Holy Cross Jesuits visit Bolivia

By Paul E. Kandarian

With its population of eight million, Bolivia is the poorest country in South America; for the Western Hemisphere only in Haiti are conditions worse. Yet in this beautiful Andean country, where the mother tongue of 60 percent of the population might be Aymara, Quechua or Guarani, the Bolivia Province of the Society of Jesus is working hard to bring hope and opportunity to the underprivileged. For the last three years two Jesuits from Holy Cross, along with several friends of the Society, have been lending their time, talent and support to create a bridge between two vastly different realities. And they are looking for a few good Holy Cross friends to join them.

Holy Cross president emeritus, Rev. John Brooks, S.J., ’49, and theology professor Rev. William Reiser, S.J., have traveled to Bolivia for a week or two at a time, together with Thomas V. Fritz and Thomas P. McDermott, retired partners with Ernst & Young. Together they have been studying social, political and economic conditions in the country, but their principal interest has been the educational efforts of the Jesuits.

The Bolivia Province, numbering about 150 Jesuits, runs four high schools or colegios in the cities of La Paz, Cochabamba, and Sucre. But the Province also oversees an educational network called Fe y Alegría—“Faith and Joy”—that embraces 220,000 primary school students. Most of these schools are located in rural areas. The network includes 348 school plants, not to mention additional centers for the promotion of social and educational development. And the Society’s oversight covers everything from curriculum design to the continuing spiritual and professional development of the instructors. The innovation, creativity and hard work that are so evident in such an educational enterprise are, the group agreed, “simply amazing.”

Perhaps what is so amazing is the enormous effect that a relatively small number of Jesuits is having on education in Bolivia, where, according to Tom McDermott, 80 percent of the population lives on $2 or less a day. The group was particularly impressed by the creative use of radio. In Sucre, for example, Radio Loyola educates campesinos living in remote villages of the mountainous countryside. Lesson plans cover everything from agricultural techniques, nutrition, hygiene and community organizing, to cultural history, literacy, political analysis and catechesis.

“Sixty-three percent of the country listens to one of the twenty-six Jesuit radio stations in the course of a day,” Fr. Reiser explains, adding that the radio institute in Santa Cruz has graduated some 12,000 students at the primary and secondary school levels. “It’s an extraordinarily effective and efficient system. People in villages listen to the programs and then meet in small groups. There are local coordinators or instructors. The staff in Santa Cruz designs, publishes and distributes the textbooks, oversees the administration of testing and trains the instructors.”

“When you think of the power 150 people have, you’ve never seen anything to compare to this in leverage and the human capacity for outreach and social programs,” says Tom McDermott, whose work with Banco Sol and the international microlending agency Acción has taken him throughout all of Latin America. “It causes you to shake your head in admiration.”

“And they are so creative,” Fr. Reiser says. “In a parish way out on the altiplano, at the edge of Lake Titicaca, we met a Jesuit from Italy who entered the Society as an agronomist. It’s the only Jesuit community house I know of with a barnyard attached. He has introduced agricultural technology and taught the people how to make premium mozzarella and authentic Italian sausage. Their problem is keeping up with demand! Out there, among the llamas and surrounded by the Andes, religious development goes hand in hand with promoting social and economic life.”

Fr. Brooks notes that the group also visited a number of clinics under Jesuit sponsorship where medical and dental attention is given to students and their families, and the women receive prenatal care. “This means, of course,” he adds, “that the students make better progress in school.”

A Fe y Alegría school can become the site for vocational training, once the younger students leave for the day. “I was especially struck by the enthusiasm of the older students at the trade school in La Paz,” Tom Fritz comments. “Observing the classes on cooking, computer programming and clothing design, I simply could not get over how eager the young people were about learning.”

“About half the Jesuits in the Province are Bolivian, and most of the rest have come from Spain,” Fr. Brooks points out. “With 20 novices, their vocation situation looks pretty healthy.”

Fr. Reiser has been going to La Paz each summer for a number of years, to give a short theology course to university students. “Bolivia has huge problems, but there has been some real progress, and the educational efforts of the Society have played an important role,” Fr. Reiser says.

Tom McDermott, a graduate of Fordham University, knows firsthand the work of the Jesuits in Brazil and Chile. “Bolivia has always been my favorite country,” he confesses with a smile, “despite the fact that my wife comes from Chile!”

Noting that the Bolivia mission has always been close to his heart, McDermott adds, “I never imagined the size of the contributions of the Jesuits until this learning experience of the last three years. We just need a lot more folks to come with us!”

This sentiment reflects the core goal of the group: to raise awareness by having 10-to-15 people from various walks of life travel to Bolivia together in order to witness what the Jesuits have been doing—and to help support that mission. But also to bring their experience and insight back home. “One missioner told me,” Fr. Reiser recalls, “that Catholic higher education should have as its moral and religious ideal ‘one Church, one America.’ Young people in countries like Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador long for something like that. It is just so important for anyone invested in Catholic higher education to understand the world from their eyes.”

“The power of a resource in Bolivia is one hundred times what it is here in the United States,” Tom McDermott notes. “If you spend $100,000 in the U.S., you can do ‘X’ with it in terms of improving the well-being of people. But with $100,000 in Bolivia, you could do one hundred times ‘X,’ so we see the extraordinary potential that is being lost if we cannot go further.”

“All of us hope for an America where no one will be forced to leave their countries for economic or political reasons,” Fr. Reiser says. “But remaking the hemisphere is going to come only in very small steps.”

And the Jesuits of Bolivia, who are on the front line, Tom McDermott points out, are working hard to make these small steps happen.

“I see the magic of the Jesuit community worldwide,” he says. “They run 28 universities in the United States and 29 more from Mexico to Argentina. The potential that comes from that—and from the over one million men and women in the United States who have studied at Jesuit schools—is immense. But making connections is crucial to realizing that potential among alumni.

“Ideally, we want 10-to-15 people who can help us monetarily,” McDermott says. “We need people to join us who really want to make a powerful difference.”

The Bolivia provincial, Rev. Ramón Alaix, S.J., welcomed the group on its various trips, arranging and escorting the visits to schools, clinics, radio stations, parishes, vocational programs, trade schools, cooperatives and social projects. Fr. Reiser says that when he asked the provincial to name Bolivia’s most pressing need, Fr. Alaix did not hesitate: “Education, education, education!”

The group from Holy Cross plans to continue its Bolivia partnership and is looking for 10-to-15 more friends to join them. “I grew up poor in New York, but all that changed over the next 60 years or so,” says Tom McDermott of his career and success. “Conditions in Bolivia will change. You have to give the Jesuits five stars for what they have been able to do. Now they need more of us—particularly those educated in Jesuit colleges and universities—to get in the game.”

[For more information about this effort or to join the group on a future visit, contact Fr. Brooks or Fr. Reiser at the College or by e-mail at jbrooks@holycross.edu or wreiser@holycross.edu. Phone:(508)793-2427. Thomas McDermott’s e-mail address is ilque@aol.com.]

Paul Kandarian is a freelance writer from Taunton, Mass.