Tag Archives: Education in Nicaragua

Iguanas on the Wall

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Surprised to see iguanas at school?

With the emphasis on education during my recent visit to Nicaragua, we had the pleasure of re-visiting the Association of Women Builders of Condega (AMCC).  AMCC is a non – profit organization whose main purpose is to promote economic, political and ideological empowerment processes to young and adult women from Northern Nicaragua, to enhance the basic conditions for the exercise of their full citizenship.  It’s quite an undertaking when one considers the context of the education, the circumstances of most of the students, the nature of a very patriarchal Nicaraguan society and cryptic attitudes about women, their roles and their capacities.

“Young women are better off staying at home.”

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Ready to Learn and Work
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Stay at Home? Why?

 

 

 

And, oh yes, at the same time the school is providing a very hands-on technical education for their students, teaching practical construction and building skills and demonstrating the latest technologies in use of earth materials.  And their results are stunning in both attractiveness and quality.  A visit to their site and walk through the grounds where the students work hands-on provides a clear picture of what these very young students can achieve.

“Women don’t do well in trades work like carpentry or electricity.”

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Well Enough?

 

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Carpentry and Electricity Included

 

 

In addition to receiving practical vocational training, these students are also immersed in the science of environmentalism. They are taught concepts in the making and use of earth building materials, installation and use of solar energy, efficient land use and building projects that are adapted into the AMCC campus after their completion.  My own preconceptions about the use of adobe as a construction material have changed rather dramatically since my visits here!

“Earth materials like adobe aren’t durable enough or attractive enough for serious construction.”

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Attractive Enough?
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Durable Enough?

 

 

 

But as is nearly always the case in Nicaragua, the greatest values are to be found in the people engaged in the process.  In some cases, it’s the presence of students in a curriculum that they likely never dreamed about for themselves.  Sometimes it’s the story of a student who excels in a field of study to the extent that she remains at AMCC as an instructor to other young participants who can identify with her easily, and from whom young women are at ease in following her lead.  And there is always the guiding presence of the founding generation, those whose vision and persistence and passion have blended together in a force of determination on behalf of young people’s lives throughout the area of Esteli and city of Condega.

“Young Nicaraguans  today have little ambition or drive to succeed.”

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Collaborative Work
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Stay Out of Their Way!

 

 

 

AMCC is helping their young students to recognize who they are, what they can become, that they are a part of their environment, and that they are stewards of those surroundings.  Regardless of what may be said by “others.”

Working within the education arena of Nicaragua, we find that there is much to worry about with regard to student development in the country.  Student access, student retention, availability of materials and adequate teacher training are just some of the challenges facing the country, which has slipped during recent years in comparison with the other Central American nations.  But there are also islands of hopefulness in this great sea of needs, and walking the grounds at the AMCC campus offers a rare glimpse of what could be….

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When We Learn

I caught a segment on the news today that captured my attention. The piece had to do with the issue of memory loss and whether there are practices we can use to slow down the seemingly inevitable loss of memory that afflicts so many of us.  The discussion included several lifestyle factors which can affect memory strength: exercise, sound nutrition, sufficient sleep, stress control and mental stimulation such as encountered in learning something new.  This last category is the one which struck me with special impact.

I’m not sure how many retirement-age people seek out new fields of learning in their later years, but I suspect that it’s a significant number.  It may not be learning in the sense of a new language or taking up a musical instrument- as suggested in the story- but some retirees are inclined to delve into topics that they never had the time to explore when working vocationally.  The availability of extra time is simply too valuable to leave unfilled.

And what gifts such opportunity provides!  In addition to mental and memory sharpening, learning can  launch the acquisition of new skills, discovery of new outlets of expression, permit an unfolding of a new worldview, and further enrich lives that may have previously been thought to be static.  Even new careers are launched from the base of educational re-birth.  As long as the energy and desire to learn are present, transformation can happen, and at any age.

The recognition is a happy one for someone like me, on the upper fringes of middle age (whatever that is).  But following a week in Nicaragua during which our emphasis again was education development, such awareness exposes an uncomfortable inequity, another one of those troubling realities which has seemingly few avenues for redress and yet massive consequences to us all.  For in Nicaragua, like many other developing nations, access to education is limited, at best, and at every age.

 At the time when Nica children are most eager and receptive to the lessons of life from the neighborhood academy, they are all too often denied entry.  Too many are needed by their families to work in order that living necessities can be met, or they are unable to access a school with books and teachers, or they cannot afford the niggling costs of a uniform and materials.  As a result, rural Nicaraguan children have very small chances of remaining in school past the third grade, and the statistics are not improving. Another generation of so many uneducated children is an enormous burden that the country simply cannot absorb successfully, no matter how strong the optimism or how deep the denial.

Hearing from the StudentsLast week, WPF visited  the  Fe y Alegria vocational school in Somotillo, located in the far west corner of the country.  Like so much of the country, it’s a remote, rural sector, featuring high heat and ever-higher winds, few opportunities outside of “street” jobs, and a place where kids have few chances to learn much about their lives and what they could be.  In fact, most of them come from destitute families or no families at all; the street is not only where they work, but where they live.

The Somotillo Technical School is an oasis in this context, where children ranging from pre-school to high school can be exposed to the possibilities in life, away from the streets.  Young people are introduced to trades like welding, furniture-making, sewing, baking, electricity and computers.  (In one class, I inspected this computer made by the students from old parts.  Could you do that?  On my best day I could not.)  Handmade ComputerAs importantly, they are taught life skills, things like respect and healthy relationships, personal hygiene, lifestyle choices.  But most importantly, the kids are given the chance to absorb what they crave: learning and self-actualization.  Melby, perhaps as old as twelve, said it for himself: “I have done baking from my lessons in

Melby Speaks

the class and it has allowed me to sell and generate a little money for my everyday needs.”  With no one else available to do so, this free school- the only free technical school in the entire region- is helping Melby to learn the basics of self-sufficiency.

Our world requires all the collective knowledge, innovation and insight that we can possibly muster and the under-education of our future generations might be one of the most self-defeating postures ever assumed by humankind.  Issues of poverty and justice, climate change and energy, war and peace, demand intellect and vision beyond what we have at our disposal presently.  The answers to the great dilemmas of humanity may well lie in the untapped mental fertility of those for whom education is a great unknown, a process only to be dreamed of, or perhaps even feared, but never to be personalized.  The notion is frightening enough to conjure a particular vision of Hell, where humans there discover that they had all the answers to life itself within their collective grasp, but failed to see them due to their own shortsightedness.

Truth and irony abound in this education tale.  The truth is that the capacity for learning- indeed, the love of learning- never goes away during our lifetimes.  It may become dormant for lack of use or opportunity, but it is as central to our beings as the heartbeat itself.  The irony is that while most in this country have endless access to even the narrowest fields of learning, we tend to take such privilege for granted and are  willing to forego such capacities in favor of less dynamic pursuits.  And meanwhile, many of the young children of Nicaragua are desperately seeking even the smallest chance to advance their understanding of the world around them. It creates an immense imbalance, one that would seem worthy and capable of address, if we were collectively motivated to do so.

Leave it to a week in Nicaragua to teach me a new perspective.  I am grateful for the gift of life-long learning, a gift intended for all….

Intensity to Learn

 

 

 

How Far Can You See?

IMG_4884Spend any time around an ocean beach or any huge body of water and sooner or later someone gazing out over the water will be asked, “How far can you see?”  It’s an inevitable question and one which the beachcomber invariably cannot answer.  How far is that horizon, anyway?  Can you see what’s there?

We humans can see about 3 miles into the distance, before the horizon disappears with the curvature of the earth.  We can also detect a galaxy 2.6 million light years away, to a time when the first galaxies formed.  With the barest of light, we can see in the dark.  Our eyesight is a remarkable sense, indeed.

There’s another category of sightedness that begs the same sort of question, “how far can you see?”  It’s the view forward, what we can see or anticipate for the future, and what that portends for our current circumstances.  Understandably, we tend to be less accomplished in this effort, because what we endeavor to see is not yet physically visible.  So we do our best to impute, deduce, and imagine.

Many entities try to see, with varying degrees of success.  Within the communities of Nicaragua, leaders often pretend to see bright opportunity for their constituents, when the real view is only one of self-aggrandizement or patriarchal gatekeeping.  For its part, the U.S. government is afflicted with a malady which prevents its elected representatives from seeing much beyond the end of the day; it virtually defines short-sightedness.  Some business leaders work very hard to see into the future, though for many their acuity dims after about one quarter on the calendar.  Fortune-tellers would have us believe that they can see the future with clarity, but I don’t think they do much better than the rest of us.   Unfortunately, too many of us simply hope that the future will be as we might wish it, without working to shape it.

The reality is that in order to “know” the future and create a means to it, we have to be pretty clear about what is happening at present.  That work is more difficult than it sounds, as we tend to fall prey to factors like misinformation, data that makes us look different than we actually are, shorter-term motives and even egos.  If we start from a point of obfuscation, the chances of shaping a realistic future direction are very slim.  But knowing the truth requires self-honesty and discipline, characteristics that are cultivated through courage and practice.

Unfortunately, most of us lack sufficient courage or practice  to express openly those shortcomings and mistakes that have impeded our sight.  Since it isn’t a comfortable or easy thing to do, we don’t practice it much.  And that lack of practice, in turn, renders us less courageous, less open to understanding our truths and being able to use them as the basis for where we’d like to go.  It’s a vicious circle that ever-lessens our ability to see what might be.  And without such vision, we limit where we can choose to go.  We simply can’t see that far.

Later this Spring, a certificate program for cooperatives will be taught in the rural reaches of Nicaragua.  The program will be more than a week in duration, as rural producers will come together to learn holistically about seeing a future of their own making, to create the conditions and circumstances which can better allow those visions to become reality, to open their eyes to their own truths.  Like staring into a bright light after an immersion in darkness, there will be discomfort, disorientation and maybe even even distress.  But like the gradual adjustment our eyes make to that bright light, the emerging views will become clear and free from the drowsy effects of the dark.  And the courage, the practice, the habit, of far-sightedness just may take root in people eager to see further than ever before.  (I’ll be sure to write about the process in April, after the workshop has been completed.)

Meanwhile, I’ll do my best to keep asking the question of myself, “How far can you see?”  It’s one of those introspective probes that just might help me prepare myself for the future….

 

 

 

 

Don Jose’

People come and go in our lives all the time.  There are family members, of course.  Then there are those who are outside the family scope, but who nonetheless impact our lives in significant ways, sometimes seen and other times unseen.  This past week, The Center for Global Education, Nicaragua and the world lost one of those souls whose presence touched lives.

Jose was the driver, mechanic, ombudsman and one of the great fixtures and jump starter of CGE in Nicaragua: he was its first employee.  He came to CGE 31 years ago, likely with little foresight about how that organization and the thousands of its travel clients would come to be an extension of family for him, nor how he would become so much a part of the family of his co-workers.  This week, all of his families are grieving at his loss.

For most of us, traveling to a foreign country like Nicaragua takes us out of our comfort zone, an experience that is both desired yet anxiety-prone at the same time.  For CGE participants over the past 30+ years, the imbalances created through exposure to a very different culture and reality were stabilized by the reassuring leaders of CGE.  They are very good at recognizing our uncertainties, the chafing which inevitably begins to work on our sensitivities to justice and human dignity.  They have methodologies which focus on processing our discomforts and making sense of what is senseless.  They are skilled guides who deftly facilitate our transitions of thought and feeling, it is their expertise which provides the basis for our sought-after transformations.

But in the need to further connect with and understand those new experiences, we require other hand-holds to steady ourselves and somehow personalize the new context which has challenged our views.  Most of us have needed some additional relationship or voice upon which to test our new sense of balance and stability.  For many, that balance was offered by Jose.

He was always with us.  Navigating the streets and carreteras, of course, but also helping us to reach other destinations that weren’t on a map or an itinerary.  Jose was respectfully quiet with CGE groups, but once engaged, his voice invited a new discourse, his life an object lesson of the life and culture of Nicaragua.  While a bulk of CGE teaching took place in the visits to communities and homes and in group gatherings, Jose served as a field tutor, one who would offer his own perspective, as real and as valuable as any we might hear.  His gift to travelers, to all of us, was his mere presence, both unremarkable and essential at the same time.

Jose also provided the invaluable service of friendship.  When we travel afar, of necessity most of us will eagerly seek the presence of a local, someone to trust, someone we might go home to talk about, in this case a real Nicaraguan whom we might come to know personally, someone who would demonstrate to us the warmth and receptivity of the country.  Especially for North Americans, such affirmation is desperately sought, perhaps as a sign of forgiveness, that we gringos are OK.  Jose gave us that, not only the first time I met him in 1990, but every time thereafter, right up to our last greetings in August 2014.

There are many of Jose’s colleagues who can and will offer more personal remembrances of this man, I’m sure.  I only speak as an outsider who occasionally had the good fortune to experience and to observe his being among those who would learn.  He may have been hired and paid as a driver, but he helped to take thousands of people to places they had not expected, neither on the road nor in their hearts.   Godspeed, Don Jose….

 

Dear Harold

Winds of Peace co-founder Harold Nielsen passed away one year ago, on November 11, 2013.  We thought a remembrance of Harold would be in order, in addition to a reflection on what has transpired during the past year.  The following is dedicated to the memory of both Harold and Louise, and their presence in the life of the Foundation- a presence that we miss daily.

Dear Harold:

Seems like yesterday that we said good-bye.  In fact, it was one year ago today.  It’s hard for me to believe that Winds of Peace has another year of experiences since we last spoke.  I thought I’d give you an update on how things are going, what we’ve encountered and what might lie ahead.

You’d be disappointed to learn that our government continues to pretend that the economy is healthy following the great recession.  It has continued to drive deeper into debt, print money as a salve and create statistics that have almost no semblance of reality.  It really has been, as we used to observe, a case of “the emperor’s new clothes.”  It has made the management of Foundation funds an uncertain activity at best.  Sometimes markets can be anticipated in their movements; manipulations cannot.

Speaking of government, I’d have to report that Nicaragua continues to transition into a one-party autocracy that continues to tighten its grip on the country.   The democratic structures remain in place, but pretty much in form only.    It’s pretty hard for Nicaraguan people to obtain justice when everything is tied to party affiliation.  Lots of funding agencies from around the world have left, meaning that our presence has become even more important than before.

We’re finishing up a year that has been pretty good in terms of work with our partners.  The coffee cooperatives have faced their usual litany of difficulties, some weather-related, some systemically difficult and others due to organizational dysfunction.  (I’m afraid that we still encounter so-called “leaders” whose only desire for leadership is self-aggrandizement.)  We continue to seek partners who understand that only through full transparency and member participation- women as well as men-  will they achieve the “strength in numbers” that will best ensure their collective success.  Just as in the U.S., who would have guessed that opening the books and encouraging people to look out for their own well-being would be such a tough sell?

We’ve undertaken a great deal more research than even a few years ago.  Our collaboration with colleagues in Nicaragua has provided insight and direction with regard to our funding impacts, especially in our work with the rural cooperatives.  It feels more like we’re following a map to our destination, supplied with the realities of historical and cultural roadblocks that exist along the journey.  I know how much you always valued objective information in your decision-making, and we have more of that than ever before.  I wish you could read some of the website blog entries posted by our Nica sources!

Our partners have responded well in honoring the loan repayments they have promised, and our rate of default is still less than 2%, even after the recent years of coffee plant damage due to the coffee rust plague. That rate is still pretty amazing, given the lack of credit experience for most of our partners  and the uncertainty of peasant producer life.   And most of these organizations have, indeed, worked to implement a true cooperative spirit of engagement.  Do you remember the funding we authorized for translating The Great Game of Business into Spanish?  One partner coop not only received the book with interest, but even proudly referenced its application some months later when we met.  It’s having an impact.

You will certainly remember several years ago, just after Louise passed away, and you talked about wanting to do something significant in a new arena.  When we proposed a focus on improving the education opportunities, you endorsed the initiative immediately.  Well, just this year alone we have underwritten scholarships for candidates in the Master’s Degree in Teaching at the University of Central America (UCA) in Managua, funded teacher training and evaluation initiatives at IDEUCA,  supported vocational and technical training at AMCC and Fe y Alegria, sponsored the Nobel Peace Prize Forum and disbursed funds for the purchase of library books for elementary kids across Nicaragua.  I don’t know exactly how many students or teachers we have touched, but it’s in the thousands.  You wanted us to do something special in Louise’s name; I think we are doing that.

Our work with the Indigenous has been more difficult.  These original peoples continually struggle with a desire to maintain their traditions and culture, against a temptation to succumb to political party influences and money, as I mentioned above.  One of our longest Indigenous relationships is undergoing just such an upheaval currently.  It looks more and more as though we may part company for the time being, until and unless they can regain their footing on behalf of all of their people.  But you know all about making difficult decisions that nonetheless trouble the heart.

The Indigenous youth cooperative is still functioning with openness and a refreshing embrace of solidarity.  But  even the youth are being pressured by outside sources to reflect the party line in their activities.  Hopefully, their observations of party influences  have given them with a sort of negative modeling of how not to organize and interact.  I hope they can hold fast to the instinctive notions they have about collaboration.

I hope you’re still feeling patient with the development of the Synergy Center.  Mark and I continue to strategize and explore possibilities with a wide range of education institutions.  We’ve met with quite a few people from around the entire country to describe the opportunity and potential benefits for both a U.S. university and people in Nicaragua.  I think that many of our contacts intuitively sense the value in establishing cultural and educational bridges with Nicaraguan students and rural populations; it can be truly hands-on learning and life-changing interaction.  I’m having another discussion with several educators in the Twin Cities on December 4, so don’t count the idea out yet!

Well, I have to close for now and post this letter.  In signing off, I want to reaffirm that we take very seriously the development legacy that you and Louise entrusted to us, to promote  economic, social,
and environmental just relations for impoverished Nicaraguans. Your vision of a more just and peaceful existence  is still driving our actions and objectives.  Your passion for that still drives our own hearts.

But make no mistake about it, Harold, we miss your insights and wisdom every day.  I look forward to the next time we have the chance to sit and talk about human nature….

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus (Sometimes)

With apologies to John Gray, who authored an entire book under this title, I couldn’t imagine a better, more accurate assessment of a day-long meeting we had a couple of weeks ago in Chacra seca, an area just outside of Leon, Nicaragua.

It’s an area that has received perhaps more than its share of development projects and funding; the colonial flavor of Leon ensures a strong presence of international aid.  We visited with area farmers, men and women both, who have participated in  a series of social development activities aimed at strengthening their abilities in claiming their rights, voicing their needs and expectations to leaders, understanding their collective assets and systematically solving their own problems.

The process has been facilitated by the social workers and technicians at PRODESSA, a longstanding partner with WPF and an organization which has brought its extensive experience and deep knowledge of community development to this western region of the country.  In part, they are here specifically because of that extensive development history, a litany of aid which has resulted in far less success than perhaps it should have.  (PRODESSA relates the story of how this new audience wondered whether they might receive money for attending the meetings that were designed to assist them.)  Our morning was spent with them, learning about their approaches and results at Chacra seca.  The afternoon was spent interacting with the participants themselves.  Both sessions energized me, from the process-oriented methodology of PRODESSA to the real-life experiences of the participants themselves.  And at the end of the day I was left with a somewhat curious observation about how men and women can be so different in the course of transformation.

In the first part of the afternoon, we were given the opportunity to meet with the women from the community, to hear about their interactions with PRODESSA, what they had learned and how it may have impacted their lives thus far.  Their comments sounded nothing short of transformational:

“We’re now not afraid to go anywhere.”                                                                “Fear has been left behind.”                                                                                        “I have felt fulfilled.  I am a person of age and yet I have learned….”        “From unity has come strength.”                                                                               “There’s a path to follow.  We’ve received a grain of sand on which to  build.”

The women repeatedly cited personal, substantive changes in their lives and outlooks, brought about through sessions of training and introspection, reflection and identification of the strengths and assets that collectively they hold.  They have begun to see themselves in a completely new light, one which affirms their wisdom and potential.

Following our session with the women, the men of Chacra seca joined us in discussion of the impacts that they have felt from their work with PRODESSA.  As in the session with the women, the forum was an open one, without prompt or guide from anyone.  We sat in the same circle as with the women and essentially asked for responses to the same questions: what was it like to work with PRODESSA, what had they learned and what kind of impacts had been experienced thus far.  Their comments were nothing short of, well, short:

“We now have chia.”                                                                                              “Our health care is much improved.”                                                        “There is a better poison.”                                                                                 “Our roads are so much better.”                                                                                 “They have helped us with the plantain difficulties.”

For the men, what PRODESSA brought to the table was tangible and technical.  They may have valued discussions and ideas about self-sufficiency in problem-solving, but the real importance to them resided in the very concrete learning which they encountered, wherein specific techniques, products and practices became identified and could be used immediately.  The men tended to see the solutions to various problems in a new light, rather than sensing change within themselves.  The contrast of their reactions with the women’s was palpable.

That’s not to suggest that one group’s outcome was better than the other’s.  Indeed, one might argue that one solid answer to a problem is worth many times the value of increased self-esteem or potential problem-solving capacity.  The two perspectives were simply different and for the right reasons.  While women certainly understand and value the practicality of a specific improvement as well as the men, they also occupy a far different niche in the social structure than their male counterparts.  They recognize the need to cultivate their collective voice, to stretch their independence and rise to the same social standing and value as their men, issues which the men generally don’t even need to think about.

The beauty and the strength of the PRODESSA methodology is that it meets its audience in whatever strata they are in.  It addresses the needs of people based upon whatever those specific needs may be, not according to a formula or a mere assumption of what might be helpful.  It allows its participants to gain what they require based upon their own experiences and wisdom, and it’s why PRODESSA has been so successful in the territories served.  It has lifted both the women and the men of Chacra seca, even when they have come to their transformations from very different planets….

 

Looking for Kolvenbach

I was not raised in the Catholic faith.  Perhaps it is not surprising, therefore, that I did not attend a Catholic school of higher learning.  I thus confess to knowing very little about the major tenets that drive education under Catholic guidance.  But in my work with Winds of Peace, I have had occasion to learn a little of the thinking and teachings of Jesuit universities in the U.S. as well as the University of Central America (UCA) in Nicaragua.  I’ve been intrigued by some of what I have encountered.  And while I have not converted to Catholicism, I have been enamored with one of the Jesuit’s outstanding thinkers and educators, Father Peter-Hans Kolvenbach.  Figuratively speaking, WPF has been searching for him- and application of his words- since its inception.

Now, as for my Catholic-ness, I have spoken to a number of classes at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.  The classes are  always business, accounting or religion courses, and I am continually impressed with the fact that I am addressing such classes on topics like employee ownership, broad-based equity sharing, organizational participation and open book management.  It suggests to me that there might be significant cross-pollination of ideas, a mixing of the technical with the humanities, a truly serious effort to provide an holistic view of the world even to such seemingly disparate students as religion and business majors.

I haven’t heard Kolvenbach’s name or work mentioned during my brief visits to St. Thomas, but it seems to me that the connectivity among disciplines that I’ve experienced there is absolutely in line with something Kolvenbach wrote years ago, something which recently caught my attention in a major way.  In an address at Santa Clara University in October 2000, this is what Kolvenbach had to say about learning, the world, and our place in it:

“Universities must make it possible for students …to allow the disturbing reality of this world to enter into their lives, so that they learn to feel it, to think critically about it, to respond to its suffering and to commit themselves to it in a constructive fashion. They will have to learn to perceive, think, judge, choose and act in favor of the rights of others, especially of the most disadvantaged.… The measure of Jesuit universities is not what our students do, but who they become and the adult Christian responsibility they will exercise in the future towards their neighbor and their world.”[1]

His immediate audience was university students, but the words apply as well to middle-aged adult learners and senior citizen sages,  as much or even more so today than in 2000.  The message is for all of us.  Allowing ourselves to become personally infected with the discomfort of the disadvantaged is the essence of learning the truth about ourselves and the makeup of our character.  It’s the “point of the trip,” the purpose of this journey that each of us is taking in life.

Kolvenbach’s concept summarizes a significant component of Winds of Peace work.  It’s the reason the Foundation has supported cross-cultural education experiences over the years, why we have been a supporter of The Center for Global Education methodologies, and why we seek to further the Kolvenbach vision through partnership with a U.S. university in creation of a “Synergy Center” in Nicaragua. (Read a full description of the concept from the WPF website homepage, located toward the bottom of the page.)  Partnership with a university seeking to immerse its students, researchers and supporters in real life context is the next stage in the WPF calling to generate transformational and global life experiences.

Kolvenbach understood and encouraged the intimate bridge-building between cultures and classes.  He challenged his Jesuit audiences to take the “risk of infection,” not just to accept difficult realities when confronted with them, but actually to seek them out in order to feel what others feel.  He speaks of risk and commitment and discomfort.   As WPF seeks its synergy partnership, in a very real way it’s looking for Kolvenbach…..

 

 

[1] The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice, by Rev. Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J., Santa Clara University, October 2000.

 

 

Losing Your Nose to Spite Your Face

I’m puzzled.   As a fellow of reasonable intelligence (despite the claims of a few irrational friends), I do the best I can to understand the motivations that drive people to think and do as they do, but occasionally I encounter actions that make no sense to my need for sensibility.  One such item occurred this past week in the strange case of Donald Sterling, current owner of the National Basketball Association L.A. Clippers.  Now, before you quit reading this as another Sterling-bash, consider staying with me.  Much has already been shared about the Sterling recording that should be insulting to every one of us, and I have little more to add to such perspectives about racism in the United States.  But in addition to and beyond his racist tripe, Sterling has also managed to reveal something puzzling, something that should be uncomfortable for us for other reasons.

Actually, there’s probably not a great deal of similarity between Donald Sterling and the rest of us.  He’s a billionaire,  a high-profile owner of a professional sports team, a man who openly flaunts  mistresses of his granddaughter’s age and who does so in full view of his wife.   He’s not the first high-profile person to shoot himself in the foot, nor even the biggest.  But when those infamous recordings were made public, Sterling also revealed himself to be a sadly myopic creature, one who is ironically unable to comprehend and capitalize on his own good fortunes.  And this is where we might have something in common.

In just one recorded tantrum, Sterling managed to disparage an entire race of people, but also: insult the fan base that has fed his basketball investment, betray the human assets on whom he relies to conduct that business, cheat financial sponsors who have supported the team and enflame an entire nation which loves to feed upon the missteps and awkward utterances of those who should know better.  In short, Sterling tore apart the foundation of his own well-being.

For the rest of us, our consequences may be less dramatic and immediate, but our stumbles are no less inscrutable.  We humans possess the innate ability and curse to ignore our self-devised catastrophes despite the wealth of history, science, self-awareness and technologies available to us.  We too easily look away from impending consequences of widening poverty, climate change, loss of liberties and other looming realities in the same way that Sterling dismissed the importance of a personal moral standard.  Our blind tendencies are even endemic within the conduct and pronouncements of our nations.

For instance, the United States.  It’s clear that our government is either oblivious to or content with the inexorable erosion of a middle class which has been the bedrock of the nation’s growth and strength for decades.  As the disparity between the super-rich and the lower economic class continues to widen,  only the wealthiest citizens will be capable of buying goods and services to fuel economic prosperity.  That’s something which this small portion of the population is incapable of expanding, simply due to their limited number.  It’s the death-knell to coveted growth.  But like Donald Sterling, we seem to be unmindful of the very strengths that got us to this unprecedented level of national economic wealth. Like Sterling, we take for granted that such standing will always be there for us.  Yet the illusion foreshadows a very Sterling-like destruction of our own well-being.

It’s no less true in a place like Nicaragua, where our human propensities play out in the very same ways.  The powerful and elite systematically marginalize the powerless and peasantry, to the detriment of sustainable development.  Meanwhile, this second-poorest country of the Western Hemisphere has been attempting for decades to build upon its foundational strengths- agriculture, natural resources, social and cultural heritage- while at the same time ignoring the reality that most Nicaraguan children aren’t even graduating from grade school.  It’s like trying to lay a building foundation on wet sand, and it’s self-defeating.  As in the case of Mr. Sterling, somehow it’s easier to ignore the truth rather than acknowledge the very elements necessary for survival.

Condemnation of Donald Sterling has been swift and nearly unanimous, even among those of us who do not follow the NBA or NFL, MLB or NHL.   And I remain puzzled over this, not because I would in any way condone the boorish behavior of a clueless narcissist, but because I wonder whether we are not all guilty of the same kind of shallow, short-term and self-inflicting pain that Sterling has created for himself.  Maybe we are galvanized in our collective emotions around all of this because deep down we fear that we see something of ourselves in the guise of an 81 year-old who surely, finally comprehends his own hubris, albeit too late….