Yale Center for International Nursing Scholarship and Education Hosts Latin America Panel Discussion
New Haven, CT — February 27, 2009
The Yale Center for International Nursing Scholarship and Education
hosted a Latin America Panel Discussion, "A Taste of Latin America," on
February 26, 2009, at the Jane Ellen Hope Building. The panel included
Felix Maradiaga, 2008 Yale World Fellow and former Nicaraguan Defense
Secretary; Enrique Mayer, Yale Professor of Anthropology and expert in
Andean agriculture and Latin American peasantries; and John Powers,
Director of Public Affairs at Yale University School of Nursing and
Mission Team Director in La Romana, Dominican Republic.
All
three speakers emphasized the connections between ethnicity and poverty
in Latin America. Professor Mayer described the history of indigenous
peoples' struggles to preserve their culture and gain political
autonomy. Maradiaga followed up by saying this history is essential to
examining poverty in modern times. He left Nicaragua at the age of 13,
by himself, to avoid a fate typical of indigenous children, who are
forced into military service.
Powers described
the situations of sugar cane workers in the Dominican Republic, almost
entirely from Haiti, who live in primitive conditions in the Dominican.
Audience member Teri Stone-Godena, a Yale School of Nursing professor
and leader of YSN trips to the DR, commented that even if medical care
is available, workers delay seeking help for themselves or their
families as a diagnosis may mean losing their jobs and their
company-owned homes. Maradiaga added that, in a Nicaraguan opinion
poll, the majority declared that poverty is the number one national
threat, above even war or terrorism.
As many in
the audience had lived or volunteered in Latin America, panelists were
asked about the best ways to help people in need, without creating new
problems.
The panel was followed by a silent
auction of pottery and other crafts brought from Nicaragua, to raise
funds for health care in that country.
