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F e b r u a r y 2 0 0 5 T r i p R e p o r t |
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[The following Report was submitted by Rob.]
Recent visit of Carroll Airey, board member from Houston, BC and friend and supporter, Tyrion Miskell from Café Ético, Vancouver, BC with Rob Bell, Managua, Nicaragua to Santa Rosa.
Together we rented a tiny car and braved the "highways" of northern Nicaragua to visit Santa Rosa del Peñon. We left early on Sunday morning, February 27 and made it to León by lunchtime, to enjoy a leisurely meal in the very hot weather (hitting 38 C by the afternoon) with some friends there...
After León we experienced first-hand the pothole-filled highways of Nicaragua. In places, it seemed there were more potholes than highway, but nonetheless, we managed to travel the 75km from León to the even hotter Santa Rosa in just under 2 hours.
With slightly tender behinds, we wandered looking for Doña Bertha, our main Santa Rosa contact and we found her and many other community members awaiting us in the Casa Materna (the Maternal House) for a meeting.
First, we went to visit the well that we helped to fund originally about 2 years ago. It is complete and pumping water! It has been a long process, but finally and happily it is complete. The community was proud and happy to show off the well for us.
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| Carroll, excited to see the results of some of her fundraising efforts. |
The project money that we gave was enough to dig about 17m and to hit water about a year or more ago, but unfortunately, there wasn't enough water pressure for the pump to work. They needed to dig about 5-10m further they explained to me. Originally, the digging (done by hand by four community members) had reached a very rocky part, they even tried to dynamite it to loosen it up, but to no avail... More money would be needed to complete the job.
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| Doña Bertha and several of the men who helped dig the well. |
FOG asked them in Santa Rosa if they wanted us to seek more funds for the project, but they said no. They wanted to try to complete it themselves, it was enough that we helped them to get started. It was a strange situation. A U.S. NGO even asked us about it, inquiring if we had cut off Santa Rosa from funding... Perhaps it is difficult to understand, but when funding a project, it is truly gratifying to see the community take initiative to complete a project, to take the road less travelled. It gives us hope for the community in the long run that when we leave, they will still manage to make advances without us and that we haven't generated too much dependency on foreign aid.
So after much struggle the community managed to get the mayor of the town to pay to complete the project. (This is admirable that a politician would actually help the people, given the general corruption in the Nicaraguan political class ...)
Within a short time the work was complete and the well was pumping water. For our visit, the pump was installed, the cement casing finished and the casita (little house) covering the well was completed. We took some pictures with the men who had dug the well and Doña Bertha who was the main community organizer.
On the visit, we met with Gretel, just one of the new applicants for scholarships. Unfortunately, 2005 has not been a good year for FOG and we didn't have the money to support new applicants. We just continued with the 3 from last year (Oscar, Norlene and Joel). In El Recreo, as an aside, we are continuing with 5 recipients. Oscar had disappeared from the program last year, but he told us that he had been making up some courses that he needed when he changed schools a couple of years ago. He thought that he should pay for those since it was his decision to change schools so he didn't ask for funds in 2004. Now in 2005, he just needs to complete his thesis or final project to get his degree, so we will be helping him to complete his degree...
Hopefully we will do better with fundraising over this year so we can look into taking on some of the newer students in 2006. There are 6 in Santa Rosa that we have had to reject. We were about $2000US short there, as well as a few thousand short to support the new El Recreo people.
We visited the current installation of the library, bookstore and computer school. There are about 11 computers (a few of which came from FOG). They haven't completed the book purchasing yet as there were some books that the municipality managed to get and so they were waiting to see what the books were so as not to duplicate them.
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| Pablo (left) has volunteered to help set up the computers. Doña Bertha (right) is the coordinator of the project. |
They are planning to install the library and computer lab in the local school. The school also has some books, so it is a good complement. However, the school has some problems with the electricity since the electricity in Nicaragua was privatised a few years ago. (The water will likely be privatised as well within a year or two)
Hopefully the problem can be resolved soon. The electric company wants the school to pay some very high bills that don't belong to the school. The address on the bill is in Leon, but the company still refuses to check into it. It is a typical problem here. Hopefully it can be resolved in the next few months so the computer school can get off the ground. As usual in Santa Rosa and Nicaragua, things move slowly but at least they do move...
We also met with Gabriela from the former John XXIII Project (now called Farmers for a New Future). She gave us a list of her needs to teach sewing to the women and girls in Santa Rosa. Her needs reflect the degree of poverty in the community. For example, they use a lot of leftover flipchart paper to practise sewing since they have no cloth. Gabriela made rulers from any bits of wood she could find for the women to use to measure. All the machines they are using are basic treadle machines. She was interested in acquiring a machine with zigzig capacity as the women would like to learn how to sew underwear for their families. We also brought a few little things like thread and measuring tapes to help the project.
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| Gabriela proudly showing us her sewing project. |
Gabriela has been teaching sewing in Santa Rosa for 15-20+?How many? years. She told us her story, which I will try to capture here. A nun, Ana Maria came and helped Gabriela, whose husband had left her with 8 children. She taught Gabriela about self-confidence and self-esteem.
In addition, Ana Maria taught her and some other women how to sew. She chose Gabriela as the most promising of the women and got her to teach others. The nuns acquired other sewing machines and got the project going. Eventually, the nuns departed and left the local Catholic priest in charge of everything. Under the nuns, the women had managed all the funds and had paid for most things in the church, including gas for the priest's car. However, he wanted to control all the money and the women said no... For reasons unknown, the priest decided to take all the equipment from the project, including the sewing machines and the things from their children's nutrition program. Seemingly he was unhappy not to be able to control everything in the project - especially the finances. That was the beginning of the end.
Eventually, with 2 borrowed machines, Gabriela managed to start teaching sewing again and with Juan XXIII's help, they acquired more machines - today they have 7. Many women have learned a trade and have become more self sufficent in Santa Rosa because of sewing classes. In some cases the training has resulted in women taking a job in the maquila (free trade zones). However, for the women, it is still a source of income and greater independence in the home...
Previously we have mentioned the threat of losing the Casa Materna to the machinations of the local politicians (including the priest) who belong to the PLC (liberal) party. The Casa Materna group, lacking official NGO status were in danger of losing the Casa. However, they joined (or re-joined, since many of the same people worked together when the nuns lived in Santa Rosa) together with the Farmers for a New Future group who do have status and thus saved the Casa.
Now that they have the well going, things are looking up for the Casa Materna. There is much work to be done, but the future is bright, even if slow at times...
Fair Opportunities Group
This page last modified on 15 Apr, 2005
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