he might review my essay and give me his thoughts, which he did.  (It’s not something I ask of Mark; the words are meant to be mine and, besides, Mark doesn’t need the extra work.)  His comments were excellent and presented from the perspective of a Nicaraguan, which he is.  As a result, I chose not to post the article, not because Mark “didn’t like it” or thought it was somehow inappropriate, but because reading it as a Nicaraguan was different than writing it as a North American.  For anyone intent on truly contributing to positive change in Nicaragua, that’s an Achilles heel.

I’ve spent a good deal of time and energy getting to know something about our neighbors to the south.  I’ve traveled there three or four times every year, I read periodicals written by Nicaraguan leaders and academics, I’ve come to know many of the issues facing our three primary partner groups: women, Indigenous people and the rural poor.  We have funded nearly two-hundred projects during my six years.  I even study Spanish (with some futility) so that I might understand more directly the difficulties being expressed by these tenacious and persevering people in their struggle for simply sustainable living.  Mark performs a yeoman’s duty to keep me informed of issues affecting Nicaraguan life.  I read books about the history and legacy of past years.  I do this because I am interested, because Winds of Peace does desire to make a positive impact in the lives of Nicaraguans.  But no matter the number of years nor the length of trips, I will never be Nicaraguan.

I cannot quickly absorb the lingering pains of a war which tore the country apart for so long.  I cannot re-live the seemingly endless natural disasters which have claimed so many lives and livelihoods.  I have not been trapped within a geography which has lent itself to invasion, occupation, exploitation and marginalization.  I have not known, truly lived, in poverty.  Likewise, I cannot feel the sense of familial antiquity, the honor of native generations spent in stewardship of ancestral lands or the pride of being Nicaraguan.  I can know these things, but I cannot live them.

As a result, I come dangerously close to presumption when trying to write with intimacy about political cause and effect, or religious motivation or social condition.  And I cross over the borderline if being prescriptive about how to create change.   My making judgments about the Nicaraguan election is an arrogance, because what I see and what I feel is filtered through my own life experiences, not that of a Nicaraguan.  In the end, comparisons I might feel inclined to make are valid only for me and my very personal perspective.  I have not earned the honor and the right to speak for Nicaraguans;  I can only offer my narrow opinion.  Nicaraguans are owed that respect.  And that’s why there is no election blog here this week, or ever.

As I reflect on these words, I am struck by another truth by extension.  Ultimately, speaking on behalf of ourselves is the best and most that any of us can do, because we do not truly walk in any other man’s or woman’s shoes, only our own.  We can articulate what we believe and why we believe it, we can model that belief and even proclaim why we might feel that someone else might be strengthened by it, but not why they must believe it.  There’s a big difference between those two approaches.  It’s one that I wish was more widely-recognized throughout our country as we seemingly become less tolerant day by day.

It’s one more belief I’ve learned from Nicaragua, and one which those of us who purport to offer assistance and leadership in any endeavor would do well to remember….

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Steve Sheppard | November 12, 2011

If you have been reading entries here during the past year, you already know that Winds of Peace Foundation has begun an education initiative in Nicaragua in the memory of Louise Nielsen.  (See the sidebar LVN Initiative on our homepage.)  We affectionately refer to it as the “Louise Initiative,” due to its focus on young women in particular and the fact that Louise had such strong feelings about the importance of education for young women everywhere.  We have funded several projects in this first year of the effort and hope to see some “first fruits” of the seeds that were planted over the coming months.  Having become exposed to the reality of Nicaraguan education, it’s a direction that truly feels “right” as a priority for us.

A good deal of what we have heard and read about the plight of Nicaraguan education has to do with the social implications of an undereducated nation. And it’s true that the limitations on education there have contributed mightily to many of the difficulties experienced.  When a large percentage of a nation’s population exits the education system before the fourth grade, social imbalances are certain to exist in ways that create hardships on the very society that permits the secession.  Matters of health, families, gender equality, sexual violence, substance abuse, and technology all impact national development in far-reaching ways, and require at least a minimum educational base for the people who will be required to step up to such issues.  Few would disagree that an educated populace will be far better equipped to address the issues than one which is not.

But the further I acquaint myself with education challenges of a place like Nicaragua,  the more clearly I understand that as great as the impact of undereducation is on social development, education is, at its core, an economic issue.  Simply put, those who are educated for the future are the only ones who will prosper in it.  And that requires financial investment, perseverance and patience on the part of the societies seeking such prosperity.

The days of making a living by virtue of a strong back and a willingness to get dirty are soon to be of the past, even in Nicaragua.  Rural peasants can still plant crops and harvest by hand, but eventually that harvest will be sold.  Increasingly, this means interface with buyers, understanding markets, knowing free trade and fair trade, developing the skills of collaborative work and institutional strengthening.  The desire for such knowledge may be innate in all humans, but the methodologies of its application must be learned.  In a global marketplace, it’s the essence of economic survival.  In todays’s world, educational advancements are not only a national measure, but also a comparison across the world’s economy.  Rural producers in coffee cooperatives may not need an MBA or an understanding of global marketplaces, but they do require an understanding of how their cooperative should be bringing value to their harvests.  They may not require an understanding of Starbuck’s strategic direction over the next five years, but they do need to know the essence of “the game they are playing,” how the score is kept, how runs are scored and what every member’s contribution to the effort must be.  Reliance upon someone else to tell us what we ought to be doing in our own self-interest creates lots of vulnerabilities.  Winds of Peace will continue to seek ways of building sustainable self-reliance in Nicaragua, not only by providing funding of grants and microloans, but also by accentuating the urgency of enhanced education opportunities.

My involvement in such an initiative seems ludicrous in some ways: my own academic profile is, in my view, much less than it could/should have been.  I never starred in any classes, never completed a post-graduate degree, have never worked within an education system, and years ago could barely help my children with their high school math!  I fully recognize that I’ve had far more opportunities for education than my intellect may show.  But I also know that I love to read, and that I have a curiosity about life and living, and an enthusiasm for new ideas and different ways of looking at the world.  I figure that those traits likely arose from my educational endeavors somewhere along the line, and for that I feel very fortunate.  My education did not point me to a successful career, but I know that it opened my mind and my possibilities.

Educational development may be a good thing in its own right, and as a human right.  But at its core, especially in this time of turmoil and ultra-competition, education is an economic matter.  Come to think of it, it’s not only a critical lesson for the people of Nicaragua, but one which we in North America would do well to remember as our own educational and economic grades continue to fall on the global report card….

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Steve Sheppard | October 25, 2011

I had the opportunity to see a film the other night entitled, “Which Way Home.”   The movie is a 2009 feature documentary film that follows unaccompanied child migrants, on their journey through Mexico, as they try to reach the United States. It follows children like Olga and Freddy, nine-year old Hondurans, who are desperately trying to reach their parents in the US.; children like Jose, a ten-year old El Salvadoran, who has been abandoned by smugglers and

ends up alone in a Mexican detention center; and Kevin, a canny, streetwise fourteen-year old Honduran, whose mother hopes that he will reach the U.S. and send money back to her. They are stories of hope and courage, disappointment and sorrow. They are the children you never hear about; the invisible ones, and it is a sobering experience to see it.

Amidst all the debates about immigration reform, the behaviors of Immigration Control Enforcement (ICE) and statistics which only serve to distance us from the plight of real people, the film personalizes the issue.  Within its 90 minutes, the film allows us enough time to develop a connection with some of these very young children, to care about what happens to them.  At one point during the film, the filmmakers arrange to meet their train-hopping subjects in the next Mexican city up the line, but the boys never show up there and we can feel a palpable fear for what might have happened to them.   They have put real faces and personalities to the nameless numbers we normally hear about in such discussions, and suddenly the topic becomes much more difficult to deal with.  Being a parent and reacting to the story in the way  which I did, I can only begin to imagine the feelings experienced by the parents of these children.  Excruciating.

It’s interesting for me to note that immigration control attempts to deal with these travelers at the conclusion of their their journeys, when they’re at or over the borders.  It’s a necessary tool in dealing with illegal  immigration, but it seems to me that we place a great deal more attention there than at the front-end of the problem, the context in which these young lives find themselves and the despair which leads them to accept the life-and-death challenge of illegal entry.  The truth is that most of the young travelers would far rather remain in their home countries than to take the risk of illegally and dangerously going elsewhere.

They choose to take the risks, to leave their families and the familiarity of home, out of abject despair.  They feel and see hunger all around them, they recognize the growing despondency in the faces of their family members, they know how the rest of the world lives in comparison and finally they have absolutely nothing to lose.  Uncertain death on a freight train becomes less scary than certain destitution at home.  That’s a frightening prospect, but one which can and does drive children from their parents, parents from their homes, Nicaraguans from their country, and North Americans to an angry response.

The answers might lie far less in building walls than in helping to build opportunities.  Perhaps success is to be found less in meting out visas and more in making greater assistance available for in-country developments.  There must be a likelihood that instead of ignoring the conditions which entice a nine-year old child to strike out alone, we might fare better by creating, say, a loan opportunity that has the potential for stability and sustainability at home.  It’s a matter of cause-and-effect: if I have become overweight, it does me no good to curse my pounds.  Instead, I need to address the eating and sedentary habits that likely have created the unwanted result.  Likewise, the reduction of illegal immigration is likely to be found in the causes rather than the end results.

Seeing a movie like “Which Way Home” begs the question of what to do about it.  The answer may lie in redirecting our help to organizations which aim at the causes and not the end results.  Some organizations are great at placing money but not following through to ensure results.  Those efforts are often futile.  Others are more committed to accountability and measuring progress; those are the ones that have the best chance of impacting the  number of kids jumping trains.

Winds of Peace has never cited immigration as one of its target issues.  Nonetheless, we’re aimed at the causes that often lead to it: lack of opportunity, no work, minimal capital for development, limited experience in institutional strengthening, zero hope for the future.  By helping to provide the resources for Nicaraguans to create a future through their own economic enterprises, we hope to be helping them to re-think the need to leave home and thus to never wonder which way back home….  

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Steve Sheppard | October 16, 2011

I’ve been reading an interesting little book of late, entitled, A Little History of My Forest Life, by Eliza Morrison.  It’s an account of her life in the latter half of the 19^th century in northern Wisconsin, and Madeline Island in particular.  A woman with both European and Native American ancestry, Eliza had been schooled sufficiently to read and write as a child.  As an adult, Eliza had been requested by a good friend to write down her recollections of her life in those early days, and the book is in large part a collection of her letters and stories.

As difficult as life was in the rugged north, Eliza’s autobiography is surprisingly positive.  Her stories of arduous summer work, seemingly always in preparation for the winters to come, are exhausting just to read.  Her descriptions of mid-winter days on Madeline Island, and her regular hikes across the three-mile channel on Lake Superior between La Pointe and Bayfield, are enough to give me shivers on even the warmest day.

But her attitude rarely changes; she is an optimistic and grateful character who would rather give thanks for the steadfast loyalty and partnership of her husband, John, than to curse the vagaries of available work in the region and his need to follow work wherever it led him.  John often found it necessary to migrate across borders and communities in order to feed Eliza and his family of six.    Often alone with her children for months at a time, sometimes in winter nearing the end of provisions with no means of replenishment, Eliza nonetheless offers a perspective of one who has been greatly blessed in life.

Her letters offer an intimate look at both the activities and the psyche of this immensely strong woman.   The tenacity of Eliza’s spirit resonates throughout her letters.  But in between the accounts of paddling a canoe across the wind-driven swells of the Superior Ocean (for such it must have seemed to a solitary paddler on a gusty day) or leading a team of dogs through waist-deep snows to deliver provisions to John, there is also a plaintive voice that speaks up in unexpected places.  It is there that I began to understand Eliza Morrison and her life.

In her note to friend Catherine Gray on December 15, 1894, Eliza provides a glimpse of what else lay deep in her heart.  In the midst of a report about her sister in Michigan, Eliza reveals something else.  “My sister is a widow now and an invalid.  How I would like to go and see her.  She lives in Lanse, Michigan.  Her husband use (sic) to be a Methodist minister.  Sometimes I think it is hard to be poor and my mind will just turn and think may be it is the Lords will and than I content myself.  I have (children) Bennie and Eunice with me.  They both go to school….”

Among all of the optimism and positive thinking that marked Eliza Morrison’s character, this singular notion cries out like some primal scream for recognition and justice.  Eliza was not an ignorant woman; she understood all too clearly the reality that she was poor and that there was something fundamentally wrong in that.  So wrong, in fact, that she could not fathom how her circumstances could be so low, thus having to rationalize the inequity by ascribing it to some unknown, undecipherable divine edict.  In the midst of a world that holds so much, how could she accept her poverty other than by ascribing it to a heavenly will?  And in fixing the responsibility there, she could somehow better accept the unfairness, the incredulity of it all.

Upon reflection, I think that I experience this same kind of rationale in Nicaragua all the time.  Impoverished Nicaraguans, recognizing the great wealth and resources of the world, cannot logically fathom reasons for their circumstances.  They know enough of the world to see how others live.  They read enough to recognize how politics often maintain a strong foothold on the back of their necks.  And yet they cannot comprehend easily the disparity between beans and caviar in a world which has plenty of both.  So they are forced to look for the explanations elsewhere, in the divine, in some inscrutable plan by God who, for some reason, wishes them to be poor.  That’s what extreme poverty can do: to drive a man or woman to so convolute his/her spiritual beliefs that the pains of hunger and want become reasonable and even justified states of affairs by no less than the Creator himself.

This may be the ultimate ignominy of poverty, that somehow it is right with the world, that it is part of a divine plan, that there is not only a remedy to be sought but that somehow to seek such remedy would be contrary to the will of the universe.  There might be no greater insult, no greater humiliation, than to see oneself as a divinely-appointed “bottom of the barrel.”  But that kind of thinking is all too easily fomented by the incessant anxieties and stressors of being very poor.

Some may cite a nobility in being poor.  If there is strength to be achieved through adversity, then the poor certainly must possess great reservoirs of calm and resolve to see them through their consistent crises.  But such nobility only resides in those who have chosen a poverty way of life, a number which is very small.  For the rest of the impoverished, the condition does not offer consolation or meaning, only hopelessness.

I have come to regard the poor in a very different way in recent years.  When I meet them- which in Nicaragua is very often-  I do not immediately see hunger or deprivation.  What I feel first is empathy for people who may actually believe that their condition is both warranted and valid, a belief that ultimately must break their hearts as well as my own.

Sometimes I think it must be hard to be poor.  And I know with growing certainty that it is hard for the rest of us to be rich….

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