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October 4, 2001
Dear Friends,
After two months in Bolivia, I am already convinced that the
new Joining Hands Against Hunger Program is an important step
for Presbyterians to take. The evidence is everywhere.
This afternoon, while walking through Cochabamba’s massive
street market, I ran into Veronica again. She lifted her soiled
apron and pointed to a large bandage wrapped around her middle.
"I’m looking for money for penicillin," she explained,
wincing. I’m sure that the many healed scars that crisscross
her face are now mirrored by a huge scar on her belly. The baby
she was expecting last week is dead.
I met Veronica two weeks ago while she paced near me in San Antonio
park. Her belly was large. She was seven months pregnant. She
grimaced as she walked, clutching her back and holding a bottle
of heavy-duty shoe glue to her nose. Veronica is one of Bolivia’s
thousands of street children, and the baby she lost will add to
the grim statistics: an infant mortality rate of 63 in 1,000.
The park where Veronica sniffs glue is a minefield of bodies sprawled
drunkenly against walls or slumped on benches. Most of the children
hold a bottle of glue permanently pressed to their noses and gaze
around the park, uninterested, detached. These are Bolivia’s
street kids—thousands of abandoned or runaway children in
a country where 70 percent of the people work in the "informal
sector," selling things like toilet paper and candies in
the streets. About 63 percent of Bolivia's population lives below
the poverty line, and the economy holds little promise that things
will change.
But what brings children like Veronica to the streets and to
the comfort of glue fumes? For several decades now, shifts in
Bolivia’s economy have been the motor for internal migration.
But the industries and agriculture that once sustained millions
of Bolivian families are no longer viable. During the 1980s, under
pressure from the United States and the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), Bolivia adopted a series of stringent economic policies
dubbed "structural adjustment programs," privatizing
its mining industry and taking several other severe economic measures
intended as a kind of "shock therapy." Thousands of
miners were laid off and the migrations began. The Bolivian government
has continued to shape its economic and social policy according
to the dictates of the U.S. and international lending agencies.
Bolivians themselves rarely have much say in the policies adopted
in their own country. Instead, these stringent policies, rapid
changes in the world economy, and Bolivia’s staggering debt,
have had a profound impact on many communities in Bolivia and
throughout Latin America. And so Bolivians move.
From the mines to the city centers, from the campo (countryside)
to the ever-expanding and impoverished peripheries of La Paz,
Cochabamba, and El Alto. Once in the city, Bolivia’s current
economic crisis hits hard and families begin to disintegrate.
No work. Squatter life. Alcohol is a good escape. Kids go to the
streets to scavenge for food and money, steal— whatever’s
necessary to survive. Veronica’s story is but one piece of
this economic puzzle. I could describe another piece of the puzzle—a
small farmer debating the pros and cons of planting genetically
modified crops, or a child-worker in the mines of Potosi suffering
from low attendance in school and pulmonary silicosis, or a woman
working 14-hour shifts in a textile factory with no bathroom breaks,
or an Aymara family in Oruro, powerless against polluting industries
that contaminate their drinking water. This is a puzzle I’m
just beginning to try to put together. Bolivians, however, have
been working hard at it for years.
Throughout Bolivia, grassroots groups, churches, and non-governmental
organizations are struggling to meet the growing needs of the
people. In Oruro, local grassroots groups educate the community
about the consequences of environmental degradation, especially
on people’s health. They investigate the effects of pollution
and economic globalization on the fragile ecosystem and people
of Oruro. In western Bolivia, church groups work in rural development
in an area known for its high levels of poverty, where in some
places 94 percent of the population lives below the poverty line
(that is, less than $150 yearly).
Some organizations focus on women’s rights, others on sustainable
rural development, still others advocate on behalf of the marginalized
indigenous majority. Eleven such organizations have joined together
to form the "Bolivian Joining Hands for Life Network,"
which is part of the Presbyterian Hunger Program’s pilot
project, Joining Hands Against Hunger (JHAH). Often, these groups
are forced by circumstances to focus on Band-Aid solutions—simply
meeting overwhelming needs in their communities. JHAH hopes to
open up space for reflection on and analysis of the root causes
of poverty in Bolivia and in the world. Working together as a
network, these very different organizations hope to find ways
to strategize and coordinate their efforts. They also hope to
teach North Americans a little about the often negative impact
that economic globalization has on people in countries like Bolivia,
and how we can, as Christians and as North Americans, respond
by seeking justice in our own communities and in the world. For
the next three years I will be doing my best to learn from the
people of Bolivia and the Joining Hands for Life Network.
I invite you to learn along with me.
Susan Ellison
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