Concern for the World Takes Woman to Ecuador

By John Klun
Sun Newspapers
http://www.mnsun.com
(Created 10/16/03 10:04:00 AM)

For years, Richfield resident Laura Kelnhofer has advocated and worked for better understanding of the balance between population and the environment.

A communications professional, Kelnhofer spends much of her free time volunteering with the Sierra Club.

“I’ve always been interested in the environment and women’s issues,” she said. “To me, population is something connected with every environmental issue.”

Last year, Kelnhofer joined the Sierra Club’s national Global Population and Environment Committee, a group that advises the club on issues that relate to population and the environment. The committee also conducts outreach efforts to educate and mentor people in the field.

She has traveled to Washington, D.C., for Sierra Club-related work. She’s worked within the Twin Cities community to help raise awareness.

And in August, she got to see for the first time the true story behind what she’s working for, in Ecuador.

Kelnhofer joined a group of Sierra Club activists and international aid workers on a 10-day trip to Ecuador to see how some small communities there balance their population challenges with environmental initiatives. She witnessed villages practicing sustainable agriculture in highlands in which trees have been cut down over the years. Villagers showed them how they try to promote the spacing of children, and she saw where prenatal and postnatal health care has improved.

“It was touching to see how some of these programs have touched people’s lives,” she said. “It gave me a stronger drive, because I could put faces on the issues.”

Some of the programs, like USAID, are government-funded. Part of the Sierra Club’s purpose is to work with the federal government to make sure that support for such programs is maintained, Kelnhofer said.

And Kelnhofer appreciated the personal insight the trip afforded her, she said.

In one village, she helped plant potatoes. Children sang to her group. Villagers everywhere were excited to show the group their guinea pigs, which the people eat as their main source of protein, she said. Kelnhofer did not try guinea pig.

“The people were so generous and happy to see us,” she said. “It’s amazing, because you think about how fortunate you are to live in America.”

Nevertheless, she was impressed with how happy the villagers appeared, she said.

“It’s interesting to see communities that don’t have material wealth, but they’re rich in community,” Kelnhofer said.

And she got to see first-hand exactly what she’s been working for as a concept.

“People have learned about taking care of Mother Earth, as well as the mothers in their community,” she said.