N e w H a v e n / L e ó nS i s t e r C i t y P r o j e c t

Wi n t e r 2 0 1 2 E - N e w s l e t t e r

In this Issue:Grassroots Initiative ... P. 1

Storm Chasing ... P. 2

WalkBikeTransit Street Art ... P 2

Radical Inequality and Our Responsibility P. 4

Board Delegation photos ... P. 6

Continued on p. 2

This past July and August I had theopportunity to spend six weeksserving as a Peace and JusticeIntern with the New Haven/LeonSister City Project (NH/LSCP).Through the internship I gained asolid, experience-basedunderstanding of education andcommunity development efforts andchallenges in rural Nicaragua byworking closely with NH/LSCP staff,educators, and members of thecommunity of Goyena. During thecourse of my stay I supportedexisting enrichment and preschooleducation programs, lead parentworkshops, and conducted teacherprofessional development trainings.My hope is that this work contributedto the sustainable development ofProject’s efforts to provide qualityeducational programming andpromote community participation inchildren’s learning throughoutGoyena.I arrived in Nicaragua after nearly afull day of flying- a redeye from SanFrancisco to Miami, a five hourlayover, another flight, but finally Imade it. I was greeted at the airportby Luis Chavarria, one of theNH/LSCP staff members. During theride to León from Managua Luisenthusiastically explained theNH/LSCP’s current work and askedme plenty of questions about theprojects I’d be doing. He asked mewhy I had chosen to come toNicaragua, and specifically to León.I have never been to CentralAmerica, I replied. I came to learnabout, and experience a new culture.I came to collaborate with anorganization that’s promoting

education anddevelopment…I wasalso told that there issomething calledvolcano boardingclose by that I’dwanted to try.My work withNH/LSCP beganlong before I arrivedin León, and theNH/LSCP staff in theU.S. and León did afantastic job ofhelping meunderstand the keyissues and needsGoyena. But when Iarrived in Nicaraguathere was lots tolearn. I dedicated thefirst two weeks of myinternship to fine-tuning my work planand buildingrelationships withorganization staff andresidents of Goyena.Getting to know thestaff was easy – theywere warm and welcoming. Theircommitment to, and knowledge of,Goyena was impressive. To get toknow members of the Goyenacommunity, I met leaders, attendedthe quarterly parent meeting led byorganization staff and the afterschoolteachers, met parents and preschoolteachers, and worked with studentsin the afterschool program. While Iinitially observed the classes, I begantutoring students individually and insmall groups and leading lessonsless than a week after my arrival.During my stay I got involved with anumber of initiatives. My mainproject, however, was leading a

series of six workshops, three forpreschool parents and three for afterschool program parents. Theworkshops focused on activities andstrategies related to critical thinking,math and reading. For preschoolparents, we focused on fine motorskill development and recognition ofshapes, colors, and numbers. Theworkshops were designed toempower parents by providing themwith new skills and information tosupport their children’s learning. Tokeep parents engaged andencourage participation, I made theworkshops interactive

From left Afterschool teachers Tatiana Rodriguez, Patricia Moreno,volunteer Cristhiam Betancotatiana, Intern Kristen Koue and EducationCoordinator Ivett Fonseca outside the office in León.

Grassroots InitiativeBy Kristen Koue

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This summer, most smalltowns around my home inIowa City canceled theirfireworks on the Fourth ofJuly because, after the thirdday over 100 degrees, localcounties instated burn bans.The Iowa River, which Icrossed every morning onmy way to work, was threefeet lower than last year. Myneighbors also noticed –talking about their farms,and how they’d managewithout the fifth of their corncrop that withered in the heat. Theneighbors that didn’t farm felt thedrought in almost every grocery aisle,with food prices over 50% higher.This came just four years afterdisastrous floods of 2008 mycommunity still hasn’t recovered from.That year, the summer camp I workedat closed down because the highwaywas submerged and no one couldreach the farm where we held camp,so I spent the summer sandbagging. Iknow many families that still haven’tmoved back into their homes, andsome never will.I moved out of Iowa for entirelyunrelated reasons – namely, to comehere to study - and thought I’d

escaped the wily ways of Iowa’swater. But just months into my firstyear at Yale, I missed HurricaneSandy’s dramatic entrance into NewYork City by a few hours, after stayingwith my roommate who was strandedthere for days. You had to have atleast three passengers in your car toleave Brooklyn – the sameprocedures that were put in placeafter 9/11. And here in New Haven,Yale canceling school for two dayswas practically a historic event itself.I wonder if there’s a place on earththat hasn’t felt a little under theweather over the past couple years –my travels may be limited, but I

Eleanor Marshall (2nd from right) with other students andauthor/activist Bill McKibben at Power Shift in Washington,DC in 2010.

Storm Chasingand focused on team work. Theactivities, which ranged from playingmemory games, to storytelling, tobook making, utilized only materialsthat could be easily found in thecommunity, like dried beans or asoccer ball. Since manyparticipating parents were illiterateor semi-illiterate and had attendedschool for only a few years, theactivities I presented required littlewriting and reading. Participantswere encouraged to work togetheron more difficult tasks and, per theDirector of Education’s (IvettFonseca) mandate, the phrase “Nopuedo” (I can’t), was not permitted.Throughout the workshops westressed that it was imperative forparents to set a strong example fortheir children by working throughdifficult tasks with confidence anddetermination.After completing the seminar series,we invited parents from theafterschool program to attend afamily education day. During theevent we played games parents hadlearned during the workshops, reada story out loud and had thestudents act it out, and did an artproject where students and theirparents were asked to createpictures of their families.Serving as a Peace and Justiceintern was an amazing,unforgettable experience. As astudent of International EducationDevelopment, the internshipprovided me with an opportunity toutilize the knowledge and skillsgained from my professional andacademic experiences. Even moreimportantly, it helped me connectmy studies to the real world bysupporting the efforts of agrassroots initiative dedicated tobuilding a culture of learning andpromote education in the rural,under-resourced community ofGoyena.

Kristen is an International EducationalDevelopment M.A, candidate atTeachers College, Columbia University.She has taught in Japan, Peru,Northampton and Oakland. She currentlyresides in New York, but calls NorthernCalifornia home.

Grassroots Continued from p.1

Continued on p. 3

By Eleanor Marshall

As part of NH/LSCP’s WalkBikeTransit campaign weexhibited this street art to invite New Haveners to considerthe transition from greenhouse gas producing cars tohealthier forms of transportation.

WBT Street Art: Metamorphosis

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haven’t encountered one.I’m not sure quite at what pointa series of freak eventsbecomes a pattern of change,but as the storms pile up,there’s only so much evidencewe can overlook. And don’ttake my word for it. NASAscientists have definitivelylinked the occurrence of moreand worse extreme weatherevents to global climatechange.Sandy came from waters thatwere five degrees warmer thanusual, and happened at the endof an extended storm seasonthat makes it more likely forhurricanes to run into lowpressure winter storms.Essentially, Frankenstormcould become the norm. Andit’s possible that some of theflooding that displaced much ofNew Jersey was actually thewater my neighbor’s farmsneeded this summer – asIntergovernmental Panel onClimate Change scientists havelinked climate change toredistribution of natural weatherpatterns.After all, here we are onNovember 9th, and it’s alreadybeginning to look a lot likeChristmas, at least a month tooearly. Three hundred thousandhomes that had just had theirpower restored from thehurricane were plunged backinto darkness with yet anotherunexpectedly destructive storm.The bottom line is that climatechange isn’t something that willhappen to our grandchildren orto other people in otherhemispheres anymore. It isbeing delivered to ourdoorsteps in the form ofstronger storms and shiftingseasons.We’re relatively good atresponding to natural disasterswhen they come – evacuatingparts of New York City,

installing curfews on campus.But we’re terrible at preparingfor them. If we’re reallyconcerned about naturaldisasters, we need more thanbetter infrastructure or sturdierbeachfront property. We needfewer cars on the road, fewerplanes in the sky, and fewermethane-releasing cows inconfined animal feedingoperations – and it starts withopting out of them. Acommunity committed to livingsustainably is no small potatoes– especially not to the farmersthat depend on water for theircrops. And after all, where docars get you when the highwayis flooded?In the end, we need torecognize our role in creatingthese imperfect storms, andstart changing our behavioreven on sunny days.

Eleanor Marshall is a first yearstudent at Yale from Iowa City,Iowa and is an Intern withNH/LSCP this year working onthe WalkBikeTransit campaign.

Storm ChasingContinued from p.2

Bittersweet: Dying in theNicaraguan Sugar Fields.

Photographs by Brad Horrigan

February 9 through 23. Receptionon Saturday, February 9, 5 until7. The Institute Library . 847 ChapelStreet . New Haven, CT. Mondaythrough Friday, 10:00 to 6:00,Saturdays, 11:00 to 2:00

MarkYourCalendars

ForumTheaterTraining forAdvanced Jokers

Friday, February 1 toSunday 3.

Special GuestPerformance byConcrete Justice fromNYC offering theirForum theater. Moreinfo: Meganmfountain@newhavenleon.org

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ConsiderMaking aMonthlyDonation.Your steadysupport willallow NH/LSCP to maximize ourimpact on the lives of peopleliving in poverty – and to helpthem change their circumstancesfor the better. Go tonewhavenleon.org/donation_online and selectGive Monthly.

Radical Inequality andOur Responsibilityby Thomas W. Pogge (excerpted)(Editor’s note: Delegates oftenwonder why Nicaragua is sopoor…This article identifies some ofthe causes.)One great challenge to any morallysensitive person today is the extentand severity of global poverty.Among six billion human beings, 790million lack adequate nutrition... Twohundred and fifty million childrenaged between 5 and 14 do wagework outside their household - oftenunder harsh or cruel conditions…Roughly one-third of all humandeaths, some 50,000 daily, are dueto poverty related causes and thusavoidable insofar as poverty isavoidable. If the US had itsproportional share of these deaths,poverty would kill some 820,000 ofits citizens per year…There are two ways of conceivingglobal poverty as a moral challengeto us. We may be failing to fulfill ourpositive duty to help persons in acutedistress. And we may be failing tofulfill our more stringent negativeduty not to uphold injustice, not tocontribute to or profit from the unjustimpoverishment of others.Some believe that the mere fact ofradical inequality shows a violation ofnegative duty. Radical inequality maybe deemed as involving fiveelements:(1) The worse-off are very badly offin absolute terms.(2) They are also very badly off inrelative terms - very much worse offthan many others.(3) The inequality is impervious: it isdifficult or impossible for the worseoff substantially to improve their lot;and most of the better-off neverexperience life at the bottom for evena few months and have no vivid ideaof what it is like to live in that way.(4) The inequality is pervasive: itconcerns not merely some aspects oflife, such as the climate or access tonatural beauty or high culture, butmost aspects or all.(5) The inequality is avoidable: thebetter-off can improve the

circumstances of the worse-offwithout becoming badly offthemselves.The phenomenon of global povertyclearly exemplifies radical inequalityas defined. But I doubt that thesefive conditions suffice to invokemore than a merely positive duty….

But let me here …examine whatfurther conditions must be satisfiedfor radical inequality to manifest aninjustice that involves violation of anegative duty by the better-off. I seethree plausible approaches to thisquestion, invoking three differentgrounds of injustice: the effects ofshared institutions, theuncompensated exclusion from theuse of natural resources and theeffects of a common and violenthistory.

The effects of shared institutions.(6) There is a shared institutionalorder that is shaped by the better-offand imposed on the worse-off.(7) This institutional order isimplicated in the reproduction ofradical inequality in that there is afeasible institutional alternative underwhich so severe and extensivepoverty would not persist.(8) The radical inequality cannot betraced to extra-social factors (suchas genetic handicaps or naturaldisasters) that, as such, affectdifferent human beings differentially.

Present radical global inequalitymeets Condition 6, in that the globalpoor live within a worldwide statessystem based on internationallyrecognized territorial domains,interconnected through a globalnetwork of market trade anddiplomacy. The presence andrelevance of shared institutions isshown by how dramatically we affectthe circumstances of the global poorthrough investments, loans, trade,bribes, military aid, sex tourism,culture exports and much else.

….We must be concerned with howthe rules structuring internationalinteractions foreseeably affect theincidence of extreme poverty. Thedeveloped countries, thanks to theirvastly superior military and economicstrength, control these rules andtherefore share responsibility for theirforeseeable effects. Condition 7involves tracing the poverty ofindividuals in an explanatory way tothe structure of social institutions.This exercise is familiar in regard tonational institutions, whoseexplanatory importance has beenpowerfully illustrated by domesticregime changes in China, EasternEurope and elsewhere. In regard tothe global economic order, theexercise is unfamiliar and shunnedeven by economists. This is due inpart, no doubt, to powerful resistanceagainst seeing oneself as connectedto the unimaginable deprivationssuffered by the global poor.

Global poverty meets Condition 8insofar as the global poor, if only theyhad been born into different socialcircumstances, would be just as ableand likely to lead healthy, happy andproductive lives as

Farmers harvesting corn in Posoltega,Nicaragua

Continued on p. 5

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the rest of us. The root cause of theirsuffering is their abysmal socialstarting position, which does not givethem much of a chance to becomeanything but poor, vulnerable anddependent - unable to give theirchildren a better startthan they had hadthemselves.

Uncompensatedexclusion from the useof natural resources.Currently, appropriationof wealth from our planetis highly uneven. Affluentpeople use vastly more ofthe world's resources,and they do sounilaterally, without givingany compensation to theglobal poor for theirdisproportionate consumption. Yes,the affluent often pay for theresources they use, such as importedcrude oil. But these payments go toother affluent people, such as theSaudi family or the Nigeriankleptocracy, with very little, if anything,trickling down to the global poor. Sothe question remains: What entitles aglobal elite to use up the world'snatural resources on mutuallyagreeable terms while leaving theglobal poor empty-handed?

The global poor get to share theburdens resulting from thedegradation of our naturalenvironment while having to watchhelplessly as the affluent distribute theplanet's abundant naturalwealth amongthemselves.

The effects of acommon and violenthistoryThe presentcircumstances of theglobal poor aresignificantly shaped by adramatic period ofconquest andcolonization, with severeoppression, enslavement,even genocide, throughwhich the nativeinstitutions and cultures of

four continents were destroyed orseverely traumatized. This is not tosay (or to deny) that affluentdescendants of those who took part inthese crimes bear some specialrestitutive responsibility towardimpoverished descendants of thosewho were victims of these crimes. The

thought is rather that we must notuphold extreme inequality in socialstarting positions when the allocationof these positions depends uponhistorical processes in which moralprinciples and legal rules weremassively violated. A morally deeplytarnished history should not beallowed to result in radical inequality.

Thomas Pogge is the Director of theGlobal Justice Program and the LeitnerProfessor of Philosophy andInternational Affairs at Yale University.Excerpted from Journal of HumanDevelopment, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2001.Please see the complete article and theauthor’s recommended solution here.

Radical Inequality continued...

Get Your Senators on theRecord Against the Broken“Free Trade” Model

The closed-door 11-countryTrans-Pacific Partnership(TPP) negotiations are in fullswing -TPP-pushers plan to finishthese NAFTA-on-steriods talks inearly 2013. While Congress andthe public are locked out of TPPnegotiations, 600 official U.S.corporate “trade advisors” haveaccess, including the usualsuspects—the U.S. Chamber ofCommerce, Big Pharma,agribusiness monopolists andmany more.

But there’s an alternative to thedangerous TPP corporatistagenda. Sen. Sherrod Brown’s(D-Ohio) 21st Century TradeAgreements Act would stop pactsthat offshore U.S. jobs and fill ourhomes with unsafe imported foodand products. And it would openup the negotiating process tooversight so no deals are signedunless Congress says they workfor us.

Send a Letter UrgingYour Senators toCo-sponsor the 21stCentury TradeAgreements Act

Recently Oxfam launched a land grabs campaign to call onthe World Bank to freeze their investments in large landdeals while they find a fairer way that works for the world’spoorest people. A coalition called Ekta Parishad embarkedon a month long march calling for land rights for the poorestpeople in India. The good news: they’re winning.

Born a European Cow “....VijayJawandhia, a local leader of the farmingcommunity in central India laments the fact thatcows get an average daily subsidy of US$2 fromgovernments while World Trade Organizationregulations prevent Indian farmers getting thesame benefit....”If I were given a choice, I wouldlike to be born a European cow, but certainly notas an Indian farmer, in my next life... In India, afarmer is a debtor all his life. Post his death, hisson inherits his debts and has to borrow money forhis father’s funeral.” Excerpted from JustTransitions: Explorations of Susainability in andUnfair World,p 138.

Volunteer inNew Haven

Help with food security,fundraising, climate change,education, theater, outreach.

Contact Chris at nh@newhavenleon.org or203.562.1607.

New Haven/León Sister City Project608 Whitney AvenueNew Haven, CT 06511www.newhavenleon.org nh@newhavenleon.org 203.562.1607

Intern in NicaraguaSeeking bright committed

people with good Spanish ... towork in rural community ...In

education, environment,development,public health,

theater, etc...

Upcoming 2013...Summer TeachersDelegation andJuly Biking Delegation

Board Delegation Below: Photos from the October Boarddelegation to León. Top, Susan Power Trucksess with afterschoolchildren; Susan and Patty Nuelsen heading up León street; meetingwith staff Ivett Fonseca and Luis Chavarria. Photos by third delegationmember Ginger Chapman.

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