Reflections From the BQEF Board President

By Jens Braun

I was first invited to Bolivia in 2002 by Newton Garver who, during a trip to the country the previous year, had hatched the idea of the Bolivia Quaker Education Fund with a Bolivian Quaker named Bernabe Yujra. Newton recruited me to facilitate Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) workshops in Spanish, one of several programs he initiated to develop north/south relationships between Friends. I’ve been part of the BQEF Board since.

I encountered enthusiasm among young Bolivian Friends and have welcomed several other opportunities to participate in AVP workshops in Bolivia and meet BQEF scholarship recipients. I’ve often sensed among North Americans that they think of South America, though interesting, beautiful, and graced with intense diversity, as a troubled younger sibling of the “great north” and not nearly as “visitable” as other land masses. The colonization of Latin America was brutal, and yet large and small indigenous populations have maintained strong elements of their language, culture, dress, and worldview in ways very evident today not only in the countryside but also in the major cities. Conversations and sharing with bright, young Bolivians have been a delight.

Old city La Paz is much like the old city section of Quito, Ecuador, where I grew up, so I felt many immediate connections to colonial La Paz – from the narrow, steep streets to the central governmental/religious/commercial plaza, the sidewalk markets and vendors (not to mention food), and the mix of indigenous and Spanish influences.

Bolivia, in being the first country in the Americas to elect an indigenous president, Evo Morales, has managed to incorporate native ideas in ways no other colonized nation I’ve visited has. El Alto, located on the altiplano above La Paz, is considered the Americas’ only indigenous modern city with urban planning, architecture, educational opportunities, and resource management influenced by modern adaptations of traditional concepts.

We are now in a new chapter of BQEF, welcoming Rebecca Cutter as our US Coordinator after years of careful and wonderful work by Vickey Kaiser. Rebecca brings wonderful experience and energy from years of work on food sovereignty in indigenous communities of Guatemala. Programs must evolve and adapt, and we at BQEF are now exploring how we will maintain relationships and useful relevance in a world facing a climate crisis and other major challenges. We appreciate and welcome all of you who have joined us on our journey and look forward to what is to come.