On Thursday, August 26, UUSC Interim President Bill Schulz filed the following blog post from Ecuador, where he is learning more about the innovative work of our partners there in engaging youth and spreading the word — and responsibility — of human rights.

I'll bet you've never heard of a human-rights circus (though the struggle for human rights sometimes feels like a circus!); I never had. But that is exactly what one of UUSC's colleague organizations in Quito, Ecuador, has created: a summer circus with clowns and acrobats entertaining children in a big top but focused on the theme of protecting rights. Patricia Jones, manger of UUSC's Environmental Justice Program, and I visited the circus yesterday morning and then engaged in a dialogue with the kids about how to stand up for your rights when everyone from gangs to governments are trying to deprive you of them.

The circus is just one of the creative ways Ecuadoran human-rights organizations are engaging young people in the rights struggle. Indeed, we met a very articulate 11-year-old who had testified to the Constituent Assembly — the body that created the new constitution — about the importance of including youth rights in that document. Something like 11 of the 40 elements the youth proposed were eventually adopted.

And here's another novel idea: the new constitution includes the notion that everyone is responsible for seeing that everyone else's rights are protected. If a teacher, for example, notices that a child appears sick, it is not the teacher's job to provide medicine, of course, but it is the teacher's responsibility to see that the child's right to health care is respected and that the child receives the treatment she or he needs. Imagine if we all had legal responsibility for doing what we could to see that human-rights obligations were met by the state! 

Human rights have always been an evolving concept. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was first adopted in 1948, no one imagined, for example, that its provisions applied to gay and lesbian people. Today the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are quite clearly a part of the human-rights regimen. But progressive evolution always requires that someone take the first step. In so many of the ways I've been detailing, Ecuadorans are leading us on our way — and UUSC's partners are in the vanguard.

Next stop: Peru!

UUSC Interim President Bill Schulz offers the second in his series of posts from Ecuador, where he is visiting with other UUSC staff to learn more about developments related to the nation's new constitution.  

Here's another foreign concept to American ears — the notion of an independent federal human-rights ombudsperson. Imagine this position appointed by a group of representatives of civil-society groups for a five-year term, renewable once, and removable by the legislature only for cause — not for political reasons. That's what Ecuador has. It's called the public defender, and, though the office has no prosecutorial powers, it is free to investigate and expose all human-rights crimes, be they committed by the government itself or others.

In a conversation today with Ecuador's public defender, Fernando Gutierrez Vera, we talked about the new notion that Nature itself has rights. Gutierrez admitted that it is a novel and untested concept. The truth is that no one is sure how it will be enforced. But my guess is that 20 or 30 years from now, we will see lawsuits brought not just on behalf of the human victims of Nature's exploitation but on behalf of the air and the trees themselves. 

"But they are inert," many will object. They have no consciousness. They are not free agents. How can we possibly imagine suing on their behalf or knowing what they would want? But the fact is that we have no compunction today about bringing suits on behalf of children or those whose medical conditions preclude their making responsible decisions for themselves. We sue to see that animals are treated humanely (a funny construction, I know!). We even sue to see that the interests of the deceased are respected. How great a leap is it to imagine acting in the interests of the natural world itself? And is it really so difficult to discern the interests of that world?

One other fascinating element of our conversations with civil-society groups here in Ecuador:  the government now in power is regarded as one of the most progressive on the continent, but it is apparently growing more and more resistant to dissent. It has, in the view of many social-justice leaders, begun to criminalize peaceful protest under the guise of fighting "terrorism." How familiar is that to us Americans? As one observer put it, "Calling what we are doing ‘terrorism' is an insult to the true terrorists!"

What a society can give in one hand — a groundbreaking new concept of rights — it can take away with the other, by reverting to the old shibboleth that those who challenge the status quo are dangerous extremists seeking to destroy the very fabric of civilization. But then, repressive governments are always frightened governments. And we all know what fear can do to even the best-intentioned souls.

UUSC Interim President and CEO Bill Schulz is in Ecuador, meeting with officials and UUSC partners about human and environmental rights. In the blog post below, he reflects on some exciting provisions of Ecuador's new constitution that protect the environment — and the need for real follow-through and enforcement. 

The notion that Nature itself has rights, that the earth, air, and water can bring suit against those who despoil them, is a new and perhaps strange concept to American ears. But here in Ecuador — where Patricia Jones, head of UUSC's Environmental Justice Program, and I are visiting — it is a concept that has been written into Ecuador's new constitution. The provision exists thanks to the hard work of indigenous groups who successfully advocated that the constitution reflect their understanding of human beings' relationship to and responsibility for the earth.

That is just one of many significant changes that were adopted by the Constituent Assembly that wrote the new constitution. For example, our UUSC partners, El Movimiento Mi Cometa (the "My Kite" Movement) and Observatorio Ciudadano de Servicios Publicos (the Citizens Observatory on Public Services), the latter a consortium of community-based social-change organizations, were instrumental in persuading the Assembly to include a human-right-to-water provision. Using coalitions of partners, holding peaceful demonstrations, and confronting corporate powers with the truth — and most of all by being persistent — grassroots groups pulled off something of a constitutional revolution.

Yesterday Patricia and I toured the barrio of Guasmo Sur, a part of the city of Guayaquil where Mi Cometa has its main offices. The programs that Mi Cometa runs, for housing reconstruction, microcredit, music and computer education, and much more, are helping transform this 600,000-person community where raw sewage still runs through the streets. But Mi Cometa knows that all its services will be but a Band-Aid if systemic economic and social change does not take place as well.

The new constitution is a start, but of course its remarkable provisions must be enforced; it is not yet clear if and how that will happen. Today we are in Quito meeting with many of the officials who have responsibility for enforcing human rights. I'll let you know soon if Nature will have a protector in more than name and whether the human right to water will be more than a pretty phrase on paper.

Myrna Greenfield, director of UUSC's Outreach and Mobilization Department, filed this report after traveling recently to Ecuador to learn how grassroots movements are organizing youth and helping to ensure the human right to water for all.

Twenty years ago, the people of Guasmo Sur — a low-income neighborhood of about 40,000 households in Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city — started working together to address the poverty, inadequate education, substandard housing, and lack of water and sanitation services in their community; today, the neighborhood is still poor, but living standards have improved and people brim with a sense of pride and possibility.

I traveled to Guasmo Sur last month with a delegation of UUSC members and supporters to observe and learn from the extraordinary progress that this community has made. At a time when the political stalemate in the United States is forestalling efforts to create change, it was inspiring to see the impact that people organizing together can achieve.

They call themselves El Movimiento Mi Cometa (the "My Kite" movement). Over the years, Mi Cometa has developed a variety of dynamic social services, such as a Head Start–type program for preschoolers, an after-school enrichment program, a women-led housing construction co-op, a microenterprise loan program, and music and computer programs for all. Mi Cometa's programs are developed to meet community needs and are largely headed up by women and youth.

Youth activists

Over a simple, healthy lunch, our delegation was regaled by a pint-sized band performing a spirited rendition of "Oye Como Va," the Tito Puente song popularized by Santana. In addition to developing children's creativity along with their ABCs, Mi Cometa strives to educate people about human rights. For example, if they have a parade, each child carries a sign about a specific right, such as the right to education and the right to vote.

Ecuadorans are eligible to vote at age 16 and are required to vote at age 18 through 65 or they may be subject to possible government sanctions. The leader of Mi Cometa's School of Leaders for the New Millennium, an energetic 24-year-old named José Luis Echeverría, told us that youth have an important voice in shaping Ecuador's future. "Age doesn't make you mature," José Luis told us. "It's the supposedly 'mature' people who are responsible for the state our country is in!"

During their campaign to develop and eventually help pass a new Ecuadoran constitution in October 2008, youth from Mi Cometa traveled around Ecuador by bus, soliciting ideas for the constitution from other young people; 9 of the 40 articles they submitted were adopted into the constitution. Mi Cometa, which is not affiliated with any political party, is now working on a program to train youth to run for public office.

Constitutional right to water

In addition to the youth provisions, Mi Cometa informed our group that the Ecuadoran constitution states, "The right to water is a fundamental and inalienable human right." Hearing that the human right to water (access to safe, sufficient, affordable water for daily human needs) is actually written into the constitution was really moving. I thought of my colleagues in Boston, who are campaigning to ensure that low-income people won't get their water shut off if they can't pay their bills, and wished they were with me to hear about this remarkable accomplishment.

Although Mi Cometa successfully campaigned to get the human right to water included in the constitution, the struggle to make sure it is implemented is still under way. As with low-income communities around the world, one of Guasmo Sur's most pressing problems is the lack of access to safe, sufficient, affordable water. As of August 2009, only 90 percent of the residents had potable water piped into their homes, and only 75 percent had sanitation services. People without running water must purchase water from water trucks called tanqueros. Industrial and home waste is dumped into the Guayas River without effective treatment.

Our delegation met with Jose Luis Santos, the general director of ECAPAG, the Ecuadoran regulatory agency that has oversight responsibility for Interagua, the former Bechtel Inc. subsidiary that was granted the concession contract in 2001 to provide privatized water and sanitation services to Guayaquil. Santos reported to our delegation that ECAPAG had fined Interagua $5.6 million dollars for failure to install the requisite number of water and sanitation hookups required by the contract.

Citizen watchdogs

Mi Cometa realized that people from other neighborhoods were experiencing similar problems with poor-quality services and lack of responsiveness to customers, so they formed a coalition of 40 organizations, called Observatorio Ciudadano de Servicios Publicos (OCSP, or the Citizens Observatory on Public Services), to serve as a watchdog organization for water, sanitation, and other public services in Guayaquil. OCSP has tested water quality, gathered testimony documenting how citizens' needs have been ignored, attracted the media to examine the problems, and brought its case to local, national, and international courts.

In fall 2009, the World Bank's ombudsman responded to OCSP's claim on behalf of 3,500 Interagua customers who had unresolved complaints about their bills. Through mediation, the ombudsman got Interagua to form a negotiation table with OCSP and the customers. During our visit, OCSP and the customers were engaged in daily negotiations to resolve these 3,500 cases.

"This is the first time we've been able to get Interagua to talk," attorney Augusto Parada, one of OCSP's leaders, told our delegation through our translator, UUSC Environmental Justice Program Manager Patricia Jones. "It wasn't easy. It has happened little by little, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. It was so difficult that at one point we thought the negotiations would break down!"

By relying on a clause in the Ecuadoran constitution during negotiations, OCSP was able to get Interagua to agree to cancel the unpaid water debt for people in extreme poverty, and to reduce 50 percent of the debt and forgive penalty fees and interest for those who didn't qualify as extremely low-income.

"When we started the negotiations, conversations broke into arguments," Parada told us. "After 15 days of negotiations, the combativeness has diminished. There's a different dynamic for the customers. You can see in their eyes that they now have hope that they'll be able to resolve these issues."

While many in Guasmo Sur criticize OCSP and don't believe that Interagua is truly concerned about responding to low-income people's needs, Parada and others are optimistic. "The power relationships have changed," Parada continued. "People feel we can speak together to dialogue, investigate, and come to a resolution. This is a completely new experience here in Guayaquil! We'll see what the results will be."

For more information about UUSC's Environmental Justice program, visit www.uusc.org/environmentaljustice.

Ecuador has taken the first steps towards defining the scope of its constitutional provisions to protect the human right to water. Ecuadorians are currently engaged in a National Constituent Assembly process by which the nation's constitution will be revised. One expected outcome of this effort is the constitutional definition of the human right to water for all Ecuadorians, with special attention to the rights of the poor.

Under the Constituent Assembly process, any citizen can attend the on-going forums taking place in various cities around the country and make her voice heard. Each forum centers on a particular constitutional provision under revision.

I attended one of the numerous forums addressing water. The discussion focused on how to characterize the right to water (as a human right, a communal right, or an economic right), how to protect the environment while doing so, and a plan for development. I was struck by the power of this democratic process and the stamp of legitimacy it placed on the outcome. In the discussion group I observed, indigenous farmers, women, and youth were all vocal participants. The facilitator was even elected to her post. No one can question that the results of these meetings represent the will of the people.

The process works in this sequence: after the discussion group comes to a general consensus on the proposals they would like to present, the facilitator summarizes the group’s comments and presents them to the Assembly at large. After all the forums are completed, the elected facilitators will compile all of the proposals and these will be used to hammer out the final wording of the constitution.

The forum was in Portoviejo and the offices of UUSC partner Mi Cometa are in Guayaquil. On the drive back, we passed miles and miles of flooded land. Many people have been displaced or are simply living in a swamp. Ironically, one consequence of the flood damage is the lack of clean water to drink. It has to be brought in on trucks. The gap between policy and reality opened before me.

Ecuadorians hope that the legitimacy of this comprehensive and democratic process will compel Interagua, a subsidiary of the American corporation Bechtel, either to leave the country or improve its services. They also hope that the government will be invested with sufficient leverage to require these improvements. I too am hopeful.

Joseph Santos-Lyons, the UUA director of campus ministry and field organizing, recently took part in a UUSC fact-finding trip to Ecuador.

Who speaks for you when you're down? Who helps you see the depth and the connection of problems where you live? Who do you trust to tell you the truth?

I've always been an organizer who works primarily from communities of which I am a part: age groups from youth to now mid 30-somethings, identity groups such as mixed-race children and families, and affinity groups like my baseball card collecting friends. The passion and the dedication that comes from organizing in one's own context has been a lifeblood for me.

I've spent two full days now with leaders from Mi Cometa, the Guayaquil, Ecuador community organization that organizes for the welfare of an impoverished neighborhood. I'm learning a lot about their mission and programs, and meeting some of their staff. Many of them started with Mi Cometa over 15 years ago as children in their various educational and empowerment programs. Their current general secretary was one of these young people, and that to me is truly amazing.

The ownership, the power of voice and of right relationship, and the accountability is remarkably different with leaders who come from the community. These have been principles I've been trying to live more fully in my life, often with a lot of difficulty. Still, there are ways for people like me, I believe, and sometimes it just starts with a commitment to place.

Joseph Santos-Lyons, the UUA Director of Campus Ministry and Field Organizing, recently took part in a UUSC fact-finding trip to Ecuador.

UUSC is supporting a legal and organizing project around the human right to water. One of the manifestations of the violation of this human right is the contamination of the public water system in poor and people of color communities. Guayaquil, Ecuador, had one such incident that affected eight public schools.

More than 150 children were diagnosed with Hepatitis A over the period of several months from a number of schools. The outbreak was caught early on by school doctors, and information was shared with the authorities and the water company (Bechtel), yet no action was taken and the schools were blamed for poor sanitary conditions.

Mi Cometa, a community group and UUSC program partner, and their public watch partner the Public Observatory Network, kept organizing from the first outbreak in 2005 into today. The debate has been very public, mentioned in the papers, radio, and television. The effects of the outbreak are still being dealt with: children are reporting chronic physical and mental health effects. This trauma, and the lack of a meaningful immediate government response, is fueling more social action around the human right to water.

We visited one of the schools with the largest outbreak, and met both children and their parents. Mi Cometa invited the children to draw pictures of their experience with Hep A, and parents talked about what political action they could take. The energy was really high!