Winds of Peace Foundation

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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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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Steve Sheppard | September 27, 2011

I finally was able to do something in Nicaragua that I have dreamed about ever since I first traveled there: I took a hike.

And this was no ordinary hike, to be sure. Our workshop on cooperatives was held at the foot of Peñas Blancas, a stunning range of white cliffs rising up from a deep forest floor. It’s also an eco-tourism site which is home to the cooperative GARBO and the association of forest guardians. There is a meeting room at the location, along with a dormitory, eating facility, environmental study building and a few small homes dotting a winding forest road. Some pretty amazing things are happening at this site, which just ten short years ago was devoid of any trees at all, the forests having been cleared for grazing land. Now it’s as dense as ever under the care and nurturing of a committed group of people who see this resource for the jewel that it is.

The three-day workshop itself focused on the topic of coffee: its production, commercialization, buying and selling, its technical advisors, second-tier associations, its funders, its fallacies and its future. This third of three workshops during 2011 brought together thirty-some participants, each representing their own interests and issues, but all with the desire to learn how they might collaborate for better success. We don’t know for certain that it was the first time for such a conference; we do know that it was a most unique gathering.

The workshop featured many presentations on coffee, along with some conversations that were simply philosophical. Parables helped to frame the issues and jump-start participation. Real-life stories punctuated the sessions every day. Even poetry found a niche for consideration. The facilitators, Rene Mendoza and Edgar Fernandez, understood that learning styles and preferences are as diverse as the audience. So I was not surprised to learn that at the end of the three days we were to take a hike through the woods, up to Rainbow Falls, where waters gushed forth from the upper levels of Peñas Blancas onto the forest floor below. In fact, for two days I was antsy for the chance!

Rene and Edgar decided that we would head up the trail in three groups, not really competing with each other but with ourselves, to make sure that every member of each group made the climb all the way to the falls. For some, especially the young or the physically fit, this would present no problem. But for some others in each group, the difficulties of age or sedentary habits or physical limitations would provide a challenge. The objectives were made very clear: get every member of each group to the top and down again, and along the way note the lessons that might be learned from a walk in the woods. At 6:30 A.M., the first group set off on their climb, with another group to commence every 15 minutes.

Each group had the benefit of a “guide,” one of the members of the forest rangers/GARBO. These young men not only knew the preserve and its inhabitants, but also understood what the forest says to us, what it means, and how we need to comprehend what it teaches. Jairo and Carlos served as our guides; by the end of our hike I regarded them as I might have considered one of the mammoth forest trees. Such was the manner in which they spoke of the woodland, cited its sacred nature for the Indigenous people, and even caressed the leaves and buds of some very unfamiliar plants. In each case, they taught us about the use of such leaves, the value of such buds, and why regenerating their existence was so important to us all. Very soon into our walk, the groups seemed to take on a quieter, more reverential demeanor as we became introduced to the host of forest life, and new ideas.

I cannot recount here all of the realities and legends encountered during our hours in the woods. But I did see where the rare puma often made its evening encampment (the cave to the left), the curative plants with the power to heal in ways that western medicine does not know, varieties of trees once thought to be extinct and now thriving under care. I entered the “sanctuary of the mammoth trees,” where visitors are respectfully asked to seek permission to enter this world with a respectful attitude for life there. This door to the forest evoked a sense of humility in each of us. I did not observe the forest elf after hearing about him, but I confess to looking over my shoulder during the rest of our climb in hopes of catching a glimpse of the elusive waif.

Despite all of the environmental teaching that was going on, I really did give a great deal of thought to organizational lessons that I might learn from the hike and the cooperative efforts of the teams making their way up the cliffs. And as obtuse as the assignment sounded when Rene first gave it, I found that the further into the heart of the forest I immersed, the clearer became the lessons.

Systems either work together in fully-integrated fashion or they create destructive- even fatal- imbalances. The woods provide some very clear examples of both cooperative co-existence and predatory destruction. With the resurrection of the forest, the trees which now dwarf the land also provide a convenient and calming canopy for the native plants growing beneath. Without the protective covering, the plants which are indigenous to the area cannot survive. And yet some of the trees which now inhabit the savannah once again, with tremendous capacity for rapid growth, find themselves wrapped by parasitic, invasive vines that can literally choke the life from these fast-growing marvels. Having the native trees return is a wondrous thing; whether they can survive choking vines that have been allowed to take root is a frustrating thing. Balance is everything in the forest.

The scope of diversity that now exists in the forest at Peñas Blancas is staggering. Some of what grows there has not even been identified by the rangers; they even speculate about flora and fauna that might be growing in their midst without being seen. Such is the density and breadth of the woods. But I was struck by the ability of these very diverse plants to be in balance in the woods, essentially being in harmony within the broader habitat. Living things that are very different from one another create a woodland tune in harmony with itself, as if understanding that such an integration is necessary for the good of the whole. I don’t know if plants think that way; I suspect that they simply act that way.

That the forest was non-existent a mere ten years ago after being cleared for grazing is unimaginable. How an entire forest can be reborn to full maturity in such a short time defies belief. But the resurgence is the result of conservationists with a long-term view of things like the environment: they are compelled to see the longer-range in light of what human beings have done to the earth over the past hundreds of years. That vision has allowed them to tackle the re-birth of the forest with patience, consistency. To view the recreation of the forest through a short-term lens would be as damaging as the short-term views of those who destroyed it a generation ago. Short-term might even feel good today, but it comes with a price tomorrow.

As the trail lengthened and the minutes gathered to an hour or more, the tightly-formed group that started out together on the trail had become spread out, due to thoughtfulness or perhaps fatigue. Our guide drifted ahead so as to be out of sight from the last member of our group; we became more of a line than a circle. But the separation did not last for long. Each of us seemed to have an instinctive feel for when the separation became too great and each of us took a turn at reforming the hikers into a group once more. The desire to be together, to reach the top together, to experience the summit of our climb as a unit far overshadowed any individual inclination to “be the first.” In some groups, older participants (who perhaps had not exerted so much hiking energy in decades) migrated to the falls by literally taking one hand and then another of their younger fellow hikers. This was the locus and the joy of the group.

This desire to reach the summit together provided testimony to another group dynamic, the speed with which individual members of a group can bond in the spirit of c0-creation. Some of these workshop participants had actually operated as adversaries, of sorts, toward one another. Self-interests fanned the embers of suspicion, geographic distances engendered social ones, and even the presence of North Americans in this Nicaraguan audience influenced its chemistry. Yet the innate desire for achieving something together, something larger than any individual might have been capable of achieving alone, emerged almost immediately during the very first workshop in January. It manifested itself as the participants demanded a continuation of the workshop into April. It crescendoed when the April participants pleaded for a follow-up in September. And it continued at the conclusion of our time two weeks ago with disparate groups planning alliances with one another, to carry forward the momentum achieved as fellow learners and hikers of the three workshops.

For me, the hike offered a rare opportunity to get some exercise while in Nicaragua, to stretch my legs and muscles and to remember why I revel in physical activity no matter where I might be. But perhaps the most important stretch was the one I experienced in my reflections on the trail. If we miss the lessons along the way, or think that we navigate alone, or that the best achievements are individual, or that we do not require the hand of fellow travelers while on our respective journeys, we have missed the entire point of the trip and the opportunity to share in the basking at Rainbow Falls.

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Steve Sheppard | August 20, 2011

Winds of Peace has funded a series of workshops this year, focused on the value chain for rural coffee growers in Nicaragua, including small scale producers, first and second tier cooperatives, technical support organizations, buyers and funders.  The third in this series of workshops- all attended by the same participants- will be held during the first week of September, and the planners and facilitators of the conference are busy with preparations. Even WPF has preparation to do, as we have been asked to present some history and context on WPF Founders Harold and Louise Nielsen, the company they founded (Foldcraft Co.) and the unique way in which it has been envisioned, how and why WPF was formed after the sale of Foldcraft to its employees through an ESOP, and whatever other historical information might be of value to the workshop participants.  It’s a privilege to be asked to participate in this way.

Rene Mendoza, who has been the primary organizer and facilitator of these workshops, also sent along some questions about the visions which Harold and Louise might have had for Foldcraft, Winds of Peace, the people of Nicaragua.  The questions are deeply philosophical and invite thoughtful answers, which Harold has agreed to provide.  But there is one in particular which caught my attention and which I share here.  Rene asks,

As the expression of the Chinese teacher goes: “Knowing that 1 and 1 is 2 is important, but more important is understanding the “and.”  But I am not able to understand what they [Harold and Louise] understood. What is the “and” that Harold, Louise… understood?  Is WPF part of that “and?”  What is really the “and” … that only a few get to understand it and make it a reality?

Getting to the “and.”  That’s what Rene is asking for, to understand what exactly that means for people like Harold and Louise, why so few of us seem to understand it or demonstrate it.  It’s as if the “and” has some ephemeral or illusive quality worthy of the chase.  I’m sure that Harold will have some simply-stated, deep-truth answer to the question as he frequently does.  But it has also prompted my own thinking.

My first thought is that “and” means in addition.   ”And” is the addition, the action, the including connector between two or more of anything: words, numbers, people, things, whatever.  There is something incorporating and encompassing in that simple word, something that embraces rather than excludes.  There is at least one world-view that suggests everything and everybody on this earth is here for a reason, a meaning toward the whole, that our own purpose here is to discern what that role is to be, how we fit within the entirety.  In that world-view, the “and” is as essential as life itself, since we cannot complete the whole without every element of its makeup.  ”And” is a together word which presumes that there is no reason to leave something out, to exclude, to leave behind, to forget.  I suspect that Harold and Louise intuitively felt the sense of “and” on that very first journey amidst poverty and deprivation.

“And” also invokes adding to, as in the very example Rene uses, “1 and 1 is two.”  It is an indicator of a plus, creating something more than where you started, building something bigger.  It seems an irony to me that we human beings, who are always on the lookout for ways to create and have more of everything- security, food, comforts, satisfactions, achievements, things- seem to want to do so by and for ourselves.  And when we do see the need for collaborative efforts, such initiatives are short-lived for the most part, broken apart at the fear of having given up too much or at the lure of achieving some other objective for our own benefit.  Especially here in the United States, we revere the myth of rugged individualism, the perceived strength of “going it alone.”  It makes for wonderful storytelling but an inferior strategy.  No one of us is as smart as all of us.  Missing the plus of inclusion is like trying to fell a tree with a nail file: it’s possible, perhaps, but it could be done a lot faster and better.  Harold Nielsen learned that reality by building a business that could only be successful utilizing the skills and energies of all of its members.  It led to employee ownership and a participative organization wherein people were provided with the opportunity to understand the “and,” from both inside and outside of the company.

“And” implies a consequence, too.  The Nielsens elected to take that fateful trip to Central America all those years ago, and they were transformed.  Life truly lived implies some degree of risk-taking, a coming out of the comfort zone for the sake of learning, seeing differently, understanding the complexities of this world in new ways.  We will never understand all of it, but we are called to know more of it than we do.  The only way to achieve that look is through the lives of others, to see their realities in light of our own.  It was true for the Nielsens as they ventured far away from the safe confines of rural MInnesota, for the members of Foldcraft who are asked to see business in a very different way, and for all of us who allow the idea of the “and” to lure us to new perspectives.  There are consequences to such experiences; for some, the risk is worth taking, the consequence positively transformative.  For others, the risk is too great and the “and” remains an elusive curiosity.

Winds of Peace Foundation represents the “and.”  It is the current evolutionary place in a long journey of seeking, self-discernment, self-effacement, discovery and response.  It isn’t a perfect partner for those with whom it works, nor does it purport to be the answer to the myriad difficulties faced by its Nicaraguan neighbors.  But it is a manifestation of the Nielsens, and of those who have been invited along for the journey, to regard their own lives in a posture of servanthood and connectedness with the world at-large.  It’s a counterintuitive, countercultural view of life that runs contrary to the way most of us think and live, and why, when we hear of it in someone else, we behold it with a deep, wistful longing for ourselves….

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Steve Sheppard | August 7, 2011

I’ve been extolling the value of the book by Paul Dix and Pam Fitzpatrick, Nicaragua: Surviving the Legacy of U.S. Policy and now it appears as though others are beginning to take notice, as well.  The following blurb was offered by Bill Moyers, one who would certainly be in a position to judge the merits of such a publication.  I said it before: this book is worthwhile reading for every student of history, or of U.S. policy past, present and future.

“What an impressive book! I was deeply touched to read it and to be carried back to that time and those cruel events of the war in Nicaragua. They would have disappeared into the amnesia hole of history except for efforts like yours. You have done the people who suffered and died a profound service.”

Not to mention the service to those U.S. citizens who care about our foreign policy positions….

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