Helping hand tries to put Bolivia on right track
• An NWA retiree turned his deliveries of medical supplies into a wide-reaching nonprofit that works out of his Mendota Heights home.
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By HERON MARQUEZ ESTRADA hme@startribune.com When Segundo Velasquez used to return to his native Bolivia to visit relatives, he'd often take a few medical supplies requested by his brother, a pediatrician. "Soon I took enough to fill a carryon, then a suitcase, then we brought in the National Guard," said Velasquez, who in 1994 started a nonprofit organization called Mano a Mano Medical Resources that has raised millions for medical aid and supplies for his fellow Bolivians. He runs it out of his home in Mendota Heights. This week, the mayor of a Bolivian city has come to Minnesota to meet with the group and offer his thanks. |
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"We have a lot of problems," said Hector Arze, mayor of Omereque.
"Mano a Mano targeted things that have changed our lives." |
MARLIN LEVISON • mlevison@startribune.com |
Arze said the roads, clinics, dams and other Mano a Mano projects have made it possible for Omereque's 9,000 residents to better market their products and their produce. "We grow everything ... but cocoa," Arze said Friday. He has talked directly to Mano a Mano officials about what his country needs.
Velasquez, a retired Northwest Airlines employee, said the group makes sure that the local communities contribute to the construction and staffing of the new clinics.
"We do it with them, we don't do it for them," Velasquez said. "We feel it is important for the people to participate so they feel it is their clinic, their project." '
In 2000, an anonymous Twin Cities donor gave Mano a Mano $2 million to build dozens of clinics, roads, schools and houses in rural Bolivia. That same donor has offered another $1 million for 45 clinics if the group can match the gift with an additional $1 million by 2011, Velasquez said Friday.
Already, the group has raised $750,000 of the needed money, he said.
The 90 new clinics would more than double the size of the group's operations in Bolivia. The group just completed its 66th clinic and plans to open another one by November.
Bolivia, about three times the size of Montana, is one of the poorest countries in South America. Political instability and corruption have kept the central government from improving such basic infrastructure as roads.
Arze, elected mayor of his city last year, said he has persuaded other communities to pool their money to attempt larger improvement projects.
But the area is still millions of dollars short to make all of the needed improvements.
"These are not problems that can be fixed in a day," he said.
Heron Marquez Estrada • 651-298-1554