Actor from Nicaragua in his lone struggle for gay rights 

It is not easy being gay in a macho culture. In Nicaragua one can get up to two years of imprisonment for “a scandalous way to act, propagate or executing of homosexual actions”. Activist and actor Héctor Avellán (33) tries his best to change this with his Latino version of Brokeback Mountain.

The hall where the movie is shown is filled to the brim. The audience is a mixture of local youth, backpackers and of feminists who can’t be found in the Netherlands anymore (activist t-shirt, no bra). It is an exiting night; we get to see a movie about homosexuality. And that is no ordinary event in Nicaragua. On the contrary, according to the law 204 “the scandalous way to act, propagate or execute of homosexual actions” is illegal and can be penalized with up to 2 years of incarceration. And tonight we are all accomplices.

The children in JawJaw are happy to have a new library in their village. Most books are written in Dutch, there are not so many books translated or written in Sranang tongo or the Saramaccan language. Dutch is the 'official' language of Surinam and the language the children learn at school. Erna Hulsenboom hopes the children in JawJaw will get fond of reading.