Dear Friends,
Can you imagine a world where the beneficiaries of aid and the stakeholders of aid organizations held the very same dreams—and as the issues of the day shifted within communities—the objectives of the stakeholders shifted seamlessly in kind?
Director of ProNica, Melissa, at the Acahual Women’s Center in Managua with Sylvia, who is a founder, the nurse, and an unshakable defender of human rights.
Well, you may not have to stretch your imagination all that much, because each year that you stand with ProNica, you say, “Yes!” to this type of ethos in international community development. You endorse a form of solidarity where the poor are understood to be crucial collaborators in overcoming their condition, whether in defining solutions to daily struggles or in challenging the underlying causes of poverty and injustice.
We’re so grateful that you opted to support Casa del Niño’s microloan program one year and their mobile Pap smear clinic the next—and that you funded the librarian’s salary at Los Quinchos one year and backed meals at their “El Filtro” outreach center the next. In fact, as all nine of the project partners in Nicaragua identified challenges, carried out solutions, and collectively analyzed resources, processes and outcomes—their priorities shifted—and your partnership shifted in kind!
ProNica Board President, Herb, with residents of Los Quinchos. He flies to Nicaragua each year to listen to the partners and learn about their needs, as well as to visit treasured friends the partners have become to him.
We can’t thank you enough for your role in this bold, dignified, and highly effective form of community development! I hope you know that your bridge of friendship made a huge difference in 2015. Personally, I like to visualize it as all of you crafting a lens that refracts the light of human potential, allowing the grassroots leaders in Nicaragua to form ever more elegant images of hope, peace and justice.
I feel especially grateful for your commitment during a time when the community partners may need it more than ever. During 2015 greater uncertainty arose around political structures that once represented unadulterated hope for so many Nicaraguans. That, along with fears of environmental degradation and violent clashes related to the proposed canal, have wracked the psyche of a country still healing from a not-so-distant war. Scarcity of the staple red beans has spurred inflation and cost-of-living increases. Consequently, program expenditures have increased across the board for the project partners. Even amidst this daunting pressure though, ProNica partners somehow find hope and the will to keep going.
As devoted supporters, you may be asking what more you can do. A fairly straightforward and particularly invaluable way to help is by raising awareness and advocating. Consider what ProNica’s work personally means to you and how it is sparking change in Nicaragua and in the world—and simply share from that place in your heart.
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Together, we can do this. We can preserve a righteous ethos of community development while sustaining the work on the ground for women’s health, literacy, environmental stewardship, community organizing, domestic violence accompaniment, cross-cultural education, sustainable agriculture, maternal healthcare, climate resilience, nonviolence training and more.
Would you please make a gift, and would you reach out to some friends today to invite them to join with you in your efforts to build a better world?
In friendship,
Melissa Ajabshir