History

By Kim Freedman & Nancy Eckel

In 1984 two of the present members of the H/OSCP Board, Lois Bromson and Nancy Eckel, went to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace to protest U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and U.S. funding of the contra. On the same trip they met Alan Wright and Paula Klein, who were the founders of the New Haven/León Sister City Project. Lee Cruze, who was important in developing both the Hartford and the New Haven programs, was then the Director of the Social Concerns Department at the Capitol Region Conference of Churches in Hartford. Several Hartford area people including Kim Friedman and Tom Redden had become involved with the Hartford Coalition for Justice in Central America (HCJCA). Many other contributors to HOSCP were also working with the Hartford Coalition, including Jack Lucas, Dave Brown, Rob and Adriana Trafford, Richard Greeman, Victoria Barrera, and Al and Edith Levy. There was bound to be cross-pollination. 

In 1984 Kim and Tom spent several months in Nicaragua where Kim was doing field research for her master’s thesis on political pluralism in Nicaragua (for her master’s degree in third world development through Antioch-Yellow Springs University). In Nicaragua, Kim and Tom spent their first six weeks at the Escuela Nica (Nuevo Instituto de Central America), a language school in Estelí, Nicaragua, also attended by Nancy Eckel who was preparing to work for Witness for Peace. 

Prior to Kim and Tom leaving for Nicaragua, the Hartford Coalition asked Kim and Tom to explore the possibility of establishing a sister city relationship with Ocotal, which had no American sister city at that time. Rob Trafford’s wife, Adriana, translated into Spanish a letter from HCJCA for Kim and Tom to present to the powers-that-be in Ocotal. 

 

When the course of study at the Escuela Nica ended, Kim and Tom headed for Ocotal. To do so they needed clearance from the FSLN (the Sandinista Front for National Liberation – The Nicaraguan Army) to go there because there were frequent contra attacks on the road from Estelí to Ocotal. 

When they finally arrived in Ocotal they quickly discovered that the contra were only seven miles outside of town. They fell asleep their first night in Ocotal to the sound of mortar fire. The next morning they looked up a Maryknoll sister whose name had been given to them in the States. She had left, but Lisa Culp, a lay Maryknoll missionary living there had taken her place. She pointed them in the direction of the Mayor’s Office and told them a little about Felipe Barreda who was Mayor of Ocotal at the time. They met with Felipe and subsequently were invited to stay at his home. The meeting resulted in Kim and Tom leaving Ocotal several days later with a letter from Felipe expressing the town’s interest in establishing a sister city relationship with Hartford. They mailed the letter to the Hartford Coalition. They returned briefly to Hartford prior to leaving for Switzerland for a year of graduate work. 

Kim and Tom spoke with Lee Cruze during their brief visit at home. Lee was working with the Capitol Region Conference of Churches, and he invited them to speak with Roger Floyd, Director of the CRCC. In February of 1985, Roger had gone to Nicaragua with a Witness for Peace delegation. Nancy Eckel, then working with Witness for Peace in Managua, and Roger, had become acquainted in Managua. After his return and after speaking with Kim and Tom, Roger assigned Lee Cruze to develop the sister city program. Nancy had returned to the United States after working for several months in Nicaragua with Witness for Peace. Lee Cruze hired Nancy in 1986 to organize a material aid shipment to Ocotal to be shipped with the New Haven/Leon Sister City material aid shipment. Soon after the shipment was completed, Lee Cruze and his wife, Vangie Vargas were hired to head the NH/LSCP in León and moved to Nicaragua. Dennis Gillaume, who then became the Director of the CRCC Social Concerns Department, became the first H/OSCP Coordinator and formed a Board of Directors. 

In January, 1988, Nancy was hired full-time by CRCC, and was thrilled to discover that the Hartford/Ocotal Sister City Project had been fully organized. Dennis had even taken the first H/OSCP delegation to Ocotal in January of 1986. One of the delegates, Jan Baker, a volunteer, took the Hartford/Ocotal Sister City Project several steps further. She managed to get an Apple computer donated, started a database and made contact with Mayor Thurman Milner of Hartford. She also used Handsnet to connect to Ocotal. She made arrangements for a sick baby to be brought to Hartford for surgery. Many other activities followed. There was an active Board of Directors and regular meetings were held at the Conference of Churches. 

Kim and Tom returned to Hartford in 1986 and became involved in the H/OSCP in early 1987. Jan Baker was at the helm, but Kim began to run the meetings. Tom and Kim led a delegation to Ocotal in 1988. After many unsuccessful attempts to secure visas from the U.S. State Department, the following year H/OSCP sponsored a visit by former Ocotal Mayor Felipe Barreda and Arnulfo Aguilar, Ocotal’s Mayor at the time. 

In June of 1988, Hartford Mayor Carrie Saxon Perry signed the Sister City acceptance document and Jan Baker, Nancy Eckel and Dorrie Minor, another Board member, left that June for the Nicaraguan Conference of Sister Cities in Managua and ultimately met with the Ocotal City Council then headed by Alcalde (Mayor) Arnulfo Aguilar. 

A delegation led by Tom Redden in 1990 examined the Nicaraguan electoral process in Ocotal and the actual 1990 Nicaraguan elections. It introduced 16 interested delegates to the Nicaraguan reality and to Ocotal in particular. It also introduced the group to the unique voting system in Nicaragua, headed by a fourth branch of their government, the Election Department. It is a department independent of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Departments in Nicaragua – a unique institution in constitutional democracies. In addition to gaining a better understanding of daily life in Nicaragua, the delegates interviewed a number of members of the opposition parties, as well as the Sandinista Party (the FSLN) in Ocotal. There were 20 parties altogether, and time was too short to interview them all. But they did interview several of the major opposition parties in Ocotal. Tom Redden, who was a Ph.D. candidate at UCONN, wrote his thesis on the 1990 election. In the 1990 election, Violetta Chamorro, wife of the former owner of La Prensa, was elected President of Nicaragua. La Prensa was a daily newspaper published in Managua by the old Liberal (actually very conservative) Somosa Party. The Sandinistas (the FSLN party) the group which had overturned the Somoza dictatorship of 50 years in 1979, lost the election. It was a major surprise and disappointment to the H/OSCP delegation and leaders. We learned later that there had been a great deal of secret interference by the United States. 

In August, 1992, Kim and Tom moved to Vermont. Jan Baker returned to the program briefly. From mid1990 until her retirement in 1992, Nancy Eckel headed the program. She led two more delegations to Ocotal, and visited Nicaragua with small groups two other times. 

It was during this time that John Stanton was hired to run the H/OSCP in the Ocotal program. He became heavily involved in the concerns of the people working at the hospital in Ocotal and worked with to improve the safety procedures and disposal of waste at the hospital. A delegation went to see John’s work in 1992, when the City of Ocotal put on a special entertainment to Honor the H/OSCP. It was an evening filled with Ocotal’s love and gratitude for the Hartford/Ocotal Sister City Project’s efforts. Nancy, as the then Director of the HOSCP was especially honored. 

During that time Nancy had seen news of the Grameen banking system on the CBS 60 Minutes program and thinking it would be perfect for Ocotal, did a great deal of research on how local Grameen style banks organize themselves, and sent the results to John in Ocotal, who developed them into our present banking system FUNAFAM. Nancy also raised some money to launch the effort. At her retirement, Nancy had nominated Jack Lucas to run the program. Fortunately, he accepted. John left the program about 1993, to return to school and Jack, almost single handedly, kept the program alive, concentrating mainly on the FUNAFAM program. 

In the winter of 2008, Jack died, leaving a huge hole in the program and in everyone’s hearts, but the Sister City Project lives on with new leadership and new energy but it has been a struggle. 

In 2007 Kim, Tom and their two girls returned to Ocotal where they re-doubled their first commitment to helping to sustain funding for FUNAFAM. In 2009, Nancy returned to the HOSCP program and has been functioning as the Secretary since May of 2010. Kim has become involved again in the program by planning and developing a web site for the HOSCP with the intention of increasing funding for the FUNAFAM program. This has been a strenuous exercise for Kim and the Steering Committee. It seems to be gradually coming to fruition and will be a very great and needed part of the continuing HOSCP project. 

The present co-coordinator, Kate Anderson, is relatively new to the program. She and her husband, Sherwood, have brought renewed interest and energy to our efforts to make a difference to the life of Ocotal’s residents. They are more than equal to the task. 

Lois Bromson is still on the Steering Committee and may be the only person who has been continuously serving as a member of the Steering Committee since the program’s first beginnings in 1985. 

For a list of the current Board of Directors, go to “Board of Directors” under the Welcome tab at the top of the page.