Amaya - a Woman of Courage
The Covid19 virus pandemic is raging around the world. Most of us are sheltering in place in our homes for safety from this dangerous enemy. We don’t know where it is or how to recognize it. But this public health crisis is not the only poison that devastates our every day. For many around the world, and yes, here in the US, fear and persecution are part of their everyday experience. This is the case of Amaya Coppens, a young Nicaraguan woman who visited Colorado Springs in March 2020 and spent an evening in my home sharing a dinner with my family and some of my friends.
The story I posted a few weeks ago, and the piece written by Jennifer Foerster, was about the Nicaragua that I knew through the work of InnerCHANGE WORKS (ICW) over the 15 years leading up to April 2018. An earthquake of political change hit Nicaragua at that time. Amaya Coppens represents that seismic shift that happened then, and she represents the present time in her country.
This post is about Amaya Coppens, and Nicaragua since that turning point in the history of her country. This is a story of a person who is very much alive and present in the world today. Her humble, soft-spoken presence while she was in our home a few months ago, was the essence of a woman who did not seek the spotlight or the notoriety or the visibility of the last two years of her life. Like so many people who find themselves in a situation where they have no choice but to act and to lead and to persevere through physical and emotional persecution in order to protect their family and community and, ultimately, their country, Amaya stepped up to the challenge and held her position, and she didn’t back down from the risks of uncertainty and chaos that faced her. Her life has placed her in this time in history in order to support so many others, and to give them hope for the future. Her life, in the present, could be related to Rachel, my great grandmother written about in a recent post, in her lifetime. The survival of her people at the turn of the century in the 1900’s was what gave Rachel the courage to take in so many children. With Amaya, the survival of her people and her country today is what drives her to take this frightening and uncertain path.
Amaya Coppens is a 25 year old young woman. She was in her fifth year of medical school in Leon, Nicaragua, in 2018, when the protests began all over the country. It started with university students in support of older people who were having their pensions decreased and their taxes increased due to the leadership of the government. Daniel Ortega had been elected president in 2007 and continues to head up a very repressive regime in Nicaragua for all these years. The protests against the government were organized by the university students. They were intended to be non-violent protest marches through the streets of cities without weapons. The students had only pots, pans, spoons and their voices calling out for fairness and justice for all people in the country. They also had their passionate idealism and clearly defined leadership with people like Amaya Coppens stepping in to become the iconic face, always carrying that effervescent smile, who became the courageous hero and leader of the student protests against Ortega and his government.
She came to the United States in early March of 2020 to receive one of the awards presented through the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage (IWOC) program as one of the 12 most heroic women in the world. This award was to honor her due to her leadership from the April 2018 protests in Nicaragua.
2020 International Women of Courage Award Recipients
After participating and leading several peaceful protests against the Ortega government, in September of 2018, Amaya was abducted by Nicaraguan police from her home. She was jailed in the Women’s Prison outside Managua for the next 10 months. While in prison she helped her fellow women in-mates with her medical expertise and training.
She was released in June 2019 under the condition that she should return to Belgium and leave Nicaragua. She has carried dual citizenship for the two countries as her father is Belgian, and her mother is Nicaraguan. She did not return to Belgium. She was brought to Nicaragua by her parents when she was 4 months old and has lived her life there and has committed her life to this beloved country.
Amaya returned to the streets to carry on the protests. She and several young protesters became known as the “water carriers.” In the city of Masaya, a group of mothers were holding a hunger strike in a church to protest the loss and imprisonment of their children. Amaya and her group would carry water into the mothers and religious leaders in the church, in spite of armed guards outside the church. As Amaya told her story that evening in my home, she went on to describe that she and the other 16 protesters were put into cars by the police and driven back to Managua to separate houses where AK 47 rifles had been stashed. They were each forced to hold these guns and be photographed so that they could be charged for inciting rioting and being an organized group of terrorists. They were then all sent back to prison - for Amaya, this was her second imprisonment and lasted for 4 months.
I asked Amaya that night of her visit, how did she get through the torture, hardship, and isolation of the prison time and how does she keep going now? Her answer was the dedication, support, and love of her family from Esteli in Nicaragua. To get a clearer picture of Amaya growing up we’ll go back to her childhood and earlier years.
In interviews with her parents over this time, her mother and father would say that she always carried an enormous smile and a highly energetic approach to everything she did.
Her mother and father said she was always determined to keep up with her two brothers and be their equal in sports, school, and life in general. She excelled in school, winning the top math award for Nicaragua in high school. After graduating, she applied for a scholarship to attend the United World College in Hong Kong for the next two years. She won the scholarship and spent two years living and learning about a very different part of the world and making close friends with international students from all over the world.
When the news hit the UWC global network of students, alumni, and faculty of Amaya Coppens’ arrest and that she was facing charges by the government of being a terrorist, the network erupted. Amaya’s story of brutal imprisonment was quickly circling the globe through this international school network. All over the world students were organizing protests and calling for Amaya’s release. Amaya was released in December of 2019 largely as a result of this world-wide pressure and her heroic commitment to restore peace to Nicaragua. She was voted by the US State Department to come to the US to receive the award in Washington DC on March 8, 2020, the International Women’s Day. She selected Colorado Springs as the city in which she wanted to spend the next week studying civic programs for peaceful resolution of conflict.
One of the most powerful and impactful things she said that night as she was leaving my home and the gathering was that she “was grateful for the award and the chance to come here to the US and tell the story of Nicaragua today.” But, she said she is not a hero; her mother is the hero of her life and has inspired her to do all that she has done and will continue to do.
Please share this post as widely as you can so we can all keep the story of Amaya Coppens and Nicaragua up front and alive in the world. I have not communicated with her since she was in our home in March. Wherever you are, Amaya, stay safe and well! This world needs you with your courage and commitment to inspire us all!
Thank you Amaya!
Mvto,
