Eckerd College students visit Nicaragua

by Schuyler Ellis

Returning to Nicaragua in January 2005, I came down as a skeptic. On my first trip to Nicaragua, over a year ago, I volunteered with a non-profit attempting to organize communities and start development aid projects for the people of Nicaragua. Unfortunately, due to corruption and mismanagement, many of those projects failed. From this experience, I have become somewhat skeptical of non-profit work in developing nations, and I was cautious about ProNica as well.

Eckerd College group in Managua

I joined ProNica in January, as a member of a delegation. Nine other Eckerd College students, one professor, and I went down to Nicaragua to participate in service learning as part of a class at Eckerd. The trip started on the fifth of January. Once we arrived we were greeted by Lillian, the in-country director for ProNica, two volunteers, Jen and Brett, and Carlitos a young Nicaraguan from Achuapa. For the first five days our group stayed in Managua. These five days were filled with discussions, meetings and visits, but for me four of the meetings really stand out. The first was a meeting with Ivan Garcia Morenco, a local economist and community organizer. Dr. Morenco had received all of his degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and had first hand experience in economics working for the Nicaraguan government from 1979-1992. He spoke to us about CAFTA and free trade. He explained the problems in the current government and he talked about his efforts in forming a new political party for Nicaragua.

This cooperative, run by the women, ensures better treatment and better pay for the textile workers than at any sweatshop in Nicaragua.

The following day we had another speaker, Gladis Manzanares, a labor union organizer for women in sweatshops. She told us personal stories of the abuse she has seen at the hands of the sweatshop owners, she explained the harsh rules and policies, and she explained her work, organizing the workers to demand more pay and better health care. Her story was very appalling and moving at the same time. On the third day in Managua, we visited a community called Nueva Vida. In this community, several women along with the help of the Jubilee House, have organized their own textile factory. This cooperative, run by the women, ensures better treatment and better pay for the textile workers than at any sweatshop in Nicaragua. On our final day in Managua, Lillian organized a meeting with Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy, one of the most famous Nicaraguan singers ever. Luis Enrique, told us about his participation in the revolution as a cultural icon and what it was like to be exiled from his home country. Upon leaving Managua, I was amazed by Lillian’s contacts, and I was a little less skeptical of ProNica.

Schuyler with corn origami

Following Managua, we traveled to Miraflor, a rural area of small communities outside of Esteli. Here, partnering up with Luis Dicovsky, ProNica has contributed to a new community project. Several of the communities have decided to try and increase eco-tourism to the area. Together families have been working on building and restoring hiking trails, reforestation, carving signs, and collecting and classifying the plant and animal species around their homes. Lillian had organized home stays with some of the families and we were able to live and work alongside the Nicaraguans. From this three-day experience I learned a lot about the Nicaraguan resolve. The community in which we were staying, had been under attack during the Contra war in the eighties, and has consistently been in poverty, but the people have never stopped working to better their situation. Beyond that, no matter how hard the work would get, they never stopped. After Miraflor, our group stayed one night in Esteli, and then we headed to Achuapa.

Achuapa is a small town surrounded by even smaller communities of farmers. The entire economy of Achuapa is based on agriculture, and yet many of their farmers live in poverty and are always in jeopardy of not having enough food to eat. Upon entering Achuapa, our group was introduced to the organizers of Tienda Campesina, the farming cooperative of Achuapa. Run by several different people, this cooperative serves as an economic and educational resource for the community. The cooperative has organized the production of sesame and does its best to ensure the fairest price for the farmer. Beyond that, the co-op has organized workshops on organic production as well as offered support for any development project that a community would like to do.

Outside of Achuapa is a small community called La Perla. Before our arrival, we had sent five hundred dollars to ProNica to use to organize a project with which we could help. With the assistance of a co-op member, the community decided to construct a new building that they could use to teach their children cultural arts like dancing and music, since those are not allowed in the church or the school in La Perla. Alongside the Nicaraguans we cut bamboo, hammered together walls, mixed and set cement, and did our best to construct this building. By the end of our time there we were not done, but we had advanced a lot. Again, like Miraflor, I was amazed by the resilience of the Nicaraguans, in La Perla the people were living with nothing, but they just kept working and living in total happiness.

At the end of the trip, reflecting back upon each of our experiences I became very impressed with ProNica. Unlike many other non-profits, ProNica’s approach to development work is different. Many non-profits enter into a country with the hope of creating new programs and projects that the people will organize around to improve their situation. Contrary to this idea, ProNica has partnered with existing development projects that were started and organized by Nicaragüenses , with the hope of aiding and supporting the goals of the people. This approach has given ProNica immense success in helping improve the lives of the people of Nicaragua.

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Eckerd College students visit Nicaragua

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