ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 24, 1996 TAG: 9609240053
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
A young, Guatemalan man in need of help drew Christ Episcopal Church into action.
World Bank loans piqued enough interest for Phyllis Albritton to return to Nicaragua once again.
Even students at Margaret Beeks Elementary - some as young as second-graders - write to students in Blacksburg's sister city of San Jose de Bocay, Nicaragua.
As the war between the Contras and the Sandinista government raged in the 1980s, many residents of Blacksburg and surrounding areas became involved with Nicaragua and other Central American countries, either by visiting or lobbying to stop the war or both.
Since then, the Contra war has ended, the Sandinistas have lost power in national elections and local interest in the war-torn area has waned. But on three separate trips this summer, New River Valley residents visited, offered assistance and deepened bonds with their southern neighbors.
Christ Episcopal established its links with Guatemala soon after a refugee, on his way to Washington, D.C., sought help from the church three years ago.
"He touched a lot of lives within our church," said member Jono Shuster. "The minister laid out a challenge [by saying] 'Wouldn't it be great if we could touch more lives like this?'"
The church set up a sister parish with one in San Andrs Itzapa; the first group visited in 1995. Shuster and several others made a second trip this summer.
The church, Shuster explained, wanted to avoid the "poisonous relationships" often formed when groups give supplies or money from the outset.
"There's no love underneath it," he said. "We wanted to get to know them first - write to them about our families, read about theirs, then learn how we can help."
Albritton, along with Clark Webb and Su Clauson-Wicker, tried to help on a global level when they visited Nicaragua in August.
They gathered information for the human rights group Witness for Peace. They met with a range of people, from the country's minister of the budget to children who organized their own march against violence.
With about 60 percent of the population out of work, Albritton she was impressed by a women's cooperative that uses small loans from Rotary International to set up their own businesses.
"They're paying back loans with 33 percent interest," she said, "and yet they're paying them in four months. If one woman couldn't pay one month, the others would help her so they could all succeed."
The Nicaraguan government, she said, supports that kind of local autonomy, but it struggles with paying off its own loans - from the World Bank. Paying up to 50 percent of the country's budget in interest on those loans, she said, leaves little for education spending and social development programs.
The group took its observations to a U.S. representative for the World Bank and encouraged it to drop the loan pay-back requirement.
Even though the United States is still heavily involved with Central America, said Jim Shotts, most North Americans don't see the need to keep up with its progress.
"People think the Cold War is over," said Shotts. "The menace that was Russia was more or less resolved without even taking into account these countries [that] desperately need additional funding and support."
In the late '80s, Shotts and several other people persuaded the Blacksburg Town Council to establish San Jose de Bocay as its sister city.
A group went to visit in 1990 and built a six-room school to replace one destroyed by a hurricane. Since then, students from Margaret Beeks correspond with those in Bocay, with the help of local translators.
Now, Shotts is trying to raise support for teacher training and supplies for the school and eventually establish a student-exchange program.
In a related project, Gary Hicks, Phyllis Turk and their daughter, Rebekah, traveled just up the river from Bocay to visit an indigenous Indian community. The family, which lives in Radford, already is planning to return next spring.
But both groups are having difficulty raising funds and interest. Few young people are actively involved with the groups, which worries Woody Leach, a former Virginia Tech campus minister.
"A lot of people who have been involved have retired, like myself, and stepped back from it," he said. "It's time for a new generation of leaders, and I haven't stumbled across any recently."
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Margaret Hasselman (left), Jono Shuster and Leslieby CNBSchwindt (right) gather with some of their host families in
Guatemala.