Chronicle of a ONE Member Abroad: One Week in Nicaragua, 2008

January 21st, 2008 at 2:43 pm

Nothing like starting the New Year with a good load of travel. In a perfectly coordinated travel plan, I left the Power 100 Summit in Washington DC to spend one week in Managua, Nicaragua, Latin America’s second poorest country. I went from sleeping under 600 thread-count luxury bedsheets at a Hilton Hotel to sleeping on a wood-board bed frame over a cement floor.

Could there be a better follow up to the Summit?

Now, I’ve never been to a developing country before, so I thought I would take it upon myself to make the effort and take a trip. A few months beforehand, I received an email advertising a one-week winter break trip to Managua thought CEPAD Nicaragua, a Christian, non-profit, non-partisan organization with a focus on social issues. The trip will encircle 7 days of touring Nicaragua with an emphasis on women’s issues in the country. Sign me up.

A few facts on Nicaragua: The Republic of Nicaragua is a small country bordered by Honduras and Costa Rica in beautiful Central America. As mentioned before, it is the second poorest country in Latin America (behind Haiti), with a GDP of $3,100 per capita and a growth rate of 3.7% (2006 est.). The economy has not faired well due to a civil war in the 1970s and two Category 5 hurricanes, Mitch (1998) and Felix (2007). The main currency used is the Nicaraguan Cordoba, and about 18.96 Cordobas make 1 US dollar. MDG-wise, Nicaragua signed a 5-year contract with the Millennium Challenge Corporation in July, 2005 for $175 million dollars

Luckily, the trip squeezed in just perfectly after the Summit, so there was no conflict of schedule.

I arrived at Augusto C. Sandino International Airport on Sunday morning, and the group was picked up and driven from to CEPAD headquarters. Driving through the urban streets of Managua was an early adventure on its own. My first impressions were, quite frankly, somewhat familiar. It reminded when I went to Mexico D.F. when I was little, and the view driving from the airport to my Grandma’s village: clumped commercial streets splashed with vibrant, uncoordinated colors, grass growing wildly through every cement crack in the streets, freshly discarded paper waste on the sidewalks, product advertisement on everything from billboards to bus-sides to home walls…actually, it kind of sounds like a description of most mega-urban cities.

Nothing beyond a simple tour of the main tourist sites is on schedule for today, which is great because jetlag can really get you. The schedule for the rest of the week seems very promising. We will be visiting a variety of organizations focused on women’s issues in Nicaragua, from health clinics to advertisement centers.

I also decided it would be interesting to have on blog post per day of travel. A mini-series, if you will, to a relevant topic from a new point of view. Stay posted! 

Read the entire blogpost at the ONE@USC blog! http://oneatusc.blogspot.com

What’s an ROA Part IX: Betsy

December 18th, 2007 at 11:52 am

From the Pacific to the Rockies, if you’re in the OCC, odds are your ROA is Betsy Avila:

This is Betsy Avila, your fearless ONE ROA for the friendly states of CA, NV, AZ, HI, NM and CO. I attend the University of Southern California, and am a double-major in Fine Arts and Political Science. Born and raised in the city of Los Angeles, I love the hustle and bustle of urban areas. A few quick facts about me:

Favorite Fiction Novel: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Favorite Movie: Back to the Future
Favorite 18^th-Century German Philosopher: Immanuel Kant
Favorite Italian-Baroque Artist: Caravaggio
Zodiac Sign: Libra
What I do when I’m not studying: Paint. Always, always painting.

And how I ended up here: A little over two years ago, I was browsing through the bookstore down the street when I came across Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty. Having heard great reviews about the book, and decided to invest in the purchase. Sach’s book opened my eyes to a completely new and practical view on the power of our generation. As he wrote: “Social commitments are the commitments of individuals.” Since finishing the book, I became heavily involved with ONE, as well as other social and political organizations, and I love what I do. And what makes me love what I do is meeting individuals from all over the country that have the strong will and hope that will make our common goal a reality. And that the strength of our voices does not stop here – we’re just getting started. Fight on, everyone!