Project Information
“A nation's moral state shows in how it treats its animals”
(Mahatma Gandhi)
Nags and Nippers brings street children and street horses together in mutual healing.
Increasingly marginalized by SUVs (Stupid/Ugly/Vicous) and other vehicles,
they are literally being dumped onto
the hard shoulder of the ‘asphalt progress’ currently destroying the very planet.
The project sets out to redeem the children from hopelessness and the horses from brutal labor.
Together, the animals at last experience gentle rest while the children can express tenderness,
perhaps for the first time ever.
All participants, children, carers and supporters alike, together discovermore intelligent ways of using finite resources
and other ways to happiness than tragic consumerism.
ooOOOOOOoo
Horses and humans have a well-documented empathy, ranging from ‘The Horse-Whisperer’ through to equinotherapy as an established form of care for people with many types of difficulties.
Often such therapy tends to be designed, primarily, for benefit of the humans involved. 'Nags and Nippers' however extends compassion not only to the children, so often abused, but also to the horses themselves, whose experience on the streets is scarcely less brutal. And because we work to rescue ponies at or near the end of their working lives, with volunteers, and with communities of children already in safe havens, costs can be kept low. Thus Nags and Nippers offers an ‘equinotherapy for the dispossessed’, bringing tenderness and beauty to some of the most impoverished sectors of society, both animal and human.
A friend, David McKnight of Wales, made this lovely video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jFIJG7jAVM
The soundtrack is Victor Jara's gentle, exquisitely passionate song, 'Luchin' -
the little boy to whom he and his wife Joan gave a home when a terrible storm blew down his family's house -
and the house of the family workhorse, who stood there - smiling gently.
The way the project works is straightforward. Echoes of Silence has links with children’s communities and care organisations. The ponies are boarded on a small eco-farm where they are free to roam, graze and recover some strength. They have a responsible person making sure they are secure, fed and cared for. Groups of children come visit the ponies at the farm, working and caring for them under adult supervision. In this way, many children experience tenderness possibly for the first time in their lives, and begin to establish relationships based on trust and gentleness.
As the children become more at home and relaxed, once their relationships are begun and they learn something of the art of animal management, they are also encouraged to engage in some of the other work on the farm with a goal of beginning to learn to produce food, coffee and other crops in a sustainable and just manner.
The eco-farm also lets them experience a different kind of infrastructure, e.g: building with ‘eco-bricks’ - recycled plastic bottles; developing soak-away drainage systems to eradicate grey water with its attendant mosquitoes and water-borne diseases; producing cooking and lighting gas from animal waste, lasagna ‘no dig’ gardening; small-scale electric power from renewable sources; and many other wonderful, intelligent, simple yet supremely effective projects and techniques. As a result, the children can bring recycling and other techniques back home to the city, and begin to participate in the government-run "Life-giving Patio" program, which provides seeds and technical advice for growing food in Managua's backyards.
In all of this, they are exposed to a practical philosophy of community and sharing that offers a different perspective – and indeed reality – from the rampant consumerist culture which is tragically destroying the very planet on which we all depend, by which they have been discarded.
Beyond this, Echoes of Silence is constantly seeking to link into the wider community, both within Nicaragua and abroad, with the goal of providing free clinics for the horses even during their working lives, for obtaining more dedicated land for fodder, for shelter and for recreation – for both horses and children, and for providing stipends for workers. Our goal – grandiose but essential for a truly human world – is to work in broad coalition to help eradicate animal and child cruelty in Nicaragua and wherever it occurs, and, through that process, and at the same time, develop a society and societies that are intelligent, sustainable and beautiful, founded on cooperation, trust and solidarity.
We welcome questions, suggestions and contacts of every sort. In particular we want to form sister-relationships with pony clubs and other horse-related organisations. Fund-raising would of course be an important component of such relationships – for example, through sponsored horse rides or similarly-supported bringing ponies into children’s hospitals or to disadvantaged children in northern society, but we also seek to encourage people to come to Nicaragua to see for themselves that we are indeed all part of the one world - exquisite, exquisitely fragile and wonderful beyond belief; that our children, so often disadvantaged, are full of spirit and laughter; and that together we can work to heal that shared world and with it all those - animal and human - who suffer so terribly under the current world order.
Contact: paulbaker2004@yahoo.com - Phone: (505) 86153180 or SKYPE: paulbakerhernandez
Donate and/or become a monthly supporter of Nags and Nippers; give membership to loved ones for Christmas, birthdays, etc. GIve them something truly life-enhancing instead of plastic-wrapped, ‘stuff’ designed to become obsolescent in a week, leaving them empty. Donors and members receive regular updates, make direct links with rescued ponies and children, and have a real say in the project.
For fuller information, please write to Echoes of Silence coordinator, Paul Baker Hernandez, on paulbaker2004@yahoo.com
Donations are limitless(!). All donations are tax-deductible thanks to PeaceWorks USA and the Christine King Memorial Trust UK
which are Echoes' fiscal sponsors. Their generosity frees Echoes from lengthy, expensive incorporation processes,
allowing us to respond and develop organically as new situations arise.
USA
ONLINE: http://peaceworks.ning.com/group/echoesofsilence
MAIL: Please make checks out to "PeaceWorks/Echoes"
Send to: PeaceWorks, c/o D. Johnston
150 Indiana Street, Maplewood NJ 07040
UK
POST: Please make cheques out to 'The CHRISTINE KING MEMORIAL TRUST' (memo: 'Echoes of Silence')
Send to: C. Jennings, 3 Upper Regents Park, Bradford on Avon, BA15 1EB
UK BANKERS ORDER for regular support: To (Your Bank or Building Society)
…………………….……………………………….........................................….…..…
Address…….…….……..................................…………..…................………………..
……………………………….…......................…. Post Code …….........……....……..
Name of Account holder(s) ……………….........................................................……..
………………………………………………………………….........................………..
Account No. ………..………………………Branch Sort Code …...............................
Please pay the sum of …………………………..…………………….….……(words)
£……………….…..….…..(figures)
On …………..........… (date of 1st payment) and thereafter a like sum at annual / monthly (delete as appropriate) intervals
until further notice to the CAF Bank Ltd, a/c no. 00018559, sort code 40-52-40, to the credit of The Christine King Memorial Trust
Signature…………..………………………………… Date…………......................…..
Thank you.
