2013-05-18T08:02:00-04:00 Stephen P. Williams http://www.voces.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=stephen-p-william Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Stephen P. Williams Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2766364 2013-02-27T09:39:31-05:00 2013-04-29T05:12:01-04:00

Stephen P. Williams http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-p-william/
Which begs the question: Which would you choose if faced with the stark choice between the tranquility of trees and the utility of oil?

Last year Nicolas Entel, the noted director of Sins of My Father (Pecados de mi padre), about the family of Pablo Escobar, decided to find out. He traveled to a forest preserve called Yasuní, in the Ecuadoran Amazon that has some of the greatest variety of plant and animal life of any spot on earth. Rivers rich in fish, amphibians, and even pink freshwater dolphins cross it. Some of the original human inhabitants still live according to ancient ways in thatched homes with cook fires sending smoke into the rafters.

In recent years it's also gotten a few new roads, which are making some of the residents, and many outsiders, nervous. That's because there's another reason Yasuní is special. As luck would have it - or not -- Yasuní sits on top of a huge oilfield. The big boys are building the roads so they can explore for oil.

Since Ecuador is a developing country, with lots of people clamoring for health care, homes and education, there's tremendous pressure on the government to let Big Oil do its thing in this pristine forest. Given the country's history with Texaco and other giants, most Ecuadorians know that nothing comes free: toxic lagoons, ruined communities and unfulfilled promises have traditionally been the tradeoff for Amazonian crude.

Nicolas was curious about a new plan put forth to save the forest and help the country. So he flew from New York to Quito, landing in the white city, 9,350 feet up in the Andes, to chat with President Rafael Correa, whose government supports the innovative Yasuní-ITT Initiative first proposed by an earlier administration. Correa explained the plan like this: In order for Ecuador to halt drilling in Yasuní, the international community -- governments, corporations, private people -- would have to donate the equivalent of 50 percent of the profits the country stands to make on the oil fields if they are developed. That's billions of dollars.

If it sounds like extortion, that's because it is.

But, as Nicolas discovered when he flew down to the city of Puerto Francisco de Orellana, also known as Coca, and boarded a motorized dugout into the back-country, extortion can sometimes be a force for good. As he documents in his new film, YASUNI, the forest is among the most beautiful places on earth. There's a stillness there you won't find in any "civilized" place. And it has produced a rich culture with much traditional wisdom, and also some glamour, as embodied by Eglantina Zingg, who grew up in the Amazon before becoming a MTV personality. She also appears in the film and was an executive producer.

YASUNI, which opens at the Miami International Film Festival on March 9, makes a good case for the trees being more important than the oil underground, which, after all would only satisfy the world's needs for short time.

The movie opens with an inspired scene of an actual oil derrick being installed in New York's Madison Square Park. Nicolas films the reactions of passerby, and believe me, they are not happy! Which makes me think the people of the Yasuní -- not to mention the flora and fauna -- must not be too happy with the idea either.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1534655 2012-05-22T07:20:00-04:00 2012-07-22T05:12:24-04:00

Stephen P. Williams http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-p-william/
Moreno creció en Nuevo Rocafuerte, un remanso del Amazonas cerca de la frontera con Perú. A pesar de su educación aislada, Moreno se transformó en un abogado élite en este país de más de 14 millones de personas horcajadas en la línea ecuatorial en la costa Pacífica de América del Sur. La vida era buena, pero luego no lo fue.

Una tarde, dos jóvenes decidieron robar su coche en el estacionamiento de un supermercado en Quito, la capital del país. Moreno entregó las llaves y su billetera, pero aún así le dispararon en la espalda, dejándolo paralítico de por vida. En un momento iba a comprar pan para su familia, y al siguiente estaba en un camino que lo convertiría en un activista accidental, responsable de traer una fuerte medida de paz a decenas de miles de personas discapacitadas en el Ecuador.

Ecuador es un lugar increíblemente rico en recursos naturales - tanto del tipo extraíble, como los menos tangibles, la belleza natural, la inteligencia humana y el pensamiento creativo. El país nació a partir de la conquista, con los grupos indígenas y los descendientes de esclavos africanos mantenidos sumisos por una clase dominante, descendiente de los españoles. La idea de que algunas personas no valían tanto como los demás se construyó en la cultura, y persiste hoy en día. Lamentablemente, la carga es aún mayor para las personas con discapacidad física y mental, que hasta hace poco se veían a menudo mendigando en las calles, las tiras de viejos tubos atados a sus manos y las rodillas para proteger su piel a medida que se arrastraban.

Como la mayoría de los ecuatorianos, Moreno no había pensado mucho acerca de estas personas. Eran imágenes de fondo, sólo más de la pobreza de la clase enorme que sigue afectando a Ecuador. Pero la bala en la espalda cambió todo eso. La lesión llevó a Moreno a una grieta oscura de neuralgia y depresión. Postrado en cama y con dolor extremo, se hundió tan bajo como un hombre puede ir. Las medicinas no estaban funcionado y los médicos estaban desconcertados.

Pero entonces, Moreno descubrió el valor de la risa como un agente curativo. Al principio los médicos pensaron que era ridículo. Sin embargo, su esposa y tres hijas creyeron en él. Y juntos se rieron fuera de su pesadilla, y lo inspiraron a escribir varios libros sobre el poder de la risa para curar. Después de cuatro años fue capaz de utilizar una silla de ruedas para moverse. Se dio cuenta de que la mejor manera de curar su propio dolor crónico fue con el amor, el humor, la amistad, el respeto a sí mismo y a los demás, el optimismo, la fe y la esperanza. Estos principios se convirtieron en la base de sus charlas de motivación. Esto sería suficiente para la mayoría de la gente, pero no para Moreno.

Capaz de moverse ahora, regreso a su trabajo legal, y a la política, y en el 2007 fue elegido vicepresidente de Ecuador, sirviendo bajo Rafael Correa. Esta fue la primera vez que muchos ecuatorianos habían visto a un hombre discapacitado, en silla de ruedas no menos, en una posición de poder. Moreno sabía lo afortunado que era de ser educado, rico y poderoso, viviendo con su familia en una casa llena de cuadros, muchos de ellos creados por su hija mayor, Irina. Y aún así sabía lo difícil que era estar en desventaja. Así que uso el poder de la primera para ayudar a esta última.

En ese primer año, Moreno se quedó asombrado al enterarse de que Ecuador gastaba un poco más de 100,000 dólares al año ayudando a sus ciudadanos con discapacidad. Él hizo un viaje de investigación a través todo el país y descubrió personas con discapacidad viviendo en gallineros, cuevas y refugios infestados por ratas. Y no sólo uno, sino muchos.

Poco después de asumir el cargo, Moreno aumento la cantidad que se gasta anualmente en ayuda para las personas con discapacidad en el Ecuador en un 5,000 por ciento. También fundó la Misión Solidaria Manuela Espejo para las Personas con Discapacidad, que ofrece rehabilitación, asistencia técnica, y apoyo psicológico a miles de ecuatorianos con discapacidad. Entre 2009 y 2010 la Misión Solidaria visito más de un millón de hogares en todo el país y se entrevistó con cerca de 300,000 personas con discapacidad para saber cuáles eran las necesidades más apremiantes. Muchas de esas personas recibieron chequeos médicos gratuitos. Y ahora la Misión se extiende a Paraguay, Perú, Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador y Colombia.

En estos días, el vestíbulo barroco del palacio de la vicepresidencia, se encuentra a menudo lleno de niños ciegos cogidos de la mano de sus madres, los adultos con discapacidades de desarrollo agrupados en grupos y personas en sillas de ruedas y con muletas que creen que el vicepresidente es alguien que entiende sus necesidades.

Moreno no le da importancia a su excepcionalidad. Una vez le dijo a un reportero del Miami Herald: "Todos estamos discapacitados en algún momento de nuestra vida-ya sea como niños o como adultos mayores. Así que estoy seguro que no soy el único. "

Ahora esperemos que el Comité del Nobel lo celebre. Sería bueno ver a Moreno en Oslo este año.

Para dar su voto a Lenin Moreno, y apoyar los derechos de las personas con discapacidad, siga @ ANobelCause en Twitter.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1522663 2012-05-17T07:58:22-04:00 2012-07-17T05:12:20-04:00

Stephen P. Williams http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-p-william/
Moreno grew up in Nuevo Rocafuerte, an Amazonian backwater near the Peruvian border. Despite his isolated upbringing, Moreno transformed himself into an elite lawyer in this country of over 14 million people astride the equator on the Pacific Coast of South America. Life was good, and then it wasn't.

One afternoon two teenagers decided to steal his car in a grocery store parking lot in Quito, the country's capital. Moreno handed over his keys and wallet, but still they shot him in the back, paralyzing him for life. One minute he was buying bread for his family; the next he was on a path that would turn him into an accidental activist, responsible for bringing a strong measure of peace to tens of thousands of disabled people in Ecuador.

Ecuador is not a wealthy place, though it's incredibly rich in natural resources - both the extractable kind, and the less tangible ones, like natural beauty, human intelligence and creative thinking. The country was born out of the conquest, with Indian groups and the descendants of African slaves kept in submission by a dominant class descended from the Spaniards. The notion that some people weren't worth as much as other people was built into the culture, and endures to this day. Sadly, the burden is even greater for physically and mentally handicapped people, who until recently were often seen begging on cobblestone streets, strips of old inner-tubes tied to their hands and knees to protect their skin as they dragged themselves along.

Like most Ecuadorians, Moreno hadn't thought much about these people. They were background images, just more of the huge poverty class that still plagues Ecuador. But the bullet in his back changed all that. The injury plunged Moreno into a dark crevasse of neuralgia and depression. Bedridden and in extreme pain, he sank as low as a man can go. Drugs didn't work. Doctors were baffled.

But then Moreno discovered the value of laughter as a healing agent. His doctors thought it was ridiculous, at first. But his wife and three daughters believed in him. And together they laughed him out of his nightmare situation, and inspired him to write a number of books about the power of laughter to heal. After four years he was able to use a wheelchair to move around. He came to realize that the best way to cure his own chronic pain was with love, humor, friendship, respect of himself and others, optimism, faith and hope. These principals became the basis of his wildly popular motivational talks.That would be enough for most people, but not Moreno.

Able to move now, he returned to his legal work, and politics, and in 2007 was elected Vice President of Ecuador, serving under Rafael Correa. This was the first time that many Ecuadorians had seen a disabled man, in a wheelchair no less, in a position of power. Moreno knew how lucky he was to be educated, wealthy, and powerful, living with his family in a house filled with paintings, many of them the work of his oldest daughter Irina. And still he knew how tough it was to be handicapped. So he used the power of the former to help the latter.

In that first year, Moreno was astounded to learn that Ecuador spent little more than 100,000 dollars a year assisting its handicapped citizens. He took a fact-finding trip around the country and uncovered handicapped people living in chicken coops, caves, and rat-infested grass shelters. And not just one, but many.

Soon after taking office, Moreno raised the amount spent annually on help for the disabled in Ecuador by over 5,000 percent. He also founded the Manuela Espejo Solidarity Mission for the Disabled, which offers rehab, technical help, and psychological support to thousands of disabled Ecuadorians. Between 2009 and 2010 the Solidarity Mission visited over a million homes around the country and interviewed nearly 300,000 disabled people to find out what needs were most pressing. Many of those people received free medical checkups. And now the Solidarity Mission is spreading to Paraguay, Peru, Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador and Colombia.

These days, the baroque lobby of the vice presidential palace is often crowded with blind boys holding their mothers' hands, developmentally disabled adults clustered in groups, and people in wheelchairs and on crutches who believe that the vice president is someone who understands their needs.

Moreno downplays his exceptionalism. He once told a reporter from the Miami Herald: "We're all handicapped at some moment in our life--whether it's as children or as seniors. So I'm sure I'm not the only one."

But let's hope the Nobel committee plays it up. It would be good to see Moreno in Oslo this year.

To support Lenín Moreno for the Nobel Peace Prize follow @ANobelCause on Twitter.]]>