Thanks to a seed money grant from the Popular Movement Fund of the Peace Development Fund, a cooperative was formed to provide economic support for the refugee women in Panama (from Colombia) who make recycled paper cards. This has brought some economic hope to a desperate situation. These lovely cards are made of paper recycled from the village, with bits of jungle plants added, and each is embossed with a leaf. On occasion, a batch will come out hot pink or sky blue, indicating that they have recycled the paintings, done with tempera paint, by the little preschoolers. We have the cards for sale along with other crafts from the region.
Cards are $5 per 1/2 dozen and are available in the Fair Trade section of our website.
One of our first projects was to get a preschool started where 3-5 year olds can be safe and nurtured. This gives Mom a chance to pursue other avenues for a few hours each morning. The children are assured a nutritious drink and snack each day and the teachers can make a small but incredibly meaningful salary. BAB has initiated two pre-schools in Jacque, which are now self-sustaining community services.
This project is an amazing example of community spirit. The two pre-schools that are up and running have been adopted by Casa Taller, a small private school in Panama City. They supply a stipend for teachers, as well as provide the nutritional snacks for the children each day.
These few hours per day without worrying about their children can mean a lot to local women, allowing them to work in cooperatives or accomplish other tasks, and some early educational fun is welcomed by kids who have known hard times and even sometimes witnessed horrible violence.
WAYUU SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN: We just returned in April from a visit to the Wayuu indigenous community of La Guajira, Colombia, for the Fourth Yanama: Women and Territory. This community suffered a massacre at the hands of paramilitaries and Colombian military on April 18, 2004. For the last three years, BRIDGES has hosted North American solidarity tours by Debora Barros Fince, Founder and Director of Organizacion Wayuu Munsurat and international spokesperson for her people of Bahia Portete, who now live in exile in Venezuela. We hope to host Debora or another representative again this fall.
Our little BRIDGES delegation to the Yanama was a diverse group, including three of “our girls” from various regions of Colombia along with our USA contingent and even a Yaqui woman from Sonoras, Mexico. We went to participate in a temporary re-occupation of Bahia Portete to honor the dead and assert the Wayuu people’s right to a peaceful return to their ancestral homeland. Invite us to speak with your group or class and give a visual presentation of our remarkable journey. We are exceedingly grateful to the RESIST Foundation for their $1,500 grant in support of our international solidarity work here in the U.S.
NEW BAB STUDENT GROUP AT UF: Bridges Across Borders is very excited to announce the creation of a new BAB Student Group at the University of Florida in Gainesville. After a year of paperwork and headache, BABUF has finally become official on campus! Complete with four officers and a growing base of members, BABUF is quickly becoming well-known on the UF campus as well as in the community. But even though the process of becoming official was long, it didn’t take them long to get into the swing of things! They have already put on two yard sale FUNdraisers and played an integral part in planning and working our 2nd Annual Viva La Mujer event!
2ND ANNUAL VIVA LA MUJER: HONORING THE STRENGTH OF WOMEN EVENT: We are pleased to announce that our 2nd Annual Viva La Mujer event was a huge success! This year’s event was a concert and dance party that once again held at the historic Thomas Center in downtown Gainesville, Florida. The event featured the amazing 12-piece Umoja Orchestra and Colombian-American singer/songwriter Marce and her band. As with last year’s event, we had information tables for BRIDGES and other local activist organizations, focusing particularly on groups that deal with women’s issues. We were also successful in selling many Fair Trade crafts as well as refreshments including Fair Trade organic coffee, homemade hot chocolate and cider, food donated by local independent businesses, and many items from a bake sale put together by our BABUF student group. In between our musical performers we presented a slideshow on BRIDGES’ work in Latin America, a raffle and our famous “The Rock” awards presentation to local women who exemplify the rock-steady dedication that is needed to make powerful, positive social change. We hope you will join us next year!
Thanks to the hard work and deep dedication of Jennifer Sordyl, Michi Regier, and Sujoy Spencer, this program at the Casa Elisabet orphanage in Imuris has expanded to include lessons on recorder and viola, as well as the violins, and these teachers have made great strides in securing the necessary funding for the project by appealing to friends, family, employers, and their fellows at summer fiddle camp. (More about Music Across Borders)
MEALS ON HEELS Elders Food Program:
Many elders find themselves alone in Jaque when their children have gone off to Panama City to seek employment. Others have families who struggle to feed themselves and to put sufficient food in the mouths of their babies. Rather than ask you to adopt a particular elder, we ask you to adopt the project for a month. This is a costly program and very much in need of groups and individuals to cover one month’s worth of meals for $100 per month. Maybe you would like to honor a loved one who has gone or maybe one who’s just arrived, or maybe even celebrate the birthday of a favorite elder of yours, by adopting a month that has special meaning. Perhaps your church or social group could raise the funds to adopt a month. Please help us fill up the calendar year with health and happiness for our elders.
SEA TURTLE PRESERVATION PROJECT: More exciting news from Jaque! BAB Latin America Director Ana Maria Vasquez reports that we have successfully expanded our Turtle Preservation Program’s capacity from 150 to 250 nests. Our program pays local people to preserve and protect the nest sites and aid the little turtles in reaching the sea. The money allows folks to replace the turtle eggs, a staple of the local diet, with chicken eggs, encouraging local small businesses and ensuring that an important food source is not lost in the process of ecological conservation. Each nest in the program releases 100-150 baby turtles into the wild, of which only 1or 2 will survive to maturity to return and breed on the beach at Jaque. For only $20, you can receive a BAB certificate of adoption for a nest, along with an attached tagua (vegetable ivory) carved turtle, while helping to ensure this program’s continued growth. What a great holiday gift! Make someone an adoptive parent.
