October 2009 Newsletter
"We at Inhijambia are still doing work we can be proud of: turning outcasts into productive citizens; transforming pain, misery, and violence into love, optimism, and responsible behavior. . . . We are quick to admit that this is incredibly hard work, physically and emotionally draining. It demands all our patience, energy, imagination, and more. We live with constant sadness.
Dear Friend,
We all get overwhelmed at times with personal issues - struggles with family, work, friends, or with rabbits in the garden. It can leave you wondering how to keep on keeping on, as the saying goes. I've been there myself of late. We're all human, even me.
But a letter like the one sent to us recently by Mirna Sanchez, the director of Inhijambia, one of our partner organizations, puts all that in perspective. Everyday, Mirna and the equally amazing people on staff with Inhijambia, work with the huelepegas, the young people addicted to sniffing glue to deaden the pain of survival in some of the most destitute and violent areas of Managua, Nicaragua. They offer love, acceptance, and a chance for life. Some jump at that chance, others cannot emerge from the glue-induced haze or from the pain and degradation of all they have lived through in their young lives. Mirna and Inhijambia have nurtured many to survival. Sadly, as her letter recounts, she has seen others die. Her letter also tells of how the continued rejection of these young people by the general public further damage the self-esteem of those who have taken great strides to overcome so much.
Inhijambia has recently faced severe financial cutbacks from their foundation supporters in Europe while they have had to deal with the severe economic downturn. In response to this, PeaceWorks will devote to Inhijambia a larger amount of the aid we send on our October 3 shipment. We also hope that our supporters will dig a little deeper to help support the shipment and to donate more funds to PeaceWorks in support of Inhijambia and our other Nicaraguan partners.
Here's another idea. As Mirna's letter recounts, Inhijambia was forced to relocate its group home for girls from abusive family and living situations. Our delegation in January visited this wonderful place that gave shelter and safety to this group of girls, some of whom I have seen grow up in the focos or gathering places of the street children. My daughter Robin worked with them for a week last November and she and the girls grew close. We saw the transformation of these girls, blossoming under the protection and love of Inhijambia. But people living in the community around the group home turned on them, making their presence there untenable — a community rejection that damaged these young people's already fragile self-esteem. Let's send short messages of love and support to the children of Talitha Kum. Address your message (written in Spanish or English) to Las Niñas de Talitha Kum and send it via Inhijambia through Mirna Sanchez at inhijambia_nic@hotmail.com. Just a few words of support and love to tell them how much we value their lives, their potential, their courage, that they are in our thoughts and prayers, that they inspire us. Copy your message to PeaceWorks at peaceworks@peaceworks.org so we can make sure these young people receive your works of love and encouragement.
Please continue to help PeaceWorks nurture the relationships we have developed with our Nicaraguan partner organizations as well as among our community of sharing, action, and concern. These continue to be difficult times for non-profit organizations such as PeaceWorks. With the major expenses of our October 3 aid shipment to Nicaragua coming up, we are in need of your support.
Please donate generously today. Thank you for accompanying PeaceWorks, for helping sustain our work and our commitments borne of friendship and love. Please help us get through these difficult times so we can continue tilling, harvesting, and sharing. Here are some upcoming events and work projects, as well as resources for thought and action.
The Honduran Coup. What information we can offer about the ongoing repression in Honduras will most certainly be outdated by the time you received this mailing. The enclosed piece from Marc Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research highlights some of the recent developments since the return of President Zelaya to Honduras. Please get in touch with your elected representatives and with the US State Department to demand that our nation take all actions possible to respect democracy and human rights in Honduras. Follow the websites of these organizations are providing up-to-date information and action alerts. We must do all we can to ensure that this time our U.S. government acts on the right side of democracy, justice, and human rights. Here are a few: Quixote Center /Quest for Peace — www.quest.quixote.org; Latin America Working Group — www.lawg.org; Witness for Peace www.witnessforpeace.org; Rights Action — www.rightsaction.org; SOA Watch ó www.soaw.org; and the Nicaragua Network — www.nicanet.org.
Closing the School of the Americas Please Come to our Dinner Forum on October 10 to Welcome Linda Panetta. Linda is a photojournalist whose work focuses on cultural, environmental and human rights, with a particular emphasis on conflict zones. She is the founder of Optical Realities Photography (www.opticalrealities.org), the grassroots human rights organization SOA Watch/NE, and coordinator of the Jean Donovan Community Peace Center, which hosts the Mariposa Outreach Project, a mentoring program which supports survivors of torture and their families. The military coup by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas has on Latin America. From November 20-22, 2009, thousands will vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, to stand up for justice, to shut down the School of the Americas and to end the oppressive U.S. foreign policy that the school represents. Please see the enclosed flyer for more details and visit our website (www.peaceworks.org) for directions. One way you can help us is by going to our website and sharing the information about the October 10 event with your internet network of friends and associates. All it takes is a click of your mouse or keyboard. We need your help to reach more people.
Our 56th Aid Shipment to Nicaragua ó October 3. Please check out the enclosed flyer to see how you can take part in another leap of faith, sharing, and the expression of the commitment to the poor mentioned above. I have also enclosed special requests from some of our partner organizations and other community groups who will receive our aid. Take note once again that the shipment date is much earlier than in previous years, so we have to hustle to raise funds and collect materials to pay for and to fill the 45-foot cargo container. Go to our website (www.peaceworks.org) for more specifics and to network with others to help collect, pack, and get the materials to United Presbyterian on October 3. By going to our website you can download labels to identify the contents of the boxes you pack and/or you can let us know about how much you are collecting or if you plan to help on loading day.
These aid shipments and the materials they carry are vitally important for our Nicaraguan partners. Inhijambiaís offices, group and independent homes for the former street children, their arts and crafts programs, to the clothes they share with the young people, are all stocked, equipped, and provided for with the supplies we send, enabling them to stretch their budget and to put financial resources directly in their programs. The tools we send to FEDICAMP help extend their reforestation and organic gardening projects. Bicycles sent to the Womenís Collectives help literacy trainers travel to the communities in which they work, as well as help women travel to the markets and work. Beyond that, our efforts to collect and pack all those materials help build our local communities of sharing and action, bringing in people new to our efforts, strengthening our collective abilities to make a difference and "give meaning to our lives".
Outreach, Networking, Promoting PeaceWorks. PeaceWorks needs your help to reach more supporters to strengthen our aid shipments, events, and fundraising. Please sign up on our website, www.peaceworks.org, enabling you to receive our mailings electronically, to share our activities with your friends and networks with a click of the share button, and to work with us more directly with our events and shipments. Send me a message at peaceworks@peaceworks.org to get started.
Take Part in our January, 2010 Delegation to Nicaragua. An adventure of a lifetime is how many have described our annual journey to visit our Nicaraguan partners and explore the sorrows, inspirations, and beauty of Nicaragua. Please take a look at our enclosed flyer and let us know soon if you ready, willing, and able to join us. Take action soon so we can take advantage of the current low airfares. We determine the exact dates by the availability of participants. Once again, by going to our website, you can share news about this delegation with your internet network of friends and fellow travelers.
I hope you will support PeaceWorks through taking part in our activities and by making tax-deductible contributions. Start collecting and packing. Come to our Solidarity Roast. Network with PeaceWorks. Change and challenge the world.
Peace,
Jim Burchell, PeaceWorks
Jim's glog: Raspberries and rabbits. Oh, several beautiful Long Island Cheese pie pumpkins from which I hope to make pies and pumpkin butter. My Nicaraguan red beans have been draped over corn stalks for a while and are almost dried and ready for harvest. I'll make another batch of raspberry jam that will be raffled again on October 10. You'll have to wait for the pumpkin butter.
Attachments
Inhijambia letter.pdf
HUELEPEGAS.doc (WP).pdf
CEPR Honduras Article.pdf
PW 2010 delegation flyer.pdf
Pages Aid Brochure 10.3.pdf
ship partner needs.pdf
SOA Alert.pdf
10.10.09 dinner flyer.pdf
Every day there seem to be more young boys and girls who need a helping hand.
Violence is up, decent behavior is down, and AIDS is spreading among the street people like wildfire."
Violence is up, decent behavior is down, and AIDS is spreading among the street people like wildfire."
Dear Friend,
We all get overwhelmed at times with personal issues - struggles with family, work, friends, or with rabbits in the garden. It can leave you wondering how to keep on keeping on, as the saying goes. I've been there myself of late. We're all human, even me.
But a letter like the one sent to us recently by Mirna Sanchez, the director of Inhijambia, one of our partner organizations, puts all that in perspective. Everyday, Mirna and the equally amazing people on staff with Inhijambia, work with the huelepegas, the young people addicted to sniffing glue to deaden the pain of survival in some of the most destitute and violent areas of Managua, Nicaragua. They offer love, acceptance, and a chance for life. Some jump at that chance, others cannot emerge from the glue-induced haze or from the pain and degradation of all they have lived through in their young lives. Mirna and Inhijambia have nurtured many to survival. Sadly, as her letter recounts, she has seen others die. Her letter also tells of how the continued rejection of these young people by the general public further damage the self-esteem of those who have taken great strides to overcome so much.
Inhijambia has recently faced severe financial cutbacks from their foundation supporters in Europe while they have had to deal with the severe economic downturn. In response to this, PeaceWorks will devote to Inhijambia a larger amount of the aid we send on our October 3 shipment. We also hope that our supporters will dig a little deeper to help support the shipment and to donate more funds to PeaceWorks in support of Inhijambia and our other Nicaraguan partners.
Here's another idea. As Mirna's letter recounts, Inhijambia was forced to relocate its group home for girls from abusive family and living situations. Our delegation in January visited this wonderful place that gave shelter and safety to this group of girls, some of whom I have seen grow up in the focos or gathering places of the street children. My daughter Robin worked with them for a week last November and she and the girls grew close. We saw the transformation of these girls, blossoming under the protection and love of Inhijambia. But people living in the community around the group home turned on them, making their presence there untenable — a community rejection that damaged these young people's already fragile self-esteem. Let's send short messages of love and support to the children of Talitha Kum. Address your message (written in Spanish or English) to Las Niñas de Talitha Kum and send it via Inhijambia through Mirna Sanchez at inhijambia_nic@hotmail.com. Just a few words of support and love to tell them how much we value their lives, their potential, their courage, that they are in our thoughts and prayers, that they inspire us. Copy your message to PeaceWorks at peaceworks@peaceworks.org so we can make sure these young people receive your works of love and encouragement.
Please continue to help PeaceWorks nurture the relationships we have developed with our Nicaraguan partner organizations as well as among our community of sharing, action, and concern. These continue to be difficult times for non-profit organizations such as PeaceWorks. With the major expenses of our October 3 aid shipment to Nicaragua coming up, we are in need of your support.
Please donate generously today. Thank you for accompanying PeaceWorks, for helping sustain our work and our commitments borne of friendship and love. Please help us get through these difficult times so we can continue tilling, harvesting, and sharing. Here are some upcoming events and work projects, as well as resources for thought and action.
The Honduran Coup. What information we can offer about the ongoing repression in Honduras will most certainly be outdated by the time you received this mailing. The enclosed piece from Marc Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research highlights some of the recent developments since the return of President Zelaya to Honduras. Please get in touch with your elected representatives and with the US State Department to demand that our nation take all actions possible to respect democracy and human rights in Honduras. Follow the websites of these organizations are providing up-to-date information and action alerts. We must do all we can to ensure that this time our U.S. government acts on the right side of democracy, justice, and human rights. Here are a few: Quixote Center /Quest for Peace — www.quest.quixote.org; Latin America Working Group — www.lawg.org; Witness for Peace www.witnessforpeace.org; Rights Action — www.rightsaction.org; SOA Watch ó www.soaw.org; and the Nicaragua Network — www.nicanet.org.
Closing the School of the Americas Please Come to our Dinner Forum on October 10 to Welcome Linda Panetta. Linda is a photojournalist whose work focuses on cultural, environmental and human rights, with a particular emphasis on conflict zones. She is the founder of Optical Realities Photography (www.opticalrealities.org), the grassroots human rights organization SOA Watch/NE, and coordinator of the Jean Donovan Community Peace Center, which hosts the Mariposa Outreach Project, a mentoring program which supports survivors of torture and their families. The military coup by SOA graduates in Honduras has once again exposed the destabilizing and deadly effects that the School of the Americas has on Latin America. From November 20-22, 2009, thousands will vigil at the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, to stand up for justice, to shut down the School of the Americas and to end the oppressive U.S. foreign policy that the school represents. Please see the enclosed flyer for more details and visit our website (www.peaceworks.org) for directions. One way you can help us is by going to our website and sharing the information about the October 10 event with your internet network of friends and associates. All it takes is a click of your mouse or keyboard. We need your help to reach more people.
Our 56th Aid Shipment to Nicaragua ó October 3. Please check out the enclosed flyer to see how you can take part in another leap of faith, sharing, and the expression of the commitment to the poor mentioned above. I have also enclosed special requests from some of our partner organizations and other community groups who will receive our aid. Take note once again that the shipment date is much earlier than in previous years, so we have to hustle to raise funds and collect materials to pay for and to fill the 45-foot cargo container. Go to our website (www.peaceworks.org) for more specifics and to network with others to help collect, pack, and get the materials to United Presbyterian on October 3. By going to our website you can download labels to identify the contents of the boxes you pack and/or you can let us know about how much you are collecting or if you plan to help on loading day.
These aid shipments and the materials they carry are vitally important for our Nicaraguan partners. Inhijambiaís offices, group and independent homes for the former street children, their arts and crafts programs, to the clothes they share with the young people, are all stocked, equipped, and provided for with the supplies we send, enabling them to stretch their budget and to put financial resources directly in their programs. The tools we send to FEDICAMP help extend their reforestation and organic gardening projects. Bicycles sent to the Womenís Collectives help literacy trainers travel to the communities in which they work, as well as help women travel to the markets and work. Beyond that, our efforts to collect and pack all those materials help build our local communities of sharing and action, bringing in people new to our efforts, strengthening our collective abilities to make a difference and "give meaning to our lives".
Outreach, Networking, Promoting PeaceWorks. PeaceWorks needs your help to reach more supporters to strengthen our aid shipments, events, and fundraising. Please sign up on our website, www.peaceworks.org, enabling you to receive our mailings electronically, to share our activities with your friends and networks with a click of the share button, and to work with us more directly with our events and shipments. Send me a message at peaceworks@peaceworks.org to get started.
Take Part in our January, 2010 Delegation to Nicaragua. An adventure of a lifetime is how many have described our annual journey to visit our Nicaraguan partners and explore the sorrows, inspirations, and beauty of Nicaragua. Please take a look at our enclosed flyer and let us know soon if you ready, willing, and able to join us. Take action soon so we can take advantage of the current low airfares. We determine the exact dates by the availability of participants. Once again, by going to our website, you can share news about this delegation with your internet network of friends and fellow travelers.
I hope you will support PeaceWorks through taking part in our activities and by making tax-deductible contributions. Start collecting and packing. Come to our Solidarity Roast. Network with PeaceWorks. Change and challenge the world.
Peace,
Jim Burchell, PeaceWorks
Jim's glog: Raspberries and rabbits. Oh, several beautiful Long Island Cheese pie pumpkins from which I hope to make pies and pumpkin butter. My Nicaraguan red beans have been draped over corn stalks for a while and are almost dried and ready for harvest. I'll make another batch of raspberry jam that will be raffled again on October 10. You'll have to wait for the pumpkin butter.
Attachments
Inhijambia letter.pdf
HUELEPEGAS.doc (WP).pdf
CEPR Honduras Article.pdf
PW 2010 delegation flyer.pdf
Pages Aid Brochure 10.3.pdf
ship partner needs.pdf
SOA Alert.pdf
10.10.09 dinner flyer.pdf
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