Winds of Peace Foundation

Posted By Steve Sheppard on May 18, 2012

I mentioned here a while back that a portion of my recent visit in Nicaragua had been focused on the education initiative which Winds of Peace started last year.  Our agenda for the week permitted a lengthy visit to Roberto Clemente School in Ciudad Sandino, a 1400 student house of joy.  The school is one operated by Fe y Alegria, one of WPF’s partners in working on the education initiative.  By the end of our tour and conversations, it was very clear that the students weren’t the only ones getting schooled that day.  My own education became elevated that day in ways that I had not expected.

If I tell you that Nicaragua’s statistics on education reflect poor progress, that the average student only receives about five years of classroom participation, that a third of students don’t make it out of primary school, that the country dedicates only 3% of GDP to education funding (when 10% is considered the minimum necessary), that of the kids who start first grade only half will reach grade five, then you might reach the reasonable conclusion that Nica schools leave a lot to be desired.  But you’d only be partially correct, because the presence of Roberto Clemente School belies the truth of an educational system in dire need.

My education on tour day included the expected elements:  accompaniment by Leslie Gomez from Fe y Alegria, meeting Berta Vasquez, Director General ofthe school who seemed to know the name of every child there, a walk-around of the premises, peeking into classrooms, observing kids between classes, in a few instances actually visiting with some of the students, and generally being conspicuous amidst a sea of uniformed scholars.  It’s an experience that I’ve had previously, in U.S. schools, so I thought that I knew what to expect in terms of the pupils’ behaviors, demeanors, sounds and interactions with me.  It turns out that I was quite wrong.

First, I noted the sounds of the school.  An open courtyard surrounded by classrooms may have amplified what I heard, but there was no mistaking the nature of the noise: I can only characterize it as joyful, vibrant, excited.

And I’m not talking about the pre-school classrooms, where one might expect little kids to be having fun because they don’t yet recognize what they may eventually come to regard as the drudgery of school.  I’m including the classrooms of the middle and upper-age students, high schoolers whose Western peers frequently exude sardonic sarcasm and languid disaffection about their

time in the academy.  Here, though, only pride and school “ownership” were on display.  Everywhere we went, in each of the classrooms, the buzzing of true, energetic fun sounded all around the building; it is not a sound that can easily be faked, and the attentive faces behind the sounds attested to its reality.

Then there was the look and content of the classrooms themselves.  The uniforms which the students wear created a sense of organization in each class, uniformity that suggested the responsibility that each young person owed to the others; no visual outliers, no fashion statements here.  The walls reflected the learning being done, with bright colors and lessons and children’s names to be seen everywhere, tangible statements of “I can.”  Absent were the trappings of technology and modern distraction.  What mattered on these walls and in these rooms were the outputs of the kids.  The computers and the electronics were all housed elsewhere, and for another time of the day.

Despite what might be viewed as regimentation at the school, there is a large waiting list of families desiring for their children to attend; kids really want to be at this school.  There is also a cost for attending, as students have to cover the cost of their uniforms and some materials consumed.  Many families simply cannot afford the 80 Cordobas ($3.43) per month that is required for attending.   I was pleased to learn that the financial assistance provided by Winds of Peace via Fe y Alegria had covered scholarships for 68 students.  Wow!

When we dared to interrupt and enter several of the classrooms, the reactions were consistently stirring. Each time, the several dozen students rose to attention beside their desks, as if on cue, and the smiles directed at their visitors unequivocally affirmed the sounds and the sights described above.  I know the energy and vitality that young kids breathe into life (I’ve raised four of my own!), yet the impact of the collective energyand enthusiasm in these studentsstruck me in a way quite different from other school visits I’ve  had.  At one classroom stop we were privileged to meet William, the president of the school student body.  The conversation was eye-to-eye anddirect; he displayed great self-confidence in describing his responsibilities and his charge of leadership and role modeling.  As I stood transfixed by this young man’s bearing, the vice-president of the student body, Debora, emerged from the classroom to introduce herself and respond to more of our questions.

During the whole of our discussion, not once did I see a dropped gaze or a self-conscious stare at the ground.  By the time the third member of this student leadership trio, Danny, joined our impromptu lesson on student government, I had become completely disarmed by the poise and self-assurance being cultivated among the members of this school.  And as if to accentuate the fact thatour interaction had not been only for show, each of the three took my own notebook and entered their respective e-mail addresses and Facebook connections as a means for continued conversation.  I was as impressed and impacted as I could possibly have been.

As if this entire excursion had not amazed me beyond my expectations for the morning, as I approached the truck to depart I had the lovely encounter with little Yareli, described in my blog here of May 5.  Her sweet “blessing” was icing on a cake of immense meaning and proportion, and a treat that will stay with me, likely, forever.

If the state of education in Nicaragua is truly needy (and it is), such need is not comprised of youth who are without motivation or inherent capacities.  A short visit to Roberto Clemente School will quickly disabuse any skeptic of that notion.  Rather, the deficit is one caused by a lack of priority and discipline in facing the future needs of an entire nation.  In short, it’s the adults who are failing in the classrooms, in favor of other perceived primacies that are shorter-term and supported by louder lobbies.  As a result, the beautiful music of students having the opportunity to embrace the ownership of their own futures plays much too infrequently and softly.

Leaving the school grounds, students waved at us.  I remember mentally thanking Louise Nielsen for her special concern for kids and their education and for the work that we now do in this field in her name….

Category: Making An Impact, Reflections, Rural development, WPF partners | No Comments »
Tags: Children, Education in Nicaragua, Louise Nielsen

Posted By Steve Sheppard on May 5, 2012

There are certain moments in our experiences that become a sort of “freeze frame” of reference, an event or an exchange that transcends the moment and suddenly represents something bigger, more meaningful.  I’ve been privileged to experience more than my share of such moments in Nicaragua over the past seven years, but none were more sudden, more memorable than the encounter last week with an angel.

Mark Lester and I were given the opportunity to visit the Roberto Clemente School in Ciudad Sandino, operated by the education entity Fe y Alegria.  Through its Louise V. Nielsen initiative, Winds of Peace has provided funding for a number of key education organizations in Nicaragua, one of which is this organization founded by Father Fernando Cardenal, himself an education force in Nicaragua’s history.  This particular school serves some 1400 students, from pre-school scholars through high school.  (I’ll have more to report about that visit in upcoming blog entries.)  Suffice it to say that the hour and-a-half visit was exciting, energizing, motivating, moving and hopeful. In short, everything one might hope to experience amidst a large group of youth.

When the tour of the school was finished and the conversations with several student leaders had been done, time had come for Mark and me to take to the road again, on our way north to Esteli.  We made our way across campus, accompanied by Leslie Gomez, Director of Programs and Projects for Fe y Alegria and our liaison for the visit.  By the time we approached the truck, my head was already filled with recollections, of bright classrooms and joyful sounds (that’s right, I said joyful!), of faces evident with curiosity and welcome, of teachers beaming with pride to present their classrooms to visitors.  Lost in such visions, as I grabbed for the door of the truck I felt a tug on the back of my shirt.

When I turned around, I needed to adjust my gaze down, way down, to look at the tiny person standing before me.  She could not have been more than six years old.  The shy smile on her face gave her an angelic look that instantly touched my heart.  And she offered up her two hands pressed together, as if in a prayer, seeking some reciprocation from me that I could not immediately discern.  All I could do was to look at her and smile.

“It’s a type of greeting, or blessing,” explained Leslie, “just put your hands together over hers to return the good wishes.”  My own hands engulfed the fragile hands before me and I gratefully embraced her tiny offering.  My response brought an enormous smile to Yareli who seemed to want nothing more than to create an indelible moment in my day.  I might even go so far as to suggest that her gift created a lasting moment in my life.  Such was the surge of affection that I felt for this little jewel who had come out of nowhere to shine a bright light on my day.  She granted me one quick photo and then she wandered off, likely in search of another unsuspecting subject to bless and entrance.  Do angels actually come among us in that size?  I asked her for her name and she replied, “Yareli.”

Well, there’s nothing else to say about the episode.  Like an apparition, Yareli came to me and disappeared within the span of minutes.  By the time I was back in the truck, I actually wondered whether the encounter had really happened, so fast and so touching was the connection.   But that adorable face was fortunately captured forever in my camera; I looked back at the picture on several occasions during the balance of my week, just to bring a smile back to my feelings.  Sharing it with you here is a pleasure I offer with this one additional reflection:

Children are born of biological parents and step into a line of genealogy which, in part, helps to define who they are and where they come from.  Sometimes the continuum also shapes where they are headed and who they will become.  But in a major way, children are also universal beings who belong to us all. We may not have biological connections to every one of them, but we do share emotional ties and responsibilities to each.  We do have an impact on others, whether intended or not.  Yareli reached out and affirmed that feeling in me, just as 22 years ago a young Nicaraguan boy named Fernando did when he asked me whether I would adopt him, whether I could love him, and whether I thought he was a good kid.  They are moments and faces never to be forgotten because they awaken in us the truth of our shared love and responsibility for children everywhere.  It doesn’t matter that eventually those beautiful children grow up to become adults who speak a different language or live in a land foreign to us.  Small hands can still be held out for friendship and blessing if we’re receptive.

It was a huge affirmation from a very little messenger….

Category: Making An Impact, Reflections, Rural development | No Comments »
Tags: Children, Nicaragua, Sharing

Posted By Steve Sheppard on April 1, 2012

Like lots of organizations, Winds of Peace Foundation has a mission and a set of cornerstones that it has established to help guide its decisions and directions.  With painstaking deliberation, these written statements were developed with the inputs of many stakeholders, including the founders, employees, its Board of Directors, Nicaraguan voices and friends of the foundation.  In total, these statements represent the values of the foundation, what’s important to us, and they are also resources which provide a touchstone for maintaining our consistency, focus and integrity.  They’re dynamic, living statements that communicate what’s important to us.

So when we encounter partners along the way who deviate from the expectations and comportment promised early in the proposal stage, there is a choice to be made.  We either overlook the variance and hope for eventual better compliance with the agreed-upon expectations or we seek a change in performance to allow our continued partnering.  While the choice between the two options might seem obvious on the face of it, actual resolution to such a dilemma is frequently more complex than it looks. It’s tempting to “bend”  expectations to suit behaviors, rather than vice versa, and over time those core organizational statements of intent can become relegated to just so many nice-sounding words.  It’s a choice to be made by both our partners and ourselves.

Lately, we encountered one such decision-point.  An organization which several years ago presented great promise and exhibited commitment to collaborative work, transparency and accountability- what we have called “institutional strengthening-” has stumbled in its efforts.  A former president of the organization has become a “rogue” member of the board of directors; the elders of the community have avoided confronting the man’s behaviors out of misplaced fears of alienation; other members of the group look for enforcement of principles and practices previously agreed to as tenets of the community; and the objectives of the project have become compromised.  In the wake of it all, the group has requested another round of funding amidst promises of reforming their errant ways and Winds of Peace has declined the request.  What once held great promise for a community’s development has become, at least for now, a foundation footnote about the delicacy of changing long-held attitudes and the unfortunate influence that a single individual can exert over an entire organization.

But that footnote is also a statement about what Winds of Peace stands for.  To ignore the erosion of responsibility and integrity of a partner is to compromise our own validity.  The emotional urge to continue pursuit of the healthy aims of this group has been a persistent one which we have consciously acknowledged and respected; after all, the community has made some good progress during the years in which have we supported them.  Through close accompaniment we have been able to see the rise of participative behaviors, and self-responsibility demonstrated by individuals who might otherwise never have displayed such initiatives.  When we have the opportunity to witness personal and organizational growth like this, it’s hard to let go of the vision of what could be.  Yet in the end, any group seeking support for its strengthening needs also to accept the cause-and-effect reality of its actions.  Success is most often built upon success, a repetitive sequence that grows out of a self-fulfilling commitment to self and others.  Without the commitment and the discipline, a group essentially relies on luck.  And that’s not a strategy compatible with the foundation, regardless of the close affections that inevitably develop when we work with people over time.  It might be an organizational form of tough love or a behavioral intervention, but it’s as necessary for the health of Winds of Peace as it is for the partner in question.

Strangely, being true to one’s values and beliefs is not an easy thing.  There are continuous tests and challenges and enticements to bend those principles for what seem like reasonable reasons.  But doing so almost never pays off in the long run and more often than not is harmful in the short term, as well.  While inflexible policy creates an entity that will be ineffective in working with the realities of human life, values that change with each shifting breeze are destructive to the very pulse of development.  We owe it to our partners to be clear and consistent about what we hold important in our work.  We owe it to ourselves to tolerate no less….

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Posted By Steve Sheppard on 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….

Category: Announcements, Making An Impact, Reflections | No Comments »
Tags: Nicaragua, Stewardship, Well-being

Posted By Steve Sheppard on March 11, 2012

I’ve spent a good deal of time over the past week or so preparing for a presentation to a Luther College class.  It’s a political science class about terrorism, what constitutes it, who uses it, what its consequences are.  The professor who teaches the class invited me to attend and talk about the experiences of Nicaragua in the 1980′s, during the time of the United States’ illegal war with that country.  The opportunity was an interesting one, but it has left me thinking about Nicaragua in the past tense, rather than in the present.  Stories of the war and its tragic consequences are difficult to re-live, maybe especially if one is a U.S. citizen trying to make sense of what our country did in Nicaragua.  As a result, I have experienced real difficulty in imagining what I should post here when my mind is still stuck in the 80′s and the shameful history of those years.

The drought on possible blog topics continued until this very day as I sat down once more to write.  And then the notion hit me: what I have been seeking in the way of a present topic has been in front of me for the entire past week or so as I prepared for the class.  Because in very real ways, lest any of us forget, Nicaragua’s past with the U.S. has shaped its present, despite the passage of years.

There are the obvious reminders.  Traveling across Nicaragua inevitably confronts one with citizens who were physical victims of the war.  The presence of amputees is evident in every community, in numbers that greatly exceed what might be expected in a more normal cross-section of a population.  There are cooperatives and associations which include in their names terms like “former combatants” or “ex-military”  or “mothers and war victims.”  I have even overheard occasional good-natured barbs traded between former adversaries, exchanges that both rekindle the memory of who these people were in the 1980′s and who they have become in this new millennium.

Less obvious direct results of the past are everywhere, as well.  The impoverished circumstances of Nicaragua are a result of many factors, but a major contributor was the war and its aftermath.  In this second-poorest country of the Western Hemisphere, a majority of its citizens survive on less than $2 per day; the majority of its Indigenous people, making up 5% of the total population, exists on less than $1 per day.  Half of the population is either unemployed or underemployed in the formal sector.  40% of its children do not complete primary school; one-third drop out by the third grade.  One in three Nicaraguan children are chronically malnourished.  It is ranked 129th of 187 countries in the Human Development Index.  Such are the latent bombshells of the war.

“It is much easier to begin a war than to end it.  And even more difficult to repair the invisible consequences, those stains on the soul that can never be erased.”  (Carlos Powell.)  Deep within the hearts and memories of Nicaraguans old enough to have experienced the war are the still unanswered and troubling anxieties over what allowed the United States to take such an unwarranted and violent action.  While the fighting has been over for decades and the internal reconciliations have healed wounds, there is scar tissue that will never go away.  There was never an apology, an acknowledgement of wrong, no specific reparations made, and always in the rhetoric a stated antipathy for Nicaraguans’ rights for full, self-determination according to their own view of the world.  Many  Nicaraguans live with an ingrained mindset about the U.S., reflected in one young woman’s words from the book, Nicaragua: Surviving the Legacy of U.S. Policy by Paul Dix and Pam Fitzpatrick.  She observed:

“The intervention of the U.S. is terrible because many times I think they make war just to get richer, they make war to sell their weapons.  In addition, they aren’t thinking of the damage they are doing to so many people.  It is terrible to think that in a country like the U.S., for example, the young people who live there don’t know anything about what their own country does in other countries….  That is terrible, because the young people grow up thinking that their country is perfect.”     (Coni Perez.)  These reflections, too, represent  forgotten land mines of the war.

These are the kinds of doubts about U.S. intentionality and purpose which undermine not just hopes for a peaceful coexistence with a world superpower, but hopes for peace anywhere on earth, the “stains on the soul” as referenced above.  In my experience, Nicaraguans are quick to embrace their visitors from North America, but wary of the governmental “beast” that represents us.  The ill effects of that reality are substantial, lingering and difficult to measure as to their damage.  So while I find myself presently in the past, it’s the future that I have in mind as our country extricates itself from two current wars while at the same time engages in saber-rattling as to another.  The people of Nicaragua, I’m sure, would ask us to remember the outcomes of their past before engaging in another military initiative that destroys a future….

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Tags: Living with the Consequences, War in Nicaragua

Posted By Steve Sheppard on February 24, 2012

When one of my daughters, Nikki, was in elementary school, her teacher asked all the members of her class to do a painting.  Specifically, the teacher wanted each student to paint a sunrise.  I can imagine that what the teacher had in mind was an exercise in the use of bright colors and contrast, which would certainly be appealing to young elementary-aged artists.  The teacher wandered around the room to observe the artwork-in-progress and offer words of encouragement, but when she came to Nikki’s desk she stopped and assessed the work for a couple of minutes.  She even asked Nikki what she was painting, reminding her that the assignment was for a sunrise, and that the grays and blacks on the paper didn’t seem to resemble much in the way of a sunrise.  Undaunted, Nikki responded that, yes, this was very much the way the sunrise looked before daybreak.  The teacher, duly chagrined, reported this exchange to us at the next parent-teacher conference, with the avant garde artwork in hand.  I appreciated both her candor and her confession.

The teacher seemed astonished that she had never considered what a sunrise looks like before the rays of the day actually penetrate the waning night sky.  Her concept of a sunrise was bright oranges and yellows and reds across the arc of the horizon.  It’s not an incorrect view of a sunrise, it’s simply not the only view.  And so it is with just about any experience we have in our lives.  How we see the world all depends…

To be sure, there are certain laws of nature that will seemingly always be true.  Dropping something from your hand will always result in the item falling to the ground.  (Of course, even that undeniable law of physics becomes troublesome once you leave the pull of the earth’s gravity; astronauts will attest that items dropped from the hand do not always fall downward.)  Night follows day.  (Although that’s not really true if you’re living at the North Pole right now; daylight follows daylight there.)  The poor will always be poor.  (Despite the fact that there is sufficient food and resources to sustain the current population of the earth if it were shared more equitably.)

Fortunately, there are those in the world who refuse to see the world in its current state as a fixed and immutable law of Nature.  The creators, innovators, inventors and merely curious are always “on the fringe,” looking at the way the world works today and trying to discern the truth behind it all.  That inevitably leads to suspicion and doubt about such views, denigration of the different way of thinking and even ridicule of the individual who dares to see daybreak in a different light.  Our only-two-party political system practices it.  Our established religious institutions live it.  And along the way most of us fall victim to it, often unknowingly, but almost always too narrowly.  It’s too bad, because it’s the innovators of this world who eventually create solutions and advancements that we all come to value eventually.  It’s hard enough by itself to innovate answers to problems; it’s a shame that the journey has to be complicated by naysayers.

The continuous interchange between WPF and its Nicaraguan partners is a perfect laboratory for this phenomenon.  Like many North Americans, I tend to have  my views and opinions that have been shaped by a decidedly Western-style democracy and economic model.  Nicaraguans have their perspectives shaped by very different experiences and end results.  And neither truth is right or wrong, just different.  That reality is as true on the dirt floor of a primitive Nicaraguan home as it is in the Board meeting room of a wealthy corporation.  Truth is most often an abstract that we can only get closer to over time, and no one has an absolute lock on how to achieve it.

Many outliers have achieved a fair amount of redemption in history.  Pythagorus is said to have asserted that the earth was actually round!  (Can you imagine?)  William Wilberforce condemned slavery as morally, religiously and intellectually wrong.  (A dangerous radical.)  Leonardo da Vinci, Otto Lilienthal and the Wright brothers all claimed that man could fly.  (Everyone knew how daft they all were.)  A guy named Henry Roberts envisioned personal computers for home use.  (What could be the possible uses for something like that?)  What they all had in common was a different view of the world, and an idea to live in it differently.

Innovation- doing things differently- takes a lot of courage.  It requires courage to walk in the unknown and courage to face the often-withering criticism from others who may possess less courage themselves.  Albert Einstein, one of the great intellects of history said it best: “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”  Whenever I feel myself being herded into a pattern of group-think, I remember Nikki’s muted sunrise and look for new ways to see the dawn….

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Posted By Steve Sheppard on 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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Posted By Steve Sheppard on 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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Posted By Steve Sheppard on February 2, 2012

While in Nicaragua last month, we made our way to visit a number of partners and prospects for funding, as usual.  A week’s worth of visits that includes sixteen visits within five departments of the country can make for a tiring itinerary, but there is always a boost of energy that comes from the people themselves.  Corporate CEO’s may receive perks from their jobs like access to private jets or luxurious vacation getaways under the guise of “business meetings.”  But MY perk is found in the faces and voices of rural Nicaraguans, peasants mostly, who are as basic as the earth they work on.  And every once in a while I meet one such person who can absolutely light up a room, his/her peers, and my own soul.  That’s what I experienced a few days ago.

Our final day found us in the northern department of Madriz, in the town of Somoto.  We made an early departure in order to take the long, slow drive to Venecia, a tiny wide-spot-in-the-road where the women of COMUNEC cooperative would be meeting.  The road is barely a road; four-wheel drive low is a blessing and a need, and we may have averaged 5-10 miles per hour for the hour to get there.  The region is as scenic as any spot on earth but for the occasional reminders along the way of how many of the rural poor must live, in marginal dwellings that barely qualify as sheds.  The way up the mountain is stunning: stunning in both its exquisite nature and its intense poverty.

The meeting to which we have been invited is essentially a one-year celebration of the formation of this group and Winds of Peace support of it.  The women arrive on foot, many having come from long distances.  One young woman has hiked for three hours down the mountain to where we have gathered.  Her neighbor has traveled even further, although with the luxury of a horse.  We meet inside the house of one of the members, a smiling, ebullient woman who is as fussy about her guests as any socialite ever was, even within the sparse darkness of her dwelling.  But the energy level is high; the chattering and laughter fills the room.  Shyly, every woman in the room offers a hand of welcome.

This scenario is not uncommon among the visits we make during my time in Nicaragua.   Certainly, groups are always eager to thank those who have provided resources of any kind.  And Nicaraguans in general have always shown themselves to be gracious and friendly in whatever the setting.  So the start of our visit with the women of COMUNEC was not singular by any means.  What it evolved to was something else.

The women began telling their stories of the past year, of how they sought to create an economic initiative of their own, of how their husbands were invited to deed one manzana (1.68 acres) of land to their wives, of how 34 actually did so, of how that transfer created access to funding for the cultivation and care of the land, and how the harvest was now fulfilling dreams.  These are moving stories of individuals who likely have never belonged to any organized group in their lives, who have lived lives of exclusion under the authority of their husbands, and who yearn for their own voices and standing in precisely the same way that women from western societies do.  And maybe for the first time in their lives, they are beginning to feel the empowerment of such achievements.

The stories are told quietly but with confidence, until one young woman stood to share her experience; it was the woman who had hiked for hours.  And her recitation immediately elevated both the impact of the meeting as well as the self-assurances of everyone else in the room.

Her name is Gladis del Socorro Herrera.  She articulated what was held in the hearts of the others in the room and injected an energy and passion that was tangible.  ”To say that I have my own plot of land, that’s a beautiful thing.  It is the first thing I have ever owned that is truly mine.  I can hardly believe that I was out there on this piece of land that was mine! ”  The excitement in her voice was tempered only by the slight quiver of emotion as she spoke it.  I had been attentive to the others prior to this, but Gladis spoke with a fervor that grabbed me entirely.

“This chance makes us owners of something, something that belongs to us, and an experience that we can share with one another, these sisters.  Sharing our excitement, our experiences, our training and our learning, is wonderful!  To have had our heads filled with knowledge, we are brand new people!”   I would never presume to say that I know what Gladis was really feeling, but I do know that her words sent chills up my spine and drew a tear from my eye, such was the power of her testimony.  Her unfiltered, uncensored joy over this simple plot of land- its importance in her life, and how it had even strengthened the relationship with her husband as they compared notes and counseled with one another about the harvest- spoke eloquently about its impact.  Her enthusiasm prompted others to speak with emotion, as well.

“I had never taken a loan before.  I was always frightened about such things.  But the trainings have removed my fears; I’m past that.  I understand how the loan works and it has changed me.”  These small loans from the coop were transformative in small but very personal ways.  I noted especially the reactions of several women in the room who had not yet joined the cooperative and who were as riveted by the stories as I was.  I thought that I perceived looks of hopefulness, if such can be identified.

The elements of life which give us hope, which satisfy our longings and fill us with happiness are likely far different from what we in “developed” countries identify as gratifying; I often find myself asking the question of who is really the more developed?  For one small group of Nicaraguan women, joy has come not from riches or technologies or accumulation of things, but from a plot of earth that they have as their own and the pleasures of sharing such a rare experience with others.

“If you’ve come to take something away from this visit, take our happiness in being able to work together; that is our wealth.”  I did come away with a clear sense of their happiness, and it’s a lesson that perhaps we would all do well to understand….

Category: Making An Impact, Microfinance, Reflections, Rural development, WPF partners | No Comments »
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Posted By Steve Sheppard on January 28, 2012

In light of the current status of banks and banking in the U.S. (wretched), I suppose the last institution with which I’d like to be affiliated is a bank.  Central banks and those deemed “too big to fail” contributed mightily to the near-collapse of the U.S. economy several years ago, and their persistent breaches of integrity place them firmly at the lowest end of the scale of trustworthiness.  It’s a bad place for banks to be, when they represent an institution that really should thrive on their customers’ trust.  (Just this week I was prompted to contact one well-known national bank to inquire about when they might be predisposed to distribute a small remainder of my parents’ estate, the bulk of which was settled months ago.  Oh yeah, they replied, we probably can release those funds now.  Hm.  Who knows how long they might have elected to hold onto the funds if I had not inquired.)

Last week, however, I had an entirely different experience with a banking operation in Nicaragua.  I visited again with The Nicaraguan Association for Sustainable Development (ANIDES) and its visionary leader, Gloria Elena Ordoñez Vargas.  This is an individual and an organization that understands what banking is supposed to be like, and it puts to shame most of the other organizations I know that go by the name “bank.”

Winds of Peace has funded ANIDES previously, in an effort to assist the organization with the establishment of five communal banks.  These are small, local banking offices to promote the economic and organizational autonomy of more than 200 women who live in extreme poverty in very rural locations.  Indeed, the offices more often than not are simply the homes of the local leaders.  But what these banks have been able to do, what they have represented for the women members is nothing short of remarkable.

With a very modest funding by Winds of Peace, in a little more than a year ANIDES has been able to establish a revolving credit fund for the 220+ members, establish two business groups to coordinate independent “home” businesses, provide training in the creation of a savings culture, nurture a positive capital growth in each of the small banks established, offer education and assistance to women victims of domestic violence, enhance the access to basic food needs and boost the local economies of the communities served.  This is banking in its most holistic form, integrating elements that are social, organizational, cultural, economic, human, spiritual and environmental in scope.  When was the last time your bank inquired about your social, human or spiritual needs?

What is even more remarkable about this initiative’s success is that it is being achieved with women members who have almost no previous economic experience or training.  Meeting with the women for the first time last September, I was struck by their shyness and humility, but also with their tenacity (many came from miles away on foot) and their outright success: only one of the small community banks was showing deficits by its neophyte members.  Members themselves were providing the tracking, the follow-up and the solidarity with one another to make sure that their borrowing was matched by their repayments.  In other words, the bank existed to facilitate both the needs and the strengths of its members, not to impose onerous conditions that would encourage failure.  What a novel concept for banking.  What an amazing impact on the lives of some very poor people.

The intended extension of this banking project is that the women, who now have softened some of their previous fears about borrowing money, might be encouraged to invest in the improvement of their rudimentary homes and living conditions, including the installation of ecological toilets.  This amenity- sounding so essential to so many of us- has been considered an absolute luxury by many rural residents.  With the presence of the communal banks to accompany them, such an amenity now seems within reach, and along with it rises the self-esteem of the women who can provide it.  The existence of a small bank can allow these women to take control of their lives in ways they previously could not.

What can a bank do?  Merely channel the empowerment of its members, provide access to credit and tools for investment, facilitate education to recognize and respond to gender oppression, encourage healthy habitat conditions, grow self-esteem, foster economic autonomy and teach people how to take more control of their own lives.  In a world where the future for many banking institutions seems to include implosion, we could learn a great many lessons from these communal banks in Nicaragua.  It might even beg the question, “Who really is the more developed….?”

Category: Making An Impact, Microfinance, Reflections, Rural development, WPF partners | No Comments »
Tags: Banking, Credit, Poverty, Success