Citizens Power Council Meeting

Last night I attended a Citizens' Power Council (CPC) Meeting in Douglas' neighborhood, Jose Dolores Estrada in District 6 of Managua. Because all of the newspapers are very much against the CPC, it was fascinating to hear the other side of the story. Like most things in life, the story here is not black and white. Contrary to their portrayal in the media and the general sentiments of the non-FSLN population, the people that I spoke with last night seem to have really good intentions. They are not paid for the time that they put in trying to help the community, and they are attempting to reach out to everyone, not just FSLN supporters (i.e. building roads, cleaning up garbage, adding more streetlights, bringing in medical staff for a free, week-long health clinic, etc.).

However, it's really difficult for them to make any headway because many people are distrustful of the CPC. For example, earlier in the day, I had a long interview with the local principal, who is part of the FSLN party, but who does not support the CPC. As a well-educated professor, she doesn't want people with no educational experience to tell her what to do. So it appears that it's not just a matter of political polarization--there are many other conflicts of interest at the local level. I'm working on setting up more meetings with CPC members, and will be heading over to the local Sandinista campaign headquarters soon to try to gather more information. I'd like to observe CPC meetings in all 6 of Managua's districts.



Here are 9 of 16 of the neighborhood's CPC coordinators. Each member is in charge of a different sector (i.e. health, education, citizen security, women's rights, infrastructure, culture, local government, etc.) As you can see, there's a good balance between men and women in the group. The General Coordinator of the entire local branch of the CPC is the woman sitting in the front right. She and all the coordinators were extremely generous to explain a lot about their history to me while going through their weekly meeting agenda.

Here is a picture of the front of the Universidad Centroamericana (the UCA). I attended a meeting here yesterday morning, in which a foundation announced the winner of an annual national contest for the best primary school teacher in the country. All the television stations were present, and I know I ended up in a lot of footage being a gringa and all. :-) At first I wasn't sure exactly why I had been invited by some of my other contacts, but it soon became apparent after I was introduced to a lot of very important people in the education world. I now have the phone number of the Director of IDEUCA, which used to be PREAL, one of the most important organizations for education reform in Latin America. Pretty cool, huh? I also found out that being an American is a good thing in the UCA. I have free access to their library, while my German friend had to pay to get a temporary library card. Not sure what's that about exactly...maybe big American donations to a highly critical institution of the New Left?