Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 8, 1994 TAG: 9405090115
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-14 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KRISTEN KAMMERER SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But the arrival of peace in rural Nicaragua has not given Gary Hicks a moment's rest. In fact, his work has doubled.
In 1987, Hicks, founded the Bocay Project, a one-man operation that helped bring medicine and assistance to people in war-torn northern Nicaragua.
His efforts gained attention and support from groups around the United States, including one in the New River Valley.
Blacksburg, in fact, adopted a small town in the region, San Jose de Bocay, as its sister city and financed a six-room schoolhouse there.
Hicks, a native of Berkeley, Calif., previously had worked as a free-lance graphic artist. A self-proclaimed adventurer, he spent the time between jobs traveling through Central America. After hearing of political trouble in Nicaragua, he joined a volunteer program called Witness for Peace and went to learn firsthand about the situation.
"People had no idea of the death, disaster and destruction taking place," he said. "... so I decided to get directly involved."
Hicks spent the next four years dodging land mines, malaria, floods and food shortages. Despite the turmoil, he was able to affect change in the nearly destitute town of Bocay. The government had resettled in Bocay hundreds of Sumo and Mesquito Indians, forced from their land by the fighting.
With limited assistance from the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health and private donors in the United States, Hicks developed and administered a diagnostic laboratory, a tuberculosis center and an ambulance service that provided Bocay with its only means of transportation during the war. All this in a town with no running water or electricity.
Hicks' lean 5-foot-7 frame and weathered face are evidence of the hardships he has endured in his 50 years. But his clear blue eyes show the conviction that enabled him to survive and provide the town's people with much-needed help.
During a recent four-week stay in the United States, Hicks visited the New River Valley and spoke about the future of the Bocay Project, organized to bring basic health care and education and development assistance to about 20,000 people in the Bocay River area.
He told members of the Central America Solidarity Committee and students from Radford University that, despite the end of the conflict in Nicaragua, the needs of the people are greater than ever.
By implementing a number of well-defined projects, Hicks is trying to help the nearly 20 Sumo and Mesquito communities return to their lives as subsistence farmers.
Some of the projects include taking a census of the region, forming an assembly to arrange for popular elections, building schools, digging wells in areas that have no drinking water, teaching members in each community to produce cocoa as a cash crop and establishing a pig husbandry program.
When asked if his efforts are driven by politics or altruism, Hicks responded, "Both - I think it's hypocrisy to divide the political from the humanitarian. In order to benefit humanity, you've got to affect politics."
Hicks stressed that the project is trying to make people self-sufficient. But the situation is fraught with difficulties.
The first is the region's remote location. The town of Bocay is 160 miles north of Managua; much of the distance is bridged only by unpaved roads that often are flooded by the river and are laced with leftover land mines.
The indigenous people are moving farther north, into the jungles. To reach them with supplies once a month, Hicks must travel one day in a four-wheel-drive vehicle and two days in a canoe.
A second hindrance is that, after the war, the people have little faith in outsiders. But after a visit or two, he finds the people "thankful and appreciative."
The third roadblock is a lack of funds.
During the war, Hicks had little trouble raising money because news of Nicaragua kept his cause in the public eye.
"Now, however, when we finally have peace and the means to implement projects - and the people we are trying to help are even poorer - we can't raise enough funds."
The Bocay Project relies on volunteer groups such as the New River Bocay Project in Radford.
According to the project's coordinator, Glen Martin, the group received $l,900 in donations during Hicks' stay in the New River Valley in April.
"But to put that in perspective for you," Martin said, "[Hicks] desperately needs a new four-wheel-drive vehicle and that will cost around $30,000."
But there is hope.
After the war, the region is slowly disarming.
And the most significant cause for hope is Hicks himself. By his own initiative and with only volunteer support, Hicks has helped many of the area's men, women and children survive the horrors of war and the ensuing chaos of peacetime.
"Because he has achieved so much success with so little," Martin reflected, "Gary makes us all believe that if more people were committed to creating a just world ... it could happen."
For information on the Bocay Project, contact: Glen Martin, c/o New River Bocay Project, 418 Fourth St., Radford, VA 24141, or call (703) 639-2320.
by CNB