Dolores Esquivel and Winnie Narváez *, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign with ABACOenRed/FUPECG, March 5th 2022
Gloria Quintanilla is the name of a women’s cooperative that received legal status in 2010. It is part of the Rural Workers Association (ATC) and of the international peasant movement Via Campesina. The co-operative produces organic coffee, basic grains and vegetables. The co-operative began in the 1990s, the fruit of a struggle by its ATC founders to get recognition for their land rights. In this interview, Winnie from ÁBACOenRed and Dolores, the cooperative’s founder, tell us about the wide range activities carried out by young people from this community and what ‘development’ means to them.
Winnie Narvaez: At a time when there is so much misinformation and much of what is happening in the real Nicaragua never gets publicised, what experiences would like to share with us? How can this country move forward through the work of grassroots organisations like yours?
Dolores Esquivel: Community work or grassroots work is very fundamental because that is where people’s daily experiences are played out, especially through the work of women and young people because they are crucial in meeting what we are trying to achieve.
There are at least 17 of us with leading roles in our community, but at the moment, after 2018 (the violent attempted coup d'état) and the pandemic, we are focussing especially on involving young people. Before, they didn't produce crops, they didn't get involved in planting, nothing, because they felt that these were jobs for adults.
Now, encouraged by the community leaders, young people understand that they have to produce, to work the land in order to take care of it.
Something that suddenly became ‘the done thing’ about a year and a half ago was the urge to go and work in the United States, Spain, Costa Rica: but we leaders don't want young people to leave, if they leave then what will happen to the land we have here, to the crops?
We are not so much referring to migration from the countryside to the city, but away from Nicaragua completely. Because in other countries they say that in Nicaragua we are in danger, that there is no work, that there is persecution and all that, but this is a strategy by those Nicaraguans who have left, who want asylum in other countries, portraying Nicaragua in a bad light.
So, as community leaders, we have been working with young people for more than a year now. We want a sustainable, productive community, but the most important thing is to make them aware that they don't have to leave the country, that here where we live there is wealth in land, in our knowledge, in the methods we use, and in our seeds.
You get up in the morning and arrive home at 6 o'clock in the evening. You never finish your work because you are always planting bananas, or going to a talk, or receiving training. We have seen results from this.
Right now we have 38 young people organised, we have a young woman who is in charge and they are creating their own methods. Last year in the first planting cycle, 28 young people took part, now in the second cycle there are 31 and yet, two years ago they didn't take part at all, so this is a very healthy sign.
But it’s not only about production. How can we guide them ideologically? How do we teach them: look, this is your land, this is your community?
Starting at the end of this year - and right now this is part of the plan we have - we have had workshops on entrepreneurship. For example, we are looking at how you can make dragon fruit marmalade and sell it; how can you make and sell a local drink called atol; how you can make carrot boxes and grow your own vegetables next to your house. These are all new things for young people, and we have set them up.
Everyone has their own talents. For example, Gemma makes dragon fruit and pitahaya jam; I never imagined that Lea would make atol. All these young people are doing different things and I think that we women are making an important contribution too as adult leaders, promoting these experiences, because these youngsters are the future of our community.
WN: And they are going to sell their products locally or in (the capital) Managua?
DE: Yes, they take part in farmers’ markets in Managua. They publicise what we are doing through Whatsapp and they also manage the solidarity shop’s Facebook page and we deliver products to customers. Right now we are making some shopping bags to sell in the shop. So we have already expanded the range of what we do.
The young people always have three things in mind:
- This is the place we come from and where we were born.
- We need skills and products so we can earn a living.
- We have ideas and we want to be able to try them out.
They say ‘we are not just going to go around with a machete planting beans and maize, we want to do more’. And they are succeeding. For example, if dragon fruit were plentiful in the past, I would give them away, but now we don’t: we have ways to transform the product and generate more income. So we as adult leaders have learned how to guide them to be interested in making these innovations.
WN: But working the land is also vital?
DE: Yes, everything is combined. The land, the advocacy, the marketing and the sustainability. In this community, out of the 12 months of the year, three months are spent in coffee harvesting and processing. But then you have nine months when it’s difficult to plant anything because it's dry, there is no rain. But we, as leaders, have shown that it is possible to plant banana plants: you get the new stem and you soak it in water, and then you can mix the planting with some other crops and there is less need for water.
WN: Co-operativism is also a model that offers an alternative to the banking system, to consumerism, but changing that mindset is very difficult because there is a lot of pressure to conform. So people want a quick job, easy money, to buy the products they see in the media. And as you say many people who have left the country too, so it seems like a vicious circle of ideas and pressures coming from we don’t know where.
DE: But at the same time, if you go to Matagalpa, to Jinotega, to Estelí, wherever you go you will find local groups or organisations in the communities supporting a different approach: ‘look, don't go, here you have this’. Always developing new ideas. I don't hear the young people here saying they are going to leave. Just now, two weeks ago, I was surprised to find that we have 11 quintales (hundredweight) of seeds. This is the product of community work: we sowed these little seeds in the ground, we raised the beans and now we have our own seed bank.
WN: It's interesting because it gives another angle to the concept of community development that is normally talked about in books, which is more related to economics; here it refers to the preservation of the community.
DN: We have to think ahead. For example, when Mateo (one of the youngsters) reaches the age of 15 he should get involved in community work; we have seen this happen since the 1980s and it has worked. Today I can see Lea, Xiomara, Gemma, young girls who will stand up in an assembly and ask about the history of the community, so how do you tell them the history of Santa Julia (the community where the co-op is based)? How it was before and how we are doing now? When we are no longer here, these youngsters will tell the story and we won’t lose that thread.
When you don't tell people all this, they want a smartphone, they want trendy shoes. No, if you tell them the story of the community and they see us working, they become more aware. They say yes, you serve as an example. For example, I can tell Lea: ‘Lea, there is going to be a workshop on agroecology, are you going to go? So five young people are going and I don't have to go, because I know that Lea and those four young people are going to represent the community.’
Just now I had a shock: Lea has been appointed to a national agroecology post. They asked me how I felt and I said: ‘we are going to support her and if she doesn't have enough money for her ticket we are going to collect it for her.’