|
Acahualinca beauty school
In June 2005 my husband Herb and I brought our 17-year-old daughter, Amanda, to Nicaragua for two weeks for her International Baccalaureate service project. When our guide and translator, ProNica Program Coordinator Lillian Hall, fell ill with Dengue Fever, the women in the Acahualinca Clinic took us under their wings. We visited the clinic, library and pre-school, where Amanda taught 20 children. These buildings sit in the oldest neighborhood in Managua adjacent to the city dump and Lake Managua. Most of the patients and beauty school students live nearby. When we entered the Managua city dump known as La Chureca, we were appalled to learn that people actually lived there. Smoke billowed from heaps of garbage as cows and dogs picked and pawed the trash for a morsel to eat. People dug for scraps with a two-pronged rake. Bits of plastic blew in the noxious breeze. It was a surreal nightmare. As a professional hair stylist, I could cut hair of those with head lice in the dump. One of the days we were there, the afternoon rains came. A proud woman and her several children offered us refuge inside their make-shift home. Her lean-to, made of scraps of cardboard, wood and plastic, became my salon for the day. As word spread, shaggy-headed dump dwellers lined up for hair cuts by “la gringa.” One of the clinic staff quoted a nun, “Whatever we learn, we need to pass on to others. We can’t keep our knowledge within us. We are transitory in this life.” I sold my salon to have more time for volunteer service. I never imagined I’d return to salon work. I knew then that I needed to pass my hairstyling and business skills on to these women and girls by raising money to reenergize their school. A woman at the clinic wrote a proposal for supplies and instructor for 20 students.
All donations go towards the $4,000 annual budget which trains 40 women and girls in these marketable skills for an honest living. They now set up a stool outside their homes, start as shampoo girls in full service salons and hopefully become beauticians, cutting and styling hair. I return for each graduating class. I am so proud of these women and girls and their accomplishments. Their lives are not easy but they do not want to miss a single class. A former school teacher who lived in the dump was pregnant when classes began in 2006. Even in labor, she attended class on her way to give birth; her tears alarmed a US visitor. The new mother returned to class a few days later. Her determination paid off. The youngest attendee at graduation was her two month old baby. Another young mother with several children had contemplated suicide; she felt worthless. Clinic staff convinced her to come to beauty school classes. Her life turned around and her proud children cheered as she graduated. I am committed to attend each graduation every December and celebrate with these courageous women. I invite anyone to experience their life-changing event. These women and girls now have a skill for their entire lives. And, best of all, this service project is sustainable – hair grows! |
ProjectsSee ProNica in action
|
|
HOME | PROJECTS | NICARAGUA | QUAKER HOUSE | ABOUT PRONICA | NEWS | CONTACT US | DONATE | SITE MAP Copyright © 2010 ProNica, Inc. • 130 19th Avenue SE • St. Petersburg, FL • 33705 • 727-821-2428 Webkeeper |
||
their beautician skills instead of selling their bodies. My goal of reestablishing a beauty school is being realized. 
Back home I cut hair. I trimmed members of our Quaker group, St. Petersburg Friends Meeting, at outdoor festivals, home parties - anywhere I could set up a stool. My husband coined the phrase “Worship Shearing,” a play on words of the Quaker practice of Worship Sharing. That first year, everyone who received a haircut and donated cash, signed a styling cape and had their picture. The cape now hangs prominently on the wall in the resurrected beauty school in Acahualinca.