By Dorothy Segovia

If the present moment is our point of power then rising up to meet each moment is our power walk. Since 1991, the ladies of the Maria Luisa Ortiz Women’s Center in Mulukukú, Nicaragua, have been strutting their stuff under the leadership of U. S. citizen and nurse director, Dorothy Granada.

Mulukukú is a rural village in the geographic center of Nicaragua. In the “contra” war of the 1980s, thousands of Nicaraguan farmers fled their homes and resettled in communities such as Mulukukú as war refugees. Hurricane Joan destroyed Mulukukú in 1988. More than 200 homes were washed away in the post hurricane floods. Since that time the community has organized to discuss, plan and carry out reconstruction. A group of 40 women formed themselves into a cooperative and with international aid, built a block-making shop, constructed their homes and built a carpentry shop before turning their attention to health needs. The Women's Health Center was established as a response to the demands of the organized women for adequate reproductive health care for themselves and other women and health care for their children.

Dorothy was already 59 when she met the group. Because of her background the women asked her to lead their community. Today the Center treats an average of 12,500 patients a year. The clinic is the primary health provider for the people of Mulukukú and its surrounding areas, a population of 30,000 inhabitants. In addition, the clinic provides services such as child nutrition, women's leadership, domestic violence counseling, youth health programs and HIV prevention.

Dorothy began her involvement in the nonviolence movement in 1978 when she campaigned for several years against the death penalty. In 1983 she organized and participated in the Fast For Life, a 3-year disarmament campaign that culminated in a 40-day fast beginning on Hiroshima Day. In 1985, with Peace Brigades International, she helped begin the escort service for the Families of the Disappeared in Guatemala and was a long term volunteer with Witness for Peace in Nicaragua. In 1987 after Vietnam veteran and peace activist Brian Willson was run over by a train at Concord Naval Weapons Station while protesting arms shipments to Central America, Dorothy lived “on the tracks,” providing medical support to the protesters.

Along with providing health care in Mulukukú, Dorothy’s goal has been to empower the women of the Cooperative. Her activism is grounded deeply in her spiritual faith.

“Central to all activities is the organizing of the women themselves,” she says. “First women learn to recognize their rights as human beings, as women and as citizens; and to understand historical, religious and social forces that have marginalized them.”

Ms. Granada frequently tours the United States in order to obtain necessary funds for the clinic. Her speeches are filled with stories of contra rebels threatening the women of the clinic. One tale is about a contra soldier who arrived at the clinic with a bullet in his head. Not having the facilities to treat him, the women referred him to a medical office in Managua. The soldier refused to go, believing that a Sandanista soldier would kill him before he ever reached the city. So the women drove him to the city clinic themselves. This is no small feat for Managua is 200 miles away, over a very narrow and difficult mountain pass.

After this soldier, who turned out to be a commander, was healed he brought his own children to the clinic for care. Later when a rebel army targeted the clinic for attack, it turned out to be this commander’s army. Some of the men recognized the clinic as the place where their chief took his kids for health care and they subsequently halted the attack.

This is one of the stories I heard when I heard Dorothy speaking in San Luis Obispo, California in 2001. Not that I intended to be there. I intended to do my laundry that night, but Divine Inspiration is a down home trickster. After hearing Dorothy and her companion Grethel, standing up for their truths, there was nothing else to do but follow mine.

The first thing I noticed was that all of the photographs were pictures of women that could have been my cousins, aunts, nieces and nephews. After Grethels gentle insistence that her community didn’t want charity, they wanted friends to help them in their work at the clinic, well sister; I got inspired to strut my musical stuff.

Personally, my becoming a politically inspired activist was a need to offer my own talent and my Self. Watching Dorothy and Grethel in action inspired me to action by rounding up a group of musician friends to donate a song to a compilation benefit CD called The Mulukukú CD Project. It’s my way of bridging the gap between two communities: San Luis Obispo and Mulukukú.

Despite the great need of the clinic in aiding the rural people, Dorothy and the women have not been without their opponents. In November of 2000, Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Aleman closed the clinic based on false allegations in services provided and the political activities of Ms. Granada. He tried to illegally deport 73 year-old Ms. Granada and she went into hiding, waiting for her chance to speak her case before a court. However, it wasn’t until after a massive international human and civil rights effort led by California Democratic Congressman Sam Farr that the clinic was reopened.
The clinic has since reopened, but recent political events, nationally and internationally have kept the donations from the communities ‘friends’ barely covering their basic expenses.

For me, my involvement with this project has had more to do with my soul than any funds I could have possibly directed their way. For me, standing up for these remarkable women with my own voice, shows me that I can stand up in other areas of my life too. And to me, that spells power.

To find out more about these stand-up women, log onto www.peacehost.net/Dorothy.

© Melt Magazine 2003