Vickey's blog

"Two exciting developments are the plans of two teachers from Abington Friends School to offer workshops on
Quaker teaching methods at the Friends schools in Bolivia, and the decision of Fredonia Meeting to sponsor one of the scholarship students. Again this year two Westtown students..."

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"...all those that participated in the scholarship had thought it likely that our proposal of scholarship aid to Bolivian Quaker students was only a remote promise. Many have spilled tears for help like ours in moments of
great need and poverty in Bolivia." Bernabe Yujra, BQE-Bo Coordinator

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Last month I spent two weeks in Bolivia, following a week in Peru to study Spanish and get acclimated to medium (8,200 feet) altitude. Things were tense when I arrived in Bolivia on Saturday 10/11; on Sunday 34 people were killed in El Alto when the government told the army to convoy fuel trucks through the campesino blockade, and on Monday another 20 were killed in clashes in central La Paz. For the rest of the week both cities (as well as three others) were shut down—no shops or restaurants, no transport, no street vendors.

The last weeks have been busy. At the end of June there were the joint sessions of the Friends Association for Higher Education (FAHE) and the Friends Council on Education (FCE), and the end of July there were the annual sessions of New York Yearly Meeting (NYYM), and the first week in August the session of New England Yearly Meeting (NEYM). At all three of these gatherings I laid out a display of literature about BQEF, principally the newsletter and the leaflet, and I spoke with many Friends about our work. In speaking about BQEF I mention that it is both incorporated and under the care of Buffalo Meeting.

Dear Friends,

I believe that I wrote you fourteen months ago about possible follow-up from the visit of Loida Cutipa and Cecilia Paco. There have been further developments - exciting ones. Please excuse my long delay in keeping you informed. I have been distracted, among other things by the climate of fear that surrounds us. BQEF does not address those fears but nurtures hopes, and I trust that you will agree that nurturing hope is one of the things we must continue to do in times of fear.