The sixth of the tablets was the first to mention Latin American regions and was written on April 8, 1916, but was delayed in being presented in the United States until 1919 — after the end of World War I and the Spanish flu.
The Baháʼí National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada appointed an Inter-America Committee to take charge of the preparations.
[3] In 1946 committees with regional responsibilities were assigned - Bolivia and Peru being one such grouping[18] - at the same time Gwenne D. Sholtis arrived as a pioneer[19] and settled in Sucre and three Bolivians there joined the religion the same year.
[20] The first South American Baháʼí Congress was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in November, 1946 and de Cúellar of Bolivia attended.
[5] In 1947 several translations had been done or were in process by de Cúellar and her husband, Col. Arturo Cúella Echazu, including God Passes By, Foundations of World Unity,[21] and a selection from the Gleanings from the Writings of Baháʼu'lláh.
A series of study classes preceding the convention was held on the Advent of Divine Justice, the Promised Day is Come, as well as the topics of "Indians of South America", and "Sacrifice".
[43] Across the Americas by 1947 members of the Baháʼí Faith had contacted peoples of Alaska and Greenland, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, Bolivia and Peru.
[46] The subject of outreach to Indian populations was among the topics consulted on at the fifth convention for the regional national assembly of the Baháʼís of South America in 1955.
[51] This group of students of the school brought the religion to Potosí, Huanacota, and Chalapiti villages and several spoke on local radio programs as well.
[57] The Baháʼís of that village decided to send an individual to Santiago Chile to learn more of the religion and return as a teacher to them while others including Andres would live among them for the year.
[56] Following this and the assembly election Alverez and Costas returned to the area for a five-month period where along with Andres more than 30 members of the region joined the religion across 7 locations in the Potosí Department.
Courses on the lives of the central figures of the Báb, Baháʼu'lláh and ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, as well as Shoghi Effendi; on principles and laws of the Faith; and on the ways Baháʼís run their administration including a period of practice-voting for a local spiritual assembly.
[6] The election of the Bolivian national assembly - representative of a community the majority of whom were of the Aymara people[43] - were (in alphabetical order by last name): Estanislao Alverez, recording secretary, Athas Costas, Sabino Ortega (first Indian teacher), Andres Jachakovo (first Indian believer in Bolivia), vice-chairman, Yolanda de Lopez, secretary, Daniel Mauricio (founder of first Baha'i school), Massoud Khamsi, chairman, Alberto Saldias, treasurer, and Alberto Rocabado.
[74] In April 1963 the members of the national assemblies of the world were the delegates to elect the first Universal House of Justice to be head of the religion after the death of Shoghi Effendi.
In August 1968 the first meeting to the newly defined Continental Board of Counsellors for South America met in Cochabamba, Bolivia, with Hand of the Cause Jaláh Khazéh and Hooper Dunbar among the attendees.
[96] Twenty four youth converted to the religion together in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, a location that had had little conversion activity, in March 1970.
[105] In 1975–6 Rúhíyyih Khanum travelled by boat through the tributaries of the Amazon River of Brazil unto and into the high mountain ranges of Peru and Bolivia.
Thirty six tribal groups were visited over a period of six months; the trip was called The Green Light Expedition,[106][107][108] which followed her The Great African Safari.
13 Continental Counsellors, representatives of 24 of the 29 National Spiritual Assemblies in Latin America and the Caribbean, and members of 21 Indian tribes from Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, United States and Venezuela attended.
[112] Adherents of the religion in Bolivia had again suffered opposition in various locations, both political and religious, so plans were set for appeals to be repeated as before, this time to the civil courts circa 1983–4.
Since its inception the religion has had involvement in socio-economic development beginning by giving greater freedom to women,[113] promulgating the promotion of female education as a priority concern,[114] often in some practical expression such as by creating schools, agricultural coops, and clinics.
[117] The idea for a Trail of Light, aka "Camino del Sol", occurred during preparations for the first Baháʼí Native Council in 1978 in North America.
[118][119] With increasing prominence of the effort a few years later[120][121] a three-day training and deepening program developed plans and teams of Baháʼís to travel to different regions to promulgate the religion among the Native Americans.
These teams of indigenous Baháʼís from Alaska, Canada and the 48 contiguous United States represented 10 tribes under the name Trail of Light.
[122] Members of the team included three Bolivians - Sabino Ortega and Clemente Pimantel as Quechua speaking Indians, and Andres Jachakollo, an Aymara speaker.
Other major events of the team in the capital included two twenty-minute cultural programs for the state-owned television network which were later aired nationwide.
Two institutions - the FUNIDEAQ,[133] the Foundation for the Development and Education of Aymara and Quechua Peoples, and FUNDESIB,[134] the Foundation for the Integral Development of Bolivia, were established by the National Assembly of Bolivia and hoped that they would serve as an alternative to politically based indigenous or government programs which were seen as promoting hatred or violence by the Baháʼís, See FUNDAEC, for a similar organization in Colombia, where some guidance was borrowed from.
One of their early focuses was the development of Nur University[135] which was established as a Baháʼí school of secondary education in August 1984 and started its first academic year in April 1985.
In 2002 it was selected as a "Center for Educational Excellence" for the Andean region: an initiative launched at the Summit for the Americas, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The University employs 180 full and part-time faculty and administrative staff and has an annual operating budget of approximately US$3 million, and in 2001 was the second largest private institution of higher learning in Bolivia.