Let’s talk energy. We’ve all heard about biofuels, and see their growing popularity. A closer look into biofuel production shows to be suspect. Ethanol is an alcohol made by fermentation, mostly from carbohydrates produced in sugar or starch crops, such as sugar cane or corn. Ethanol is the most common biofuel worldwide. Sugar cane is preferred stock for ethanol, because, unlike corn, it does not need to be converted into sugar for the fermentation process.

There are many critiques of biofuels, include BBC’s alarming fact that the grain required to fill the tank of a Ranger Rover with ethanol is sufficient to feed one person for a year. One hectare of sugar cane yields 4,000 liters of ethanol per year. As prevalence studies have shown, there is a relationship between agricultural work and chronic kidney disease (CKD). For this reason, cane ethanol is problematic and is indirectly contributing to the CKD epidemic.

Our friends at Biofuelwatch are working hard in Scotland on the subsidy review for biomass/biofuels in electricity to remove subsidies from inefficient, large-scale electricity-only biomass plants. Biofuelwatch has gained the support of many Scottish Members of Parliament from all parties. They are also continuing to support local campaigners fighting biomass and biofuel power stations in the both UK.

Be sure to read more about their work in Scotland here: http://www.scotsman.com/news/msps-join-biomass-subsidies-protest-1-2244307#

This week we started administering our survey in the first of the five communities in Guanacastal Sur. I was surprised at the number of people that were willing to open up, let foreigners into their house and share rather personal information. As a foreigner I expected people to be closed off and not want to talk with us. But for the most part the people we’ve encountered have been very warm and open. This has been in large part to the amazing help we’ve received from leaders in the community. It’s clear that this survey may not have received the same support without the help of Don Juan, his wife Doña Eugenia, and the fearless Doña Ampara.

Some of the families I’ve encountered have been lucky enough not to have someone in their family suffer from chronic kidney disease. For others the future is more bleak. Yesterday I spoke with a man in his 40’s and his wife. He has advanced stage renal failure and may not have much longer. They have seven children, most of whom are under the age of 10 years old. Perhaps in a matter of months or even weeks he will be gone. She’ll be left alone with her seven children, and will be forced to find work. As we sat there in the interview I kept thinking that I wish I had been a doctor. I wish I had been there to give him medications, even if they couldn’t cure him. I wish I could have done something more than just asking them questions.

I think sometimes with research it’s hard to see value in what you’re doing. It seems easier to give medications or treatment. But this won’t help future generations. Giving him medication won’t prevent his sons or daughters from facing a similar fate.

It is my hope that with this survey, and with future research, that we can protect his children from CKD.

-Katie, Public Health Intern

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), the point of no return through successive loss of renal function, affects 13% of adults in the United States. However, outside of Chichigalpa, Nicaragua, in the rural community of La Isla, where I work, 75% of men suffer from CKD. It is a public health crisis: thousands of people are dying from Chronic Kidney Disease in northwestern Nicaragua and no one knows why.
 
Some believe that it is caused by inhuman working conditions and excessive use of pesticides in the sugarcane fields, others chronic dehydration due to the exhaustive labor.
What we know for sure is that CKD along the Pacific border of Central America does not appear to correspond to the epidemiological patterns we see in developed countries. In effort to further our understanding of CKD and those affected, particularly those in the Community of La Isla, we have begun an “Encuesta” titled Healthy Households and Risk Factors associated with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) in Guanacastal Sur.

This survey is intended to understand the economic and health conditions of those within the community. This data will serve to draw correlations of why there is a high prevalence of CKD and help us target our future proposed intervention.
 
After beginning to surveying this community, it is obvious to me that its inhabitants are impoverished. The average salary averages close to $2 a day. Health ailments are common; adequate nutrition and basic sanitation are not. Many do not have a latrine or a well. A workday often involves eight backbreaking hours in the field with no protection from the heat, sun, and exposure to dangerous agrochemicals. Cooking on an open-fire or a primitive cook-stove fueled by solid materials is the norm. Trash, similarly, is burned. Men, women, and children are living with CKD. Although it’s incredibly difficult to speak with individuals currently living with a disease that has no cure, I know this research is a step in the right direction.

-Vanessa, Public Health Intern

LA ISLA IN THE NEWS

IPS - JAN 2012 - El Salvador: Pesticides Fill Graveyards in Rural Villages

Sitting in the shade under a tree at a careful distance, Francisco Sosa watches his son prepare the land for planting by spraying the weeds with an herbicide from a tank carried on his back.

The 60-year-old Salvadoran farmer would like to help his son Saúl, 25, but on doctor’s orders, he can’t. Like many other peasant farmers in this rural community in the southeast of El Salvador, he suffers from chronic renal insufficiency.

“The doctors told me not to spray poison anymore, that it could complicate my illness further,” Sosa told IPS on his farm in Nueva Esperanza, a rural community of around 500 people that was settled in the 1990s in the Bajo Lempa region in the province of Usulután on El Salvador’s Pacific coast. [Read More]

ProPublica + SLATE - DEC 2011 - Dubious Medicine, Dirty Underwear, and Gas Drillers

Thousands of Sugar Cane Workers Die as Wealthy Nations Stall on Solutions

Center for Public Integrity
Kidney failure has become a near epidemic among sugarcane workers in Central America. Since 2005, at least 2,800 men have died each year. Researchers suspect a toxin may be a trigger. But nobody knows for sure, in part because governments and international aid agencies have failed to investigate. 

Contributed by @ericuman

NTN Television - DEC 2011 - Enfermedad renal crónica está acabando con la vida de los hombres en Centro América

Investigadores tratan de establecer las causas de una enfermedad renal crónica que está afectando a gran cantidad de hombres en Centro América, ha llamado la atención de epidemiólogos alrededor del mundo, por que no se conoce su origen. [Video]

Confidencial - DEC 2011 - Miles de cañeros mueren por Enfermedad Renal

LA ISLA, Nicaragua —Maudiel Martínez tiene 19 años de edad y una tímida sonrisa, una maraña de pelo negro y rizado y un cuerpo delgado y muscular debido a sus años de trabajo en los cultivos de caña de azúcar. Durante la mayor parte de su adolescencia fue un joven saludable y fuerte que pasaba sus días talando las altas cañas con su machete. [Read More]

LA ISLA IN THE NEWS - Reuters - Dec 23 2011

Dec. 23 - An unexplained kidney disease epidemic hits Nicaragua’s impoverished sugar-growing town of La Islas with locals blaming pollution. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

Be Part of the Solution - Short Film by Tierra Unida

La Isla is a small community located on the outskirts of Chichigalpa, Nicaragua in the Central America lowlands. Its sole economy is the sugar cane industry which relies on young men desperate to provide for their families ensuring an endless supply of labor. The wage they can earn cutting sugar cane makes the work worth it despite the fact that some 70% of men working in the industry develop Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) due to unknown causes. Research done by both the University of Boston as well as the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua, Leon (UNAN) has so far not yielded answers as to the cause of the disease. Meanwhile roughly 250 men are dying every year leaving their community to take on the nickname “la Isla de Viudas,” “the isle of widows.” The dying men range in age from 18 to 40s+ which inherently means they are the breadwinners of the families. Without their earning power the widows of the community are left to try to make ends meet for their children in numbing poverty while their sons grow up destined to swing their machetes and set fire to the ground, in the end to produce consumer grade sugar at a low price. The people of La Isla deserve dignity, can you help?

Video by Tierra Unida

PhotoPhilanthropy - Constantino Schillebeeckx + La Isla Foundation

Our friend and freelance photographer, Constantino Schillebeeckx, has published and submitted his photographic work of La Isla and Chronic Kidney Disease to PhotoPhilanthropy Activist Awards.

You can see his Nicaragua images on his website here - http://www.photocs.net/travel/nicaragua/

He states:

La Isla Foundation is a 501(c) 3 organization created in 2008 to help establish the causes of the Nicaraguan chronic kidney disease (CKD) epidemic among sugar cane workers and their communities. It seeks to facilitate treatment, educate workers on CKD, and to support their families while simultaneously educating northern consumers about where many of their food products come from and the costs of the industrial practices that bring them to market.

I began this photojournalism project to represent people in Nicaragua with CKD. I wanted to put a human face to the epidemic as well as to show the impact CKD is having. I chose this organization because I speak fluent Spanish. Getting in touch and interacting with the people is crucial for my own understanding of the topic so I can relate to those I’m photographing. Furthermore, La Isla Foundation is a small organization, so I knew that I would have the creative freedom to work as I saw best instead of getting caught up in a bureaucracy.

The organization now has an entire library full of professional-grade and media-ready images which is uses on their website, sends to public media and uses in presentations around the world to help educate.

- Constantino Schillebeeckx, Photo CS, L.L.C. 

October 2011 - Speaking Tour - La Isla Foundation

La Isla Foundation’s Jason Glaser embarks on a Speaking Tour!

Join La Isla in your neighborhood!

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OCTOBER 4 - Wilkes University International Service Club  - 11A

    Along side:  Dr. Andrew Miller, Assistant Professor of Political Science

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OCTOBER 5 -  Mission & Identity: Jason Glaser - 8PM

   Location: University of Scranton - Moskovitz Theater DeNaples Center

University of Scranton student organizations sponsors: 

U of S Programming Board

United Students for Fair Trade

Spanish Club

JUSTICE Club

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OCTOBER 6 - NEPA Area Labor Federation  - 6:30P

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OCTOBER 7 - Scranton’s Vintage Theater  6 - 10P

We here at The Vintage Theater are thrilled to announce our October 2011 First Friday event will be conducted in a special partnership with The La Isla Foundation! The primary focus of the foundation is to help the La Isla community combat the epidemic of CRI that has ravished its people. Its goals are to identify the causes, facilitate treatment, educate workers and support impacted families. Photography  from La Isla, Nicaragua will be shown. The work will encompass the culture and everyday life of the people of that region as well as the special work and programs the foundation conducts. Special drawings made by the children of La Isla will also be on display. This show is both one of aesthetic appeal and social importance.

A large portion of all art sales as well as donations will be sent to support the foundation and its amazing work. Local musicians and organic farmers will compliment this fantastic evening!

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OCTOBER 8 - Encuentro 5 - 5P

Join filmmaker Jason Glaser for a conversation about agricultural workers and Chronic Kidney Disease in Nicaragua.

… AND MORE COMING SOON!

For speaking opportunities please email us.

So what does La Isla community look like? And what do our volunteer’s do in the community?

Here’s a snapshot of a typical Tuesday in the community using footage from one of our past volunteer’s Chris.

From chatting with community members to teaching arts and crafts at kids club, volunteers are able to meet and help the families directly affected by CKD.