New Haven Independent

Ginger Chapman (foreground in photo), board member of the New Haven-León Sister City Project, and supporter Bobbi Blake were among those reminiscing about all the delegations that have been part of an “alternative foreign policy” to the U.S.-backed contra war, as project co-founder Alan Wright explained. The event took place Saturday night at the First Presbyterian Church on Whitney Avenue.

Wright (pictured) spoke briefly about how his first trip (with another group) in 1984 was “transformational,” derailing his earlier career plans and turning his life around 180 degrees. He came back and with his wife, Paula Kline, founded the project as a people to people effort opposed to U.S. government official policy. “It showed we could connect across boundaries” through love, he said. He jokingly cautioned the young delegates in the room: “Beware, because a seed has been planted,” and they could find themselves radically reorienting their lives. He also said the project empowers people — not so much the Nicaraguans, as the North Americans who go there — to realize they don’t have to passively accept U.S. policy they disagree with; they can act to challenge it. Click here to hear more more.

Members of delegations, made up of ordinary people who want to experience another culture from the grassroots, have swung hammers to build day care centers, helped plant trees, observed elections and provided art therapy to survivors of the contra war of the 1980s, among other projects. (This reporter didn’t go with a 1990 election observer delegation, but met up with them while there to report on the elections in which Daniel Ortega, of the Sandinista Party, lost the presidency to a more pro-U.S. candidate during the contra war.)

Patty Nuelsen (pictured on the right, with former staffer and current board member Kate Landon on the left and program director Sydney Frey) has worked for the project since 1985, a year after its founding. She said interest dropped off around 2000, and delegations plummeted after September 11, 2001, when many Americans stopped traveling anywhere. “But at the same time, things were percolating in the colleges and even high schools, so soon after that we began to see an uptick in student travel. They’re seeing the importance of overseas travel in this age of globalization when this world is getting smaller.” Seven delegations have made the trip this year.

Several of the teenagers who were on the most recent delegation shared some of their experiences. Matt Joseph (pictured on the right in photo below), a senior at Hopkins, has been to other Latin American countries and to Nicaragua twice, building a day care center and then houses. “I went for that but also to live with a family and be immersed in the culture, and help my Spanish,” he said. “I’m also really interested in human rights.” He talked about the recent election of Daniel Ortega as president for the second time. Click here for more on how the Nicaraguan families the delegates stayed with reacted to Ortega’s re-election.

For Adam Holzman (pictured on the left, with Joseph), the delegation was his first trip outside the U.S. He said he wasn’t surprised by the poverty — “like not having constant power or constant water for showers” — but perhaps was a little surprised at how content the people seemed despite their difficult situation. Click here for more of his thoughts.

The project, with two staffers in New Haven and several, mostly part-time staffers in León, looks to be on track to be celebrating its 2000th delegate some years down the road.