WCCN's Newsletter, Fall 2006, Volume 22, No. 3

By Mary Ann Fahl
WCCN Study Tour Participant

Seven days. Seven days to learn about the people, their culture and history, and their needs and accomplishments. Is that possible? Yes, if you are part of a Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua (WCCN) educational tour, organized by the Executive Director, Carlos Arenas.

In addition, one learns what WCCN and the NICA Fund are doing to improve the quality of life for industrious Nicaraguans. Microfinance has been discussed in previous editions of this newsletter. Once in the country, one can see more easily how it works to improve the economic life of poor, but motivated, people, both rural and urban. The concept is so much more impressive when one hears from the recipients of the small loans just how much it means to them.

By Susan Frisbie
WCCN Development & Marketing Director

Over the past year, Nicaragua has slowly been gaining media coverage in the U.S. The fact that Nicaragua, a country that most Americans have long forgotten, has appeared on the mainstream U.S. media radar can only indicate one thing— elections are approaching. This is not uncommon; after all, the same trend of media coverage can be seen all over Latin America especially when a leading candidate does not fit the Washington neoliberal mold. In Nicaragua, that candidate is Daniel Ortega. And inevitably where Ortega’s name appears in print, Hugo Chavez’s name follows, setting off red flags all over Washington.

By Marc Becker
Truman State University Professor and WCCN Study Tour Participant

I have become interested in two themes related to constructions of gender in Latin America. One is more academic and concerns the meanings of “feminism” in a Latin American context. The other is related more to political strategies, specifically the relationship between social movements and electoral politics. The WCCN Women’s Empowerment Project study tour to Nicaragua helped me rethink both of these themes, challenging my assumptions and coming to deeper understandings of how gender works not only in Latin America but throughout the Americas.

By Carlos Arenas
WCCN Executive Director

Between June 6 and 9, 2006, the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, hosted the first Midwest Social Forum (MWSF), a regional gathering of social activists committed to finding the way to make its slogan a reality: “Another World is Possible”.

The MWSF was inspired by the successful example of the World Social Forum (WSF) gatherings, first organized in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 2001 by a very broad coalition of progressive social movements and activists from Latin America and elsewhere. Originally the WSF was conceived as an alternative event to the World Economic Forum, the elitist meeting of the heads of state from the wealthiest countries and CEOs of multinational corporations held every year in the Swiss city of Davos. Since the beginning, the WSF has been very successful, growing from 3,000 participants in 2001 to 100,000 in 2005. As a result, the WSF philosophy and format has been adopted and reproduced worldwide. The slogan, “Another World is Possible” has turned out to be a very powerful idea that has mobilized millions of people around the globe that share the belief that it is both necessary and possible to comprehensively change things worldwide.

Angelina Osejo fled Nicaragua with her children during the 1980s and returned nine years ago to open a small flower shop. At that time, flowers were still only used for the deceased and flower businesses were struggling. Angelina’s ingenuity expanded the market for flowers as she brought flowers back to life for the people of Nicaragua.

From her assured and confident manner, you would not guess that Angelina was initially fearful to borrow money. Her mother had taught her to always pay cash-in-hand. When asked what she would do if money ran out she would shrug her shoulders and reply, “God help me.” NICA Fund partner agency FODEM alleviated her fear by letting her know they “trust her”, and she has been borrowing from them ever since. Now business is flourishing. “[It] is a small business but doing very good,” Angelina proudly explains.