December 17, 1973
Page 41956
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment on behalf of myself and Senators BAKER, HATHAWAY, MOSS, PELL, and NELSON.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The amendment will be stated.
The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:
On page 5, between lines 18 and 19, insert the following:
National Association of the Partners of the Alliance, Inc.: For necessary expenses to carry out the provisions of section 252(b), $934,000.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, my amendment would provide direct funding of $934,000 for one of the most successful and promising of our foreign aid programs – the Partners of the Americas.
Partners of the Americas is a people-to-people aid program within the Western Hemisphere. It is carried out by local partnership organizations in 41 of our States, each of which deals directly with a counterpart city or region in 18 Latin American countries. Local programs provide, on an ongoing basis to their Latin American partners, direct technical assistance through visits of skilled U.S. volunteers, as well as assistance in the form of funds and material supplies for specific projects. Federal funding for Partners – spent for the small administrative staff in Washington, and for a portion of the travel cost of Partners volunteers – is in fact seed money, generating private contributions totaling at least 15 times the Federal contribution.
Unless a direct appropriation for Partners of the Americas is included in this foreign aid appropriations bill, Federal support of the program will be slashed, and the future of the program will be threatened. My amendment would not only insure continued Federal support, but allow Partners to establish new local programs in five States and expand its private fund raising efforts.
This valuable people-to-people program deserves that Federal support.
Formally, Partners of the Americas is administered by the National Association of the Partners of the Alliance, Inc. – NAPA – a private, nonprofit corporation. Through its staff of 10, NAPA services the projects of local partnership committees here in the United States and in Latin American nations.
It is these local partnership committees that make the Partners program work. Each committee is composed of private citizens and, in some cases, State and local government officials – including 34 State Governors with active involvement, a majority serving as honorary chairmen. I will ask that a list of the 41 State partnerships, and the Governors, be inserted as exhibit No. 1 after my remarks. The committees work with other local voluntary and service organizations, such as the Lions Clubs and the Jaycees, and with local institutions, especially with local universities, to develop a program of assistance to their partners in Latin America. All committee members and program participants serve as volunteers.
In their ongoing planning processes, partnership committees in the United States engage in free exchanges with the similarly composed Latin American partnership committees. They evaluate what problems need attention, and what resources are available. For instance, a partnership may begin with a visit of agricultural experts to help conquer local crop disease; it might be followed with a cooperative effort to build a school, with local labor and U.S. financial aid; and continue with a program of health personnel training. The function of the NAPA staff – and the seed money they provide – is to coordinate, stimulate, and service those volunteer programs.
The continuing nature of the Partners program encourages a continued program of development to show long-term results. For the past 3 years a team of volunteer veterinarians and experts in animal husbandry from Florida A & M University in Tallahassee have conducted a short course in livestock and poultry management for 110 middle-level government agricultural technicians at the University of Cordoba in Monteria, Colombia. NAPA invested $3,500 in travel funds for the veterinary team from Florida A. & M. – and generated at least 13 times that amount in hospitality expenses provided to the team by the university, in translation services, travel costs, and services provided by the Colombian state agricultural agencies on the Atlantic coast.
Often, partnership programs find that the U.S. partner has access to highly technical skills needed to solve a highly technical local Latin American problem. One recent example comes from the partnership between Louisiana and El Salvador. In March 1973, a volunteer team of 16 leading orthopedic surgeons, physical therapists, and prosthetic specialists from Louisiana, conducted a 1-week seminar in El Salvador for 150 Salvadoran surgeons and specialists, joined by colleagues from Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Colombia. They performed demonstration operations and surgical procedures which were carried both on closed circuit and on nationwide television, showing the Salvadorans how to fit artificial limbs to the patients so that they could be walking within 24 hours after the operation, a process that has normally taken 8 months to 1 year with techniques previously used in El Salvador. The contacts between the U.S. volunteers and the El Salvadoran doctors and patients are continuing today. And the team of doctors brought along about $3,000 worth of equipment, performed over $33,000 worth of services before and during the seminar, and were given $3,000 in hospitality and transportation expenses by the Salvadorans. NAPA's total support was $1,200 for partial travel – and resulted in $39,000 in benefits, a cost-benefit ratio of $1 to $33.
Many partnerships find that they can solve less esoteric problems in imaginative ways, using the special resources of the U.S. partner. For instance, the Maine partners have twice sent the training ship State of Maine from the Maine Maritime Academy on a good will cruise to Latin America – and carried as cargo 100 tons of contributed educational, medical, and hospital equipment and supplies. The cargo came from eight partner States in the United States, and was delivered to their partner areas in Colombia and northeastern Brazil. The total NAPA investment was $1,800 for travel of one technician from Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, to Maine and one technician from Maine to Rio Grande do Norte to make necessary arrangements and agreements for the shipment. The total yield in shipment and supplies was worth $408,000, a cost-benefit ratio of $1 to $226.
I might add that the Maine partners program with Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, includes not only our maritime academy, but also the University of Maine, providing long-range technical assistance, including an agricultural experimental station, to the School of Agriculture in Mossoro, Brazil; Bates College, with an artist in residence program; the Portland Symphony Orchestra, whose string quartet performed concerts and conducted workshops in Natal this past year; the Maine public school system, which now uses to teach in the elementary grades a text on the people, language, culture, customs, and economy of Rio Grande do Norte; Maine Diocese, which has sent a social worker and three nurses/teachers to the interior of Rio Grande do Norte; and a high school student exchange program of 40 to 50 students each year.
And partnerships give help on an emergency basis. When tragedy struck Nicaragua in the form of a devastating earthquake last year, the U.S. partners in Wisconsin responded immediately. With the help of NAPA, they collected needed supplies, and raised more than $600,000 in cash. Two years earlier, when a disastrous earthquake hit Peru, its partners in Texas responded similarly. In the case of Nicaragua, the NAPA investment was $16,200, and yielded $2 million in supplies and services, for a cost/benefit ratio of $1 to $123. The Wisconsin partners are still assisting in the reconstruction in Nicaragua, and just last month Governor Lucey inaugurated the first reconstructed school built with funds donated by the people of Wisconsin.
The impressive individual partners case histories add up to make impressive totals as well. In the last fiscal year, 3,444 volunteers traveled to their partner areas to conduct projects in agricultural development, medical health, disaster relief, education, special education and rehabilitation, community development, trade and investment, and sports and cultural exchanges. NAPA sponsored the travel of 370 of those volunteers at a cost of $234,515. The other 3,074 travelers – over 9 out of 10 – sponsored their own travel to participate in partners projects, at a cost of $2,280,045.
And the value of projects conducted by the entire partners program during the past fiscal year, in addition to the shipment of 589 tons of equipment to Latin America, was over $6 million – with a total U.S. Government investment of $450,000. I will ask that additional statistics on the partners program be printed in the RECORD as exhibit No. 2.
Mr. President, with this record before us, we must today decide the future direction of Federal support for the partners program. Since 1968, NAPA has been funded by steadily diminishing grants from AID. For calendar year 1973, the grant totaled $450,000, including $400,000 from AID's fiscal year 1973 appropriations and $50,000 unexpended from prior years. AID plans to reduce its grants to $350,000 for 1974 from this appropriation, $250,000 for 1975, and nothing thereafter.
Private fund raising has been only partially successful, but prospects are improving. If the effort to enhance private funding is to succeed then the partners must have breathing room and an enhanced staff for vigorously pursuing private money. In addition, Partners is in a position now to expand its program.
In considering the foreign aid authorization, we approved a line item authorization of $934,000 for the partners program. A full appropriation of this amount would continue the NAPA program of administrative support and travel funds for volunteer technicians, and could allow expanded fund raising and the necessary funds to assist in establishing additional partnerships which have been requested by five States – Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, South Carolina, and Arizona – and additional areas in California and New York. My amendment would provide that full funding.
Mr. President, I urge the Senate to adopt this amendment to provide a needed Federal boost to a proven people-to-people assistance program.
I ask unanimous consent that there be printed in the RECORD as exhibit No. 1 the lists of State partnerships and Governors, and as exhibit No. 2 statistics on the 1972-73 partner program, and that they be followed by a series of articles concerning the partners, including:
First. "Jaycee/Partners of the Americas Program Brings Action, Impressive Results" – from Future magazine, February 1972, the official publication of the U.S. Jaycees;
Second. "From Maine to Brazil, With Love" – from the Lion, the official publication of the Lions International;
Third. "OAS Expands Efforts to Rehabilitate the Handicapped" from the Americas magazine, the official publication of the Organization of American States – volume 25 – June, July, 1973; and
Fourth. "People Getting Together Are Called Partners" from the magazine War on Hunger published by the Agency for International Development, April 1973.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
EXHIBIT No. 1
PARTNERS OF THE AMERICAS,
Washington, D.C.
THE PARTNERSHIPS
Alabama – Guatemala.
Arkansas – Santa Cruz, Bolivia.
California – Baja California, Sinaloa, Morelos, Nayarit and Puebla, Mexico.
Colorado – Minas Gerais, Brazil.
Connecticut – Paraiba, Brazil.
Delaware – Panama.
District of Columbia – Brasilia, Brazil.
Florida – Northern Colombia.
Georgia – Pernambuco, Brazil.
Idaho – Mountain Region, Ecuador.
Illinois – Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Indiana – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
Iowa – Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.
Kansas – Paraguay.
Kentucky – Highlands, Ecuador.
Louisiana – El Salvador.
Maine – Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.
Maryland – Rio de Janeiro (state), Brazil.
Massachusetts – Antioquia, Colombia.
Michigan – British Honduras (Belize) and Dominican Republic.
Minnesota – Uruguay.
Missouri – Para, Brazil.
New Hampshire – Ceara, Brazil.
New Jersey – Alagoas, Brazil.
New Mexico – Tabasco and Chiapas, Mexico.
New York (Buffalo-Niagara) – Jamaica.
North Carolina – Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Ohio – Parana, Brazil.
Oklahoma – Chihuahua, Coahuila, Colima, Sonora and Tlaxcala, Mexico.
Oregon – Costa Rica.
Pennsylvania – Bahia, Brazil.
Rhode Island – Sergipe, Brazil.
Tennessee – Amazonas, Brazil and Venezuela.
Texas – Peru.
Utah – La Paz and Altiplano, Bolivia.
Vermont – Honduras.
Virginia – Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Washington State – Guayas and Los Rios, Ecuador.
West Virginia – Espirito Santo, Brazil.
Wisconsin – Nicaragua.
Wyoming – Goias, Brazil.
PARTNERS OF THE AMERICA,
Washington, D.C.
GOVERNORS CURRENTLY INVOLVED IN THE PARTNERS PROGRAM
The following states receive active support of their Governors in committee activities. In the majority of these states, the Governor serves as Honorary Chairman.
Arkansas – Gov. Dale Bumpers.
Colorado – Gov. John D. Vanderhoof.
Connecticut – Gov. Thomas J. Meskill.
Delaware – Gov. Sherman W. Tribbitt.
Florida – Lt. Gov. Tom Adams.
Georgia – Gov. Jimmy Carter.
Idaho – Gov. Cecil D. Andrus.
Illinois – Gov. Dan Walker.
Iowa – Gov. Robert D. Ray.
Kansas – Gov. Robert Docking.
Kentucky – Gov. Wendell H. Ford.
Louisiana – Gov. Edwin Edwards.
Maine – Gov. Kenneth M. Curtis.
Maryland – Gov. Marvin Mandel.
Massachusetts – Gov. Francis W. Sargent.
Michigan – Gov. William G. Milliken.
Minnesota – Gov. Wendell R. Anderson.
New Hampshire – Gov. Meldrim Thomson, Jr.
New Jersey – Gov. William T. Cahill.
New Mexico – Gov. Bruce King.
North Carolina – Gov. James E. Holshouser, Jr.
EXHIBIT No. 2
PARTNERS OF THE AMERICAS, Washington, D.C.
STATISTICS ON 1972-1973 PARTNERS PROGRAM
The Partners have just completed their greatest year. The attached pages of statistics show these growth highlights for the 1972-1973 year:
The 43 partnerships conducted 557 projects totalling $6,447,227 in value, exchanging 3,444 people and shipping 589 tons of equipment and supplies to Latin America;
Total project values increased over the previous year by 88%, self-financed travel by 66%, donated equipment by 111 %, the number of people exchanged by 44%, and other cash contributions by 108%;
Projects conducted by the partnerships accounted for 96% of the $6.7 million Partners Program this year, while NAPA's administrative expenses accounted for 4%,
Health services and medical training remained the largest single area of project activity for the Partners, accounting for 27% of total project values;
Nine out of ten Partner travelers paid their own travel this year, while the partnerships utilized travel funds available from NAPA to support the technical services provided by 370 key volunteers.
NAPA's contributions to volunteer technician travel increased this year by 32% while its administrative expenses increased by only 4%;
Through cost-sharing with the partnerships, NAPA was able to support travel by 52% more technicians this year than during the previous year, keeping its net cost per traveler ($634) over $100 lower than the average cost incurred by people who paid their own way ($742);
For every AID dollar invested this year in the Partners program, the partnerships and NAPA jointly produced $13 in self-financed travel, donated equipment and supplies, scholarships, hospitality costs, disaster relief and other cash contributions;
Contributions to NAPA from new sources other than AID increased by 1,619% this year to $71,573. Seventeen percent of NAPA's Income in FY 1973 came from new sources, as compared to 1 % in FY 1972.
[From Future, Official Publication of the U.S. Jaycees, February 1972]
INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT – JAYCEE/PARTNERS OF THE AMERICAS PROGRAM
BRINGS ACTION, IMPRESSIVE RESULTS
(By Gary McNaught)
The U.S. Jaycees/Partners of the Americas Program is moving ahead at a constructive pace, and for the first time many Jaycee organizations are contributing to the success of statewide international projects while fostering friendship with other members of Junior Chamber International.
Every state organization of The U.S. Jaycees has a partner for international involvement. Most partners are states or countries located in Latin America with the remainder in Europe, Canada and Asia. For example: Texas-Peru, Maine-Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, Wisconsin-Nicaragua, Hawaii-Taiwan and South Dakota-Ontario, Canada.
Ohio-Gov. John J. Gilligan. Oklahoma-Gov. David Hall. Oregon-Gov. Tom McCall. Pennsylvania-Gov. Milton J. Shapp. Rhode Island--Gov. Philip W. Noel. Tennessee-Gov. Winfield Dunn. Utah-Gov. Calvin L. Rampton. Vermont--Gov. Thomas P. Salmon. Virginia--Gov. Linwood Holton. Washington-Gov. Daniel J. Evans. Wisconsin-Gov. Patrick J. Lucey. Wyoming-Gov. Stanley K. Hathaway.
The value of having a partner for development is in the nature of international programming.
Unlike domestic projects, international activities take longer and require specialized communication, transportation and development funds. These items are sometimes difficult in acquiring and in some cases, undependable even after authorization is secured. Thus, long-range development is necessary.
Also, because your Jaycees are creating new relationships with people from another country, those relationships cannot be severed by a mere change of Jaycee administration. The Jaycees in your partner country look at your friendship and project commitments as a permanent bond of activity and projects completed are viewed by community citizens of that country as one of the most important developments in their lives.
Most partner projects require long-range planning, together with short-range project successes. Most of this activity is in selected fields: health, education, vocational training, student exchanges, community recreation and sports, agriculture, small business development and special education. The projects require specialized material, equipment, funds and a transfer of technology by Jaycees having professional experience in these fields.
Some exciting projects are underway, or have been completed with the assistance of the Partners of the Americas in Washington, D.C. John Benjamin, former U.S. Jaycees staff officer responsible for International Involvement, is now an Associate Director of the Partners of the Americas. President Ron Au appointed Benjamin as International Consultant and he has spent a large percentage of his time meeting with Jaycee leaders to assist with project planning and implementation.
The following projects are examples of "what is happening" with The U.S. Jaycees/ Partners Program:
The Colorado Jaycees are supporting a rehabilitation program which includes annual, intensive training of visiting Minas Gerais, Brazil teachers of the physically handicapped and mentally retarded.
The Connecticut Jaycees are building a 12-room school house in Paraiba, Brazil. Steve Jacoby, Project Chairman, traveled to Paraiba in September to develop details of the project and to start work in organizing a Jaycee chapter. The school will contain: science laboratories, lecture rooms, dining rooms, kitchen, dormitories for boarding students, library, study rooms, offices and auditorium.
The Coral Gables, Florida Jaycees delivered $150,000 worth of medical equipment, clothes and toys to a hospital and orphanage in Cartagena, Colombia. Also, the Florida Jaycees will be participating in a dental seminar at the university of Cartagena Dental School. They are also involved in shipping to the Cartagena Municipal Orchestra band instruments to replace ones destroyed by a recent fire.
The Indiana Jaycees recently finished collecting needed technical books for Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil libraries. They will also be hosting an Olympic swimmer from Rio Grande do Sul during his studies at the university of Indiana. Jaycees Chic Lantz and Gary Loveless will be departing with the Governor of Indiana for a development trip to Indiana's partner state.
The Minnesota Jaycees are conducting a school-to-school program with their partner country, Uruguay. They are likewise collecting school equipment and a bus to support educational needs in rural areas. The school-to-school program is operating with the cooperation of the Uruguay Jaycees. Recently, the Minnesota Jaycees received a contribution of a fully equipped ambulance which will be shipped to Uruguay.
North Carolina Jaycee Carlos Rios recently returned from a two week development trip to Cochabamba, Bolivia. The North Carolina Jaycees will be building rural schools and supporting many of the medical needs of rural hospitals in the Cochabamba area. Likewise, they are organizing a student exchange program between North Carolina and Cochabamba high school students.
The Jaycees in Rhode Island are active in projects with their partner state of Sergipe, Brazil. Walter Krauss, Jr., International Director, reports project development in the following areas: Rhode Island Jaycees are adopting a foster child in Sergipe, setting up a children's cultural art exchange involving 3,000 to 4,000 children, collecting and shipping children's books for a Sergipe orphanage, collecting materials to build a new water system at a girl's orphanage and conducting international night activities consisting of events that depict a Brazilian festival. Also, they plan to build a new school house and recently collected 30 school desks for this project.
The Virginia Jaycees completed the first phase of a project with Santa Catarina, Brazil. At their fall board meeting 30,000 pounds of agricultural equipment was collected and made ready for shipment to Brusque, Santa Catarina. The equipment included a new Ford 3000 Series Diesel Tractor and related equipment, an Oliver tractor and plow, 10,000 hand tools and 10,000 pounds of seeds. As a follow-up, the Virginia Jaycees will send a team of Jaycee agriculture experts to Santa Catarina to conduct a two week educational seminar on agricultural techniques. Jaycee State Chairman Hobart Whitaker traveled to Santa Catarina in December to develop administrative operation of the cooperative.
The Wisconsin Jaycees are developing projects that will assist the hurricane stricken Rio Coco area in their partner country of Nicaragua. Governor Patrick Lucey called upon Jaycee President Ron Foster to help in the area of medical and relief supplies. The Wisconsin Air National Guard transport goods and materials for the Jaycees. Also, volunteer Jaycee technicians are offering medical services to the people in this stricken area.
At the World Congress in Honolulu, Hawaii last November, the U.S. Jaycees received special recognition from JCI regarding the activities and successes of the Partners program. JCI President Royce Pepin indicated by letter that The U.S. Jaycees/Partners Program would be given special consideration for development and assistance offered by the JCI Secretariat in encouraging JCI participation.
There are many more examples of project activity underway or on the "drawing board" that could be related, many of which offer opportunities for personal involvement by Jaycee members. An important aspect of working with a partner is in the area of continuous visibility of accomplishment. All of the efforts of Jaycee members will be personally appreciated by partner counterparts due to the communication and personal contact in completing projects. To the Jaycees this is important. To the JCI member, it is a way to learn, grow, and offer his community development advantages that in many cases would not be available in this country.
[From the Lion, official publication of Lions International, September 19731
FROM MAINE TO BRAZIL WITH LOVE
(By Ted J. Rakstis)
When the summer is over, 23-year-old Bernadette Bezerra will say goodbye to the family of Lion Charles Harriman and return to her native Brazil to complete a college education that began two years ago in Portland, Maine. But even though her home in the state of Rio Grande do Norte is nearly 4000 miles from the rocky coast of Maine, Bernadette will be coming back to a land whose future has become interlinked with that of the New England vacation Mecca.
Maine and Rio Grande do Norte are partner states matched through Partners of the Americas, a unique volunteer effort that is supported by Lions in Maine, New Jersey and Kansas. From its beginning 10 years ago, Partners has grown to 43 committees operating between 41 states in the United States and 18 Latin American countries.
Partners is an organization of individual citizens that emphasizes private initiative as the basic tool by which the United States and Latin America can work together for economic and social self-help," explains John Benjamin, Partners associate director. "Lions are playing an ever- increasing role in the development of several partnerships."
In Kansas, Lions have provided glasses for a Partners sight conservation project in Paraguay, and New Jersey Lions have helped to send hospital and school equipment to Alagoas, Brazil. But nowhere have Lions been more active than in Maine. Under the Maine-Rio Grande do Norte partnership, students like Bernadette Bezerra and visiting teachers and performing artists bring an infusion of Brazilian culture to Maine. In return, the New Englanders provide badly-needed medical and educational equipment, technical personnel and a sample of their own distinctive life style.
Charles Harriman, Bernadette's "foster father" for the past two years, is a Portland stock broker who has been active in Lionism as a president of the Falmouth club, deputy district governor and now vice-chairman of the Maine Partners program. (The chairman is Ernest Bracy, a former Lion from Readfield.) Says Harriman: "It's not enough for the U.S. Government to send money to
developing nations. What we need is more people-to-people contact."
Maine Governor Kenneth Curtis, one of some 30 U.S. governors actively supporting Partners of the Americas, was largely responsible for initiating the Maine program. Rio Grande do Norte was chosen because, like Maine, it is a north easternmost state in its nation and relies principally upon a fishing and farming economy. Yet, unlike its thriving Yankee partner state, Rio Grande do Norte is far from affluent. Its people earn only about $400 a year, 40 percent are unemployed and the illiteracy rate is high.
Shortly after the Maine Partners were organized in 1968, the Lions of Maine moved to participate on a statewide basis. Harriman was chosen to go to Natal, the capital of Rio Grande do Norte, to establish liaison with Lions leaders there. At that time the governor of Rio Grande do Norte was Msgr. Walfredo Gurgel, a prominent Lion. Harriman spoke to 10 Lions clubs in and around Natal and pledged the full support of Maine Lions.
Plans were developed for Maine to provide supplies and technicians in exchange for Brazilian students and university professors. When Harriman returned home, he began a speaking tour that eventually brought him before 25 Maine Lions clubs and 100 other civic groups. Through his efforts, the Maine Lions raised money toward the purchase of a $2500 electroencephalograph for a hospital in Natal, but this was merely the first step in the Lions' mission.
"The Lions in Brazil are one of the nation's major social action groups," Harriman points out. "They have built schools and medical clinics but have had trouble getting the equipment to furnish them. To help meet their needs, we contacted schools and hospitals in Maine and were able to get about 150 hospital beds and 500 school desks."
The Maine Lions collected other medical supplies – a respirator, sterilizer, x-ray machines and dental chairs. Herbert Olsen and Don Olen, two Falmouth Lions who work for a medical supply house, volunteered to recondition much of the equipment. Simultaneously, other Maine Partners joined the Lions in gathering goods for shipment to Brazil.
Partners workers rounded up hand tools, playground equipment, school blackboards, office machines and numerous other items. The home builders of Maine donated a prefabricated house, which later was named Casa do Maine and erected in Natal as a community education center. The Maine Truck Owners Association offered to transport equipment to a central shipping point and the Jaycees, who have since adopted Partners ...
She has just completed her sophomore year at Westbrook College in Portland and soon will return to Natal to finish studies that she hopes will lead to a job as a reporter for a Brazilian newspaper.
"I have had a great experience in a great country," Bernadette says. "The people in Maine are much like those in my native land – warm and friendly. Though I may be thousands of miles from Portland, I will never forget my home and 'family' here."
Last winter, Bernadette organized a Portuguese language course for a small group of Falmouth Lions and their wives. The class met each week in the home of Tom Randall, a grocer whose family earlier had been the hosts of another Brazilian girl. Last spring (1973), Randall and his wife, Muriel, went to Rio Grande do Norte. As a result of Bernadette's tutoring, Randall was able to deliver his Lions Club talks in Portuguese.
There have been many tearful scenes at the Portland Jetport when the Brazilian youngsters leave for their real homes, and they never forget to write "mom and dad" in Maine. And when they do return to Rio Grande do Norte, they take with them an insight into modern life that will enable them to become the future leaders of their communities.
As a means of building bridges between nations, it is doubtful that anyone ever has devised a program as effective as Partners of the Americas. Variations of the Maine-Rio Grande do Norte story are being accomplished by other states working with Guatamala, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and other Latin nations. With the proper planning, the program could become global, and Lions may play a key role in shaping its future.
Henry Steinfeld, a past Lions International Director and an attorney in Portland, has been working to have an expanded version of Partners accepted as a world-wide Lions project. "The efforts of Partners in the United States and Latin America could be just the beginning," Steinfeld believes. "The same thing might be done by the Lions of Europe, Japan and Australia with the emerging countries of Africa and Asia. People who have must help those who have not, and it can be done by Lions involvement on the most meaningful level of all – people to people."
[From Americas magazine, volume 25, June – July 1973
OAS EXPANDS EFFORTS TO REHABILITATE THE HANDICAPPED
At the annual conference in Washington D.C. of the President's Committee on the Employment of the Handicapped, in May, Secretary General Galo Plaza spoke of the relation of the problems of rehabilitation to the problems of underdevelopment and of current OAS efforts to expand cooperative programs with non-governmental organizations in rehabilitating the handicapped. In Latin America the problem of rehabilitation is intimately related to the problems of underdevelopment. The analogy of the vicious circle, which is sometimes used, is an oversimplification. What we have in effect is a tangled web of interrelated variables; extreme poverty, limited effective demand for goods and services, unemployment, malnutrition, disease, birth defects, retardation, learning disabilities, and illiteracy, to name only the factors that come immediately to mind.
Where does one begin to disentangle this web and correct these conditions? Of course there is no single answer, applicable to all countries. The strategy will vary, but perhaps the most critical need throughout the developing world is in the area of training for employment.
I believe that vastly expanded educational and training opportunities of all types for those with mental, physical, or social handicaps are needed if rapid progress is to be made toward the improvement of the well-being of all the peoples of the developing world.
I am not implying that all of the rest of the pieces of the development puzzle will fall into place if this is accomplished. Training for employment must be accompanied by integrated national policies that vigorously promote the opening up of new job opportunities of all types. A viable strategy requires simultaneous action on both fronts – job training and job creation.
The dimensions of the task are enormous. That is why it is so important that governments and private organizations work hand in hand to accomplish it. Neither can do it alone. The People-to- People Program's Committee for the Handicapped provides rehabilitation services all over the world, thereby strengthening interrelationships between men and nations.
I am pleased to recognize the valuable contribution that the Partners Rehabilitation and Education Program is making in seventeen Latin American countries, and in their twenty-five partner states, in the United States, by providing treatment, training and services for the handicapped, and promoting contacts and exchange of information and resources among rehabilitation and special education specialists. No other volunteer program is having a greater impact on the lives of so many people in so many countries at so small a cost.
The Organization of American States was pleased to be able to join the Partners Rehabilitation and Education Program in cosponsoring a research survey on special education and rehabilitation throughout Central America and Panama. The survey was directed by John Jordan, Director of the Partners Rehabilitation program and professor at Michigan State University. It has compiled full data, much of it previously unavailable, on the number of the handicapped in the region and the nature of their disability, and on the number of rehabilitation personnel and their level of training. The findings of the survey are already being used in the planning and development of national and international programs to meet specific rehabilitation problems in Central America and Panama. The survey revealed a need for more specialized training for teachers of the handicapped and administrators of rehabilitation institutions. This joint OAS-Partners survey has already more than $120,000 worth of training opportunities among the six partnerships.
The regional approach that has been followed in this instance might commend itself for application in other parts of Latin America and elsewhere in the world. Pilot projects certainly have their place, but the resources of the individual countries and the international organizations would go further if they are carried out on a regional basis so that people of more than one country may benefit from them.
The Central American survey I have mentioned illustrates another important point: in this field, as in so many others, cooperation between intergovernmental organizations and private agencies can be a fruitful way of stretching resources to provide greater impact and avoid duplication of effort.
The Organizationof American States is seeking to expand its cooperative relations with nongovernmental organizations for the carrying out off programs of mutual interest.
PEOPLE GETTING TOGETHER ARE CALLED PARTNERS
(By Stephen G. Sonner)
Fires were still burning through the earthquake ruins in Nicaragua's capital city of Managua when Wisconsin Governor Patrick J. Lucey called members of the press to his office in Madison. "On this Christmas Day, I am officially announcing the beginning of an aid mission to Nicaragua," the Governor said.
For the second time in less than two years, Governor Lucev was calling on the people of Wisconsin to help victims of a natural disaster in the Central American republic of Nicaragua, 3,000 miles away. In September 1971, after Hurricane Edith battered and drenched Nicaragua's Atlantic coast, the people of Wisconsin had responded with two planeloads of relief supplies.
The inspiration for these two emergency relief operations in Nicaragua had its origins in a program that began in the Agency for International Development almost 10 years ago. Wisconsin and Nicaragua belong to Partners of the Americas. They represent one of 43 partnerships between states in the United States and states, regions or countries in Latin America.
Partners of the Americas, originally called Partners of the Alliance, was created in 1964 by AID as the people-to-people component of the Alliance for Progress. AID ran Partners of the Americas until 1970, when the program became a private nonprofit organization. Grants from AID continue to support administrative services and volunteer technician travel.
In the weeks since the earthquake in Managua, the Wisconsin Partners, working with the U.S. Jaycees, have received over $275,000 in cash contributions, and have shipped seven planeloads of food and other emergency supplies to victims of the earthquake. Included among the supplies air-lifted to Nicaragua was a shipment of 18,000 pounds of canned luncheon meat, ready for immediate consumption and ideal for distribution to earthquake refugees. Oscar Mayer & Company, a meat processing firm with headquarters in Madison, donated the canned meat after a disaster survey team from the Wisconsin Partners of the Americas reported a critical need for food in Nicaragua.
Although emergency relief is provided when needed, most of the work of Partners of the Americas focuses on self-help projects of economic, social and cultural development. Under the partnership arrangement between the United States and Latin America, people on both sides of the border work together on projects in agriculture, public health, community development, education, cultural exchanges and rehabilitation.
The partnership between Utah and Bolivia, for example, has resulted in the building of 40 rural elementary schools in the Bolivian Altiplano, an area that bears a striking resemblance to Utah's high desert. People in Utah, mostly school children and their families, have contributed the funds to construct the schools, with Bolivians providing the land and labor. The Utah-Bolivia committee, which is sponsoring the project, is planning to build 200 schools during the next 10 years.
Ten years ago, people in British Honduras tried unsuccessfully to establish a 4-H program for young people from rural areas. Three years ago, government officials in British Honduras requested assistance from their partner state of Michigan. The result has been a successful cooperative effort between the Michigan-British Honduras partnership, with 4-H volunteers from Michigan training youth organizers from British Honduras to establish 4-H clubs throughout the country.
"The emphasis is on the 'partnership' concept," says Alan A. Rubin, President of the Partners of the Americas National Association, located in Washington, D.C. "We rely on the Latins to tell us what they want, and then we try to get it for them."
Recently the Panamanian Ministry of Health started a nutrition project in 200 rural villages in Panama. To help get the project going, the AID mission in Panama contacted Brian Bosworth, a former official with AID now living in Delaware, Panama's partner state. Bosworth, in turn, got in touch with the Kent and Sussex Rabbit Association, which agreed to donate 38 pair of selected breeding rabbits to Panama.
Because of their classic ability to reproduce and their high protein value, rabbits offer an ideal source of meat to Panamanian families. Milford Petitt, President of the Kent and Sussex Rabbit Association followed the rabbits to their new home to help the Panamanians learn to raise their new sources of protein.
Another agricultural project has been going on for several years between the partner states of Iowa and Yucatan, Mexico. Working through the Iowa-Yucatan Partners, Iowa agronomists are providing continuing technical assistance to an experimental farm in Yokat, Yucatan. One of the results of this project is a new strain of corn seed adaptable to the arid climate and soil of the Yucatan Peninsula.
In addition, the Iowa-Yucatan Partners of the Americas are developing alternative uses for henequen, a native plant used to make rope and twine. Worldwide demand for henequen has declined because of the increasing use of synthetic fibers. Bagazo, the residue from henequen processing, may be salvageable as a source of cattle feed, instead of being left to rot. Currently, farmers in Yucatan cannot raise much livestock because of a shortage of feed.
As a result of their hurricane relief efforts in 1971, the Wisconsin Partners of the Americas set up a continuing program in Nicaragua for senior medical students from the University of Wisconsin.
Selected medical students, working under the supervision of the Nicaraguan Ministry of Health, are serving for three months in the Rio Coco area of eastern Nicaragua, treating patients under actual field conditions and learning about tropical diseases.
Another university – Florida A & M in Tallahassee – each year sends a team of professors to Florida's partner country of Colombia, where they conduct a short course in agriculture for government technicians at the University of Monteria.
Brazil, largest country in South America, has 18 partnerships with states in the United States. A $900 trailer van that transported hospital equipment from New Jersey to the state of Alagoas, Brazil, has been recycled by the Brazilians into a $93,000 mobile laboratory for the Alagoas Sugar Cane Experiment Station. Today the van is traveling the Brazilian countryside to analyze the sucrose content of sugar cane, enabling farmers to sell their crops by quality rather than by the traditional weight method.
Specialists from the Wyoming Department of Agriculture are helping ranchers in the Brazilian state of Goias control the berne fly, which causes heavy-losses among cattle. A professor of entomology from the University of New Hampshire is studying ways to control the sauva ant, a leaf-eating insect that plagues farmers in New Hampshire's partner state of Ceara, Brazil.
Individual projects range from the very small to the very large. In the latter category, rehabilitation specialists from six states worked with their counterparts in six Central American countries to survey the needs of handicapped persons in Central America and Panama. This research survey, sponsored jointly by Partners of the Americas and the Organization of American States, has resulted in more than $100,000 in technical services and training opportunities for handicapped persons in Guatemala, Honduras, British Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Panama, as well as in the United States. The survey was conducted under the auspices of the Partners Rehabilitation and Education Program (PREP), a cooperative venture between Latin America and the United States to improve the lives of the physically and mentally handicapped.
George Lambert, owner of a company in Louisiana that produces artificial limbs, and himself the wearer of two artificial legs, is conducting a seminar for 150 prosthetic specialists in El Salvador, Louisiana's partner country. Lambert has recruited a team of surgeons who will help fit patients with artificial legs and have them walking within three weeks of an amputation. Until now, this rehabilitation process has taken one year.
In education, 900 students each year participate in exchanges between partner states in the United States and Latin America. Elementary school teachers from Vermont are teaching English to students in Honduras. Each year, Bates College, Lewiston, Maine, plays host to an artist in residence from Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, Maine's partner state.
The Partners of the Americas program is manned almost entirely by volunteers. "Our investment is in people and in their projects," says Partners President Alan Rubin. Last year Partners of the Americas generated almost $9 in project activity for each dollar spent on the program.
Partners of the Americas receives 90 percent of its support from private sources. A grant from AID provides funds for U.S. volunteer technicians to travel to Latin America and supports the work of the National Association of the Partners of the Americas, which assists state partner committees as a servicing and advisory agency.
More than 30 governors, including Governor Lucey of Wisconsin. actively support the partnership program in their states. President Nixon serves as Honorary Chairman of Partners of the Americas.
During 1972, 1,500 volunteer specialists, ranging from agronomists to zoologist, visited Latin American partner states to provide direct project assistance.
"One of the main advantages of our program," says Rubin, "is that it's open to people from all walks of life. All that's needed is someone with a skill to offer, a project idea, and the drive to get it moving."
Last year, for example, the Illinois Federation of Women's Clubs, in cooperation with the Illinois Jaycees, conducted a drug-abuse education program in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the largest industrial city in South America. In an effort to discourage the use of hallucinogenic drugs among high school students, this project demonstrated the effects of various drugs on rats.
"We are trying very hard to build a constituency for foreign assistance this country," says Rubin. "We believe the way to do it is to get people involved, personally, in some kind of foreign assistance, as an important adjunct to government-to-government programs.
"Partners of 'the Americas offers private citizens a chance to get involved first-hand, and to see the results of their efforts," Rubin explains. "Also there's the people-to-people angle. When someone in Pennsylvania donates seeds to farmers in Brazil, the farmer in Brazil will send him pictures of the plants, and then of the harvest. Partners of the Americas offers continuity and a specific geographic focus, something the average person doesn't get from most foreign assistance programs."
As U.S. foreign aid programs re-emphasize the people-to-people approach in development programs like Partners of the Americas that involve private citizens in self-help projects can be expected to play an increasingly important part in foreign assistance and hemispheric development.