Welcome. We’re happy to receive you here. We are an association of indigenous
women. Association de Mujeres Indigenous
Costa Atlantica. I am Doris Borst.
Telma Correa Tasti Yamilette, a collaborator with AMICA since 1990, the year it
was formed.
Mariloo, program
“Your Power”, financed by Plan Nicaragua.
Maicla Avalino, “Your Power”
Dia Navajo, Minister for AMICA
The Board of Directors is in Costa Rica at a round table on protected
areas. They wish they could be here to
greet you.
AMICA received legal status with
the government in 1991. It was founded
because there was no women’s organization, we were at war in the 1980s and 90s
and the situation here was unstable.
Many of our people were in Honduras – single mothers and others were coming
home and needed help. In 1994, we
organized to educate the people about laws that affect women and about our
people. In about 1995 we started
handling longer projects about women’s rights, family planning, sustainable
tourism, and a rotating loan fund. We
offer vocational training such as sewing without a pattern, cooking, and
baking. We had to include educating men
about the broader rights of our people.
We offer leadership training,
and training about laws and international treaties. We have Law 28 and 445, the International
Labor Covenant, but the PEOPLE have not been trained except for a few leaders.
At first, we were bringing two
or three women from each community to train them about these things including
Law 779 to prevent violence against women, but the message was not getting back
to the communities from those we trained, so we changed. Eighty percent of our work now is going out
to the communities themselves, two or three at a time, giving workshops. We had our autonomy, but the men did not
accept women into leadership. Now in
many villages, women are leaders, but not in all communities. In some, access is difficult, there is not
much education or leadership for women, and NGOs never go there. Associations and Governments say that things
are getting better, but this is not necessarily true – there are great needs
and no one is paying attention. It is
lamentable, and we can’t cover up the sun with one finger.
We have had many legal advances,
we have won through long struggle – it was not just given to us. We struggle as AMICA to keep open and to help
all who come. We have grown in women’s
rights and progress against violence against women and walking them through
their legal processes. From the Bilwi
neighborhoods women come to us for help.
AMICA is a pioneer against family, women, and sexual violence; we are a
coordinator of women’s rights action.
There was a lot of work done before we got special police stations for
women and police. We educate judges
about women’s and children’s rights.
Our main focus is women and the
family. We also train to build
capabilities.
We have broadened to political,
logging, health care, food security, and other issues. We work with international groups from
different countries. Funding has focused
on small pilot projects and some longer projects. Pilot projects lead to financial problems
when they are over, and then we need to figure out how to continue the
work. For example, the World Wildlife
Fund project for educating coastal communities to reduce eating the green sea
turtle. We go out and educate people,
but the project ended. It was a ten
month project. The sea turtle project was
good – people used to live on them. We
provided people with fishing gear and refrigeration.
Paulette comment – this happens
a lot with big NGOs that the projects don’t become self-sustaining. Speaker continued - The World Bank came
around – we said AMICA didn’t have money to continue to visit these
communities. The World Bank told us that
the communities required follow up, but they didn’t send their final report
back to us. There have been some
continuing projects at universities to see how sea turtle hunting has
changed. The problem is that they stay
at the level of studying it. The Latin
American Development Bank and World Bank just study things. They hire expensive consultants. But AMICA work in that area has not
continued. Not all is bad, though – just
pilot projects.
Longer programs, for one or one
and a half years have had good results.
For example, women are organized in every community as members of AMICA
with elected leaders, and organized in their community as a basis for us to do
our work in the communities alongside the other community organizations. These are women hat we’ve been training for years,
who will now stand up in a community meeting and express themselves in a
forceful way that they would not have 15 years ago. This gives us strength to continue. I can send the international group into our
communities and these women know how to receive them and show them what’s
happening in the community. They also
know how to respond to domestic violence to women and get them to the
women/children police stations, to the judges, and to AMICA for help. We train people to understand laws – about natural
resources, rights, land, as leaders and community members.
We have outside allies –
non-indigenous, men, teens – we educate all of them. We educate youth about reproductive rights
and health and women about leadership.
We teach ancestral tradition, traditional knowledge – which is being
lost. How our resources were managed and
our leadership among our people was, traditionally. We facilitate communication between adults and
youth. We’re weaving together these
activities – everything related to family.
Here we see people with violence
problems. The government office –
women’s and children’s police station – report some alarming statistics – As
AMICA in 2013 we took care of 135 cases, which is an under-reported number, but
the women’s and children’s police stations report 3600 cases. This includes domestic and sexual violence,
much of which is against young girls as young as five years old. In case of rape of a child, the women take
their child directly to the W&C Police Station or to a judge.
We must have an education focus
as well. In cases of abuse over a long
period of time, we help with follow up, and help with child support for single
mothers.
Nancy Alicia Enriques of the Board of Directors
Welcome. We would like to maintain contact with you. We struggle with other groups that are for
rights of women and children and indigenous people. We work on collective and individual rights
of indigenous and Afro-Caribbean people.
We are working with groups from
Holland, Germany, Canada, and England.
Please let us know about international meetings and projects you find
out about that are appropriate for AMICA.
In the evening, Susan, Helen, Kathy and one
other visited the director of AMICA.
Susan –
in Dario, so many women 14 – 16 years old are pregnant and having babies.
Director
– this is typical. Wedding vows include
a vow of using no contraception. The
same problems are everywhere that there is a lack of information.The
Morava church, possibly the most popular in indigenous areas, says that you
must have as many children as God sends.
We try
to educate the judges, professors, pastors in each community regarding family
planning, but it’s still hard, even with contraception available, to convince
people. There is a minimum of health
care – one center for each 6 – 8 communities and not much medicine. The Miskito nurses run out of medicine and
may not love their work. Another problem
is malnutrition – people may only eat what they have planted, possibly no
fruits or vegetables. Even in the Bilwi
hospital, you may be in the emergency room a long time before you are seen by a
doctor. There may not be enough money
for the correct medicine or X-rays.
The free
health care and polyclinics are there, but there is a lack of resources and
materials. The doctor might lie and say
that they have no birth control pi8lls, but you can buy some from my
friend/brother’s pharmacy.
It is
20 – 24 hours to Managua by bus. Some
people can’t even get to Bilwi because they don’t have enough money.
There
was a male nurse who was injecting women with water instead of Depo-Provera –
almost all of the women in the town were pregnant. Eventually, people figured out what he had done
and he was fired.
Everyone
has been tested for HIV, and it came back negative. They took a whole team, but just for one
day. The took care of all of the medical
needs of the community that they could do on that one day. There was one girl who tested positive, and
she was pregnant. The US military is
using prostitutes in Honduras and HIV is coming across the border to
Nicaragua. There are lots of cases where
people pass it on, and maybe they even know they have it. Now the government is providing treatment for
HIV+ patients in polyclinics. There is a
shelter for HIV+ people, which is private and the testing clinic is private.
A lot
of girls can’t go to school. The
families send them to school somewhere, they come home pregnant, then have to
go away to work to support the baby, and come home with another baby to care
for. This goes on and on.
Jazelle
– people are losing the knowledge of traditional medicine, including those for
birth control. This implies a larger
problem of loss of traditional education.
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