On Monday, Nov. 12, Oberlin graduate Rebecca Phares (’97) gave a talk on the current state of Nicaragua in preparation for this Winter Term when OSCA will send a three student delegation to visit a Nicaraguan women’s cooperative.
The student elected delegation will visit Nicaragua in order to reconnect with OSCA’s sister co-op, the Jose Francisco Rodrigues Sandchez Co-op in San Juan de Limay, and to reassess the relationship between the two cooperative associations.
Phares, who following her graduation lived in Nicaragua for two years working for Witness for Peace’s labor solidarity program, spoke on Nicaragua’s current political situation. The Nicaraugan Sister Co-op Committee hosted this event in hopes of raising awareness of the current Nicaraguan crisis and providing a frame of reference for when the OSCA community must vote whether to give financial support to its sister co-op this year.
Since 1992, the Nicaraguan Sister Co-op Committee has asked OSCA members to give a $2,000 annual donation to this women’s agricultural collective. An all-OSCA vote decides whether the money will be given. If donated, the funds are deposited into a rotating loan fund administered by local elected Nicaraguan women. The loan, in turn, allows members to give other members loans in order to buy livestock.
The proceeds from the eggs, milk and offspring of these livestock in theory pay back the loan. In reality, the drought in Nicaragua has led to hardships. With the large animals dying, the women are left with nothing more than debt, and as a result, the repayment rate has dropped from a comparatively successful 70 percent to 20 percent.
“In the past couple of years, after hurricane Mitch and the current drought and resulting famine, it’s especially important for us to support them,” Chair of the Nicaraguan Sister Co-op Committee junior Lorraine Leete said.
Over the past two years, OSCA has elected not to donate the $2,000 annual donation that the organization had been giving previously. This decision came out of a lack of participation in the all-OSCA vote. Since an OSCA delegation visited in spring 1997 the co-ops have had little direct contact with the San Juan de Limay co-op.
The mission statement written for the partnership says that the relationship “in the past few years has been nearly severed due to lack of this sort of connection.” According to an information sheet on the Nicaragua-OSCA Sister Coop Project, the committee hopes this visit will help to “reassess our relationship with the women living there, learn from their experiences, and decide in what way OSCA can continue this relationship in a non-paternalistic manner.”
The committee’s main contact is Ligia Briones Valenzuela, the leader of the women’s sector of The Union of Nicaraguan Farmers and Ranchers) which is the agent OSCA sends the donations through. She is organizing week-long family stays for delegates sophomore Andrea Smith, Steinbauer and junior Michael Mastman first in Esteli, with UNAG members and then in San Juan de Limay. She visited the Oberlin campus in 1996 and keeps the committee up to date on the conditions in Limay.
The students also plan to visit another women’s agricultural collective, which is yet to be determined, in a desire to compare collectives. In preparation for the trip, the delegates and Leete are doing a private reading sponsored by the Latin American studies department.
“We are doing the reading in order to be well informed about the situation and the history of Nicaragua,” sophomore delegate Aeryca Steinbauer said. This independent reading involves weekly readings and discussions between the four of them.
The delegates see the trip as important to establishing a relationship rather than just a loaning deal. “There’s more to having a sister co-op than just sending down money,” Steinbauer said. She hopes the trip will be an opportunity to create personal relationships with Nicaraguan women and gain a better understanding of their experiences.
In order to insure a passing vote on the all-OSCA vote this spring, the committee is trying to raise awareness through speakers and sharing the delegation’s report. “Fundraising is a large part of what the committee does,” Smith said. In order to help with costs of the trip and bring more speakers to campus, Harkness has agreed to donate the proceeds from tonight’s Harkness Night Club to the committee’s budget.

Speaker Rebecca Phares provided a brief background of the Nicaraguan situation, including the Sandinista Revolution and the U.S.’s large role in their loss of power. Phares stressed the current crisis in Nicaragua, a massive famine due to drought in the north, as well as the poverty of the country and the weight of the country’s $5 billion debt.
She attributed the success of women’s collectives in Nicaragua to the strong feminist movement created during the Sandinista’s rein and the influence of communalism on social problems.