The Interamerican Cooperative Institute turns 40
By Thomas Walsh
October 2004
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Thomas and Julia Duarte-Walsh with their daughter Virginia in Riobamba, Ecuador. Their three other children are away at university. After joining Scarboro Missions in 1975, Thomas was missioned to Peru where he met his wife Julia. They have also served in Panama as the coordinators of the Interamerican Cooperative Institute, now celebrating its 40th year.
In 1964, Fr. Harvey Steele founded the Interamerican Cooperative Institute (ICI) in Panama City. Only months before, the United States had shot more than 20 young Panamanian students who dared to raise their country's flag over the canal territory. In spite of the tension and with the support of his Scarboro community, Fr. Steele managed to carry out training and educational programs at ICI for men and women of the cooperative movement in the Central American, Caribbean and Andean regions.
Since its founding, thousands of leaders of grassroots and cooperative organizations have benefited from these courses, analyzing their local situations and learning from each other's experience.
Instead of bio technology and mono crops, ICI has advocated organic cultivation and crop association; instead of intermediaries and unjust terms of trade, ICI has advocated producer-to-consumer relations and fair trade; instead of globalization, ICI has encouraged strengthening of local economies; instead of exclusion, ICI has advocated gender equality and inclusion of minorities.
Given the tumultuous situations of these past four decades, ICI's constant presence, accompanying the Latin American poor in their struggles, is remarkable and is being celebrated. Today, students who have graduated from ICI and those international organizations and people who have generously supported its work over the years, raise a cup to Fr. Steele.
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