Supplements

Commentary

By Liz Quirin

So Much Alike in Hoping, Dreaming

The more people I meet from here, across the country and around the world, the more I see we’re all the same. Maybe we don’t speak the same language, but that doesn’t change the core — ours or anybody else’s. Human nature remains the same: In some people it manifests as open, honest inquiry, with a tendency to reach out to others, to make one particular place better than it was before those people arrived. In others, closed, dishonest, manipulative behavior reins in these people’s hearts, with a tendency to keep prejudices in place and thwart efforts to change. (Why is it always easier to describe the villains we know instead of the heroes in our midst?)

Last week I met some unlikely heroes who are just like us, but they don’t speak English and they don’t live in the “burbs” like so many of us do. They live in a barrio in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, according to everything I’ve read. The poorest? Haiti. That should give an indication of how many Nicaraguans are doing.

The people I met range in age between 17 and 26, and they are looking for a better future that includes jobs, a safe place to live with the hope they can make their lives better than they are now, i.e. living in poverty in a neighborhood known for everything negative: high crime, little or no sanitation, drugs and alcohol problems, no jobs — you get the picture.

Enter Catholic Relief Services partnering with Caritas, the international aid organization that interacts with country organizations like CRS. Together the two organizations built a program for youth at risk of joining gangs or those who need help to turn their lives around.

One young man, Fidencio Calero, talked about the success he’s had in developing a construction business, and he wants to do more projects. However, when he applies for jobs outside his neighborhood, and he tells the prospective clients where he lives, they won’t talk to him. They know the reputations of people living in that neighborhood and instead of giving him a chance, they close the door.

Because Fidencio has been trained and encouraged, he believes in his dream of building his business. Unlike others who just want to move out of the neighborhood and put that time behind them, he wants to stay there, live there and make the neighborhood a better place. Would that others in other “worlds” dreamed the same dreams, of making life better for everyone, not just walking away. The good news is that he’s not alone in his dreams.

While I needed help understanding him because my Spanish makes real speakers like Father Vince, also on the trip, wince/moan/laugh or all of the above, I see Fidencio is just like any young person around the world and here at home who dreams and hopes, and with a bit of help, sees those dreams come true. We are really, truly so much alike.