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| When Berta Valle got engaged to democracy activist Félix Maradiaga, he told her that he would always be unfaithful to her with one lover — the country of Nicaragua. In 2006, she married him anyway, not knowing the tumult his commitment to their country would bring to their lives in the years to come. | | Maradiaga was held at El Chipote, a prison notorious for human rights abuses that has gained international fame as the place where opponents of Nicaragua’s leader, Daniel Ortega, are shut away from society.  | | Maradiaga ran for president of Nicaragua in 2021. On June 8 of that year, while he was driving home from a hearing at the attorney general’s office, his car was stopped by the police. He was dragged out of the vehicle, beaten and then detained — in what was a then-unprecedented crackdown on the current president’s opposition. Maradiaga was held at El Chipote, a prison notorious for human rights abuses that has gained international fame as the place where opponents of Nicaragua’s leader, Daniel Ortega, are shut away from society. Valle’s husband remains imprisoned there today, along with more than 140 other political prisoners held in multiple jails across the Central American country. Valle, a TV anchor-turned-human rights advocate, has lived in exile since 2018 with the couple’s now eight-year-old daughter and her mother-in-law. Since Maradiaga’s arrest, she has tirelessly campaigned to bring international attention to Nicaragua’s political prisoners, traveling around the world to advocate for their release and to call out the country’s dictatorship, as the prisoners languish in horrific conditions. Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto, host of OZY’s Sheroics podcast about ordinary women who do extraordinary things, interviewed Valle about her ongoing struggle to bring attention to the plight of political prisoners. Said Cruz Soto, “Love makes you do things that you thought you would never do. And love gives you the strength to push on.” Valle has pushed on. |
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| Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega took office in 2007. He was then reelected in every subsequent vote since, in what critics have condemned as a series of “sham” elections. U.S. President Joe Biden issued a statement in November 2021 calling Nicaragua’s national vote a “pantomime election that was neither free nor fair.” Meanwhile, Ortega altered the constitution to allow himself more terms in office, and appointed family members into key posts as political advisors and executives in Nicaraguan oil and media companies. Maradiaga has long been one of Ortega’s most visible critics, publicly calling out the failings of Ortega’s administration despite mounting risks of doing so. “He was very, very vocal,” said Valle. Her husband was active in street protests and involved in a civic education program called Civil Society Leadership Institute, dedicating himself to strengthening the country’s failing democracy. | | Valle’s advocacy provoked the Ortega regime to label her a “traitor to the homeland.” In spite of the powerful forces working against her, she continues to speak out. | | Valle was also fighting for a fairer Nicaragua. In 2016, the Independent Liberal Party asked her to participate in its National Coalition for Democracy by running as an independent candidate for the role of deputy in the lead-up to that year’s general elections. She agreed. But the country’s Supreme Court, controlled by Ortega’s allies, disqualified the electoral coalition, and Valle was barred from running. “It was not only Félix who was seen as a critical voice of Ortega, but now also me,” she told OZY. In 2018, protests against the Ortega regime broke out in the streets. Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands more were injured. Valle was one of the more than 100,000 people who left Nicaragua in exile, with her husband traveling back and forth between the U.S. and their country until his arrest. Since 2021, Valle and Victoria Cárdenas, the wife of another presidential candidate, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, who was also arrested and incarcerated, have been appealing for help to free their husbands. They made a plea in July 2021 in the Washington Post, writing, “We must speak out for our detained husbands whose voices have been silenced.” Valle’s advocacy provoked the Ortega regime to label her a “traitor to the homeland.” In spite of the powerful forces working against her, she continues to speak out. |
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While working at a neuropsychology clinic, Fordham University junior Avery Carty was alarmed at the astronomical rate of people being diagnosed with mental health disorders. She was particularly concerned over ADHD diagnoses, and how negatively worded assessment questionnaires could skew test results, leading to over-diagnosis and the over-consumption of powerful drugs. For her genius project, Avery seeks to develop new diagnostic questionnaires, with the involvement of health care professionals, and thereby reduce the consumption of unnecessary drugs that can lead to addiction. Avery hopes to help break this chain effect in young people, so they can avoid severe harm to their future health and job prospects. | | |
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| For over a year, Valle has spoken about her story to world leaders at the Geneva summit, the Oslo Freedom Forum, and anywhere else she could be heard. “I started doing it for Felix,” she explained. But as she connected with others whose family members were imprisoned, her mission grew. “I started talking with the mothers of those that were killed … it’s impossible not to feel empathy for them, and to understand that justice has to be delivered.” In September, Valle traveled to Spain in collaboration with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom to condemn the political situation in her country and summon worldwide support. She requested the international community to exert more pressure on the Ortega government to release political prisoners, and called for closer scrutiny of Nicaragua. As she fights for justice on an international stage, she also juggles being a mother while living outside her home country. Valle said that her commitment to political advocacy has taken a toll on her daughter, Alejandra. Yet Valle hopes that she leads by example, and that her daughter will see her as someone who did what was right. Said Valle, “I’m sure freedom will come. I don’t know when, but it will come.” |
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