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| Press Conference with Fidel and representatives from the Cultural Center, the Network of Women Against Violence, and community organizers at the Cultural Center of Batahola Norte (with the mural "New Dawn" in the background) |
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He takes out the photos as we sit back in the wicker rocking chairs watching drops run down the sides of our water glasses. Fidel passes me the photos. As I move to stuff them in the folder, he catches my hand. Without even a tremble, he turns over each one. He had taken them himself: the cardinal-bright smudge on the doorway, the half of a black footprint on the concrete, the blade in chalk, the puddle on the counter where she had delivered up sweating ice cream cones to the fat hands of neighborhood children. And I meet his sister for the first time, Luz Marina. Her face inflamed, tubes from her mouth and nose. Her eyes swollen shut. Fidel’s eyes are unmoving: “keep going.” He hands me the others and the silence of the grey chasm, the sinking in the stomach, the rancid smell of death extends across the porch pierced only by the cheerful greeting “¡Buenas!” of the neighbor woman passing my house. We can only look up blankly.
As the daughter of a Women and Gender Studies professor, I grew up a feminist—someone believing that another world is possible, a world in which women and men work together to promote a culture of peace and unhinge oppressive structures that are destroying the environment and human beings. As a result of my education, and my experiences, especially as an advocate of survivors of sexual assault, I have often struggled with a fear and distrust of men. Reading of the expansiveness of the oppression of women—from rape statistics in the U.S., to female infanticide in China, femicide in Cuidad Juarez, Female Genital Mutilation in various African countries, bride burning in India, persecution of women under extremist Islamic governments in Afghanistan and other countries, etc.—has left me feeling desperation. How is it possible that we live in a world where women must fear being killed and abused by the people who are supposed to love them the most—their partners and family members?
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| (L-R) Oscar, Sergio, myself, Milton. Youth leaders from Cuidad Sandino (in El Crucero, Nicaragua, on a coffee farm) |
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Juan got out of the white truck, the door slamming behind him. He locked the front gate behind him, and then the front door. She was in the back room. Luz Marina was a strong woman— a guerilla fighter in the 80s who had trained in Cuba. That’s why he used pepper spray first. She fought back, cut him in the face with the metal lid of the ice-cream cart. He stabbed her nineteen times before taking out the pistol. The whole block was out on the street listening. Someone called Fidel, and he arrived, broke the locks, and took the gun from his brother-in-law’ hand. Luz Marina made it to the hospital, but died three days later of internal bleeding.
A few weeks after Luz Marina’s murder, the women’s group meeting in Batahola I was facilitating was packed with women—many of whom were currently living in abusive relationships. A psychologist from a local women’s organization came to give a workshop on self-esteem and the cycle of violence. With Fidel, we also organized a neighborhood petition to demand justice in Luz Marina’s case, and a press conference at the Cultural Center of Batahola Norte with representatives from the community and the Network of Women Against Violence.
When Luz Marina was murdered, I had only been living in Managua, Nicaragua for four months, working at the Cultural Center of Batahola Norte, an education project that focuses on the empowerment of women and youth. The Center is an oasis of hope, of solidarity, that promotes the idea that we all have human rights and the right to live without violence. Many women who have come to the Center to learn to read and write, to sew, or learn computer science, have been able to gain a knowledge of their human rights to be able to end abusive relationships and break the cycle of violence. It has been empowering for me to work in a place that has been struggling to defend women’s rights for the past 25 years, and that has transformed the lives of thousands of people in marginalized communities.
What I would have never expected was that it would be a group of young men from Cuidad Sandino, one of the poorest municipalities of Managua, who would transform my view of gender work the most.
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| Anti-violence mural in Jorge Demitrov neighborhood of Managua, painted by youth under the guidance of the Cultural Center of Batahola Norte's muralist, Gerardo Arias |
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The youth center of Cantera in Cuidad Sandino focuses on integral formation of young people, including gender workshops, in which groups of women and men separately reflect on their personal experiences with sexism and the gender roles that constrain both men and women. The workshops facilitate personal growth and liberation for women and men, and help them to build more equal relationships between the sexes.
Once a week I give an English Conversation class with five of the young leaders of the community: Oscar, Sergio, Milton, Edwin, and Douglass. We also have a space in the afternoons for youth to practice yoga, tai chi, and meditation to help relieve stress and focus on spiritual development. My friendships with the guys have empowered me to see that I have male allies in the struggle against sexism and violence. The guys aren’t afraid to express their feelings, to defend women’s rights and promote women’s leadership. They are living out a different masculinity—one that’s not based on power and control, but on sharing, communication, and working together to create a more just world.
One year after Luz Marina’s death, I found myself accompanying a friend trying to separate from her husband. He had threatened to kill her and her son with a machete. On the bus I realized, watching the eight-year-old boy staring out the window—a child who has seen his mother being hit every day of his short life—that along with women’s empowerment, we must work also to liberate men from the cycle of violence.
May, 2009
Laura Hopps, Volunteer Missionary Movement
Centro Cultural Batahola Norte, Managua, Nicaragua
lhopps@gmail.com
Essay for Catholic Network of Volunteer Service on Social Justice – What social injustices did you face in your work and how are you now empowered to stand up against such injustice?
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