Anielka did not have to brave her tremendous odds to stay with Empowerment International’s program for six years. Like so many children in the community where she grew up, Anielka could have dropped out of school and continued the life of dependency and poverty. 

But she did not give up. She worked with EI through all her life’s ups and downs. The result is a confident young girl sure of her life plans and dreams.

Anielka recently did EI, her parents, her community and herself proud by graduating from her High School. She will now attend University where she plans to study Business Administration.

In fact, not only is she building her own future but also helping many other children with theirs. She is a tutor in EI’s after-school tutoring program where she helps her neighborhood children with their studies. And she also wins biking races as her pastime.

In his beautiful video for Empowerment International (EI), Brad Allgood, shows how a girl who considered herself “timid” is now the president of EI’s mountain biking club and the first member in her family to graduate. Anielka never expected herself to finish school, let alone dream of college. But she is well on her way.

Like she says in the video, “We do not always have solutions ourselves.” Anielka took EI’s help and is now spreading the message. As you see her confidently teaching other children and speaking about her hopes, you realize that Anielka has found her new world – one where she is a confident, expressive and without fear.

EI is proud to have a kid like her.

As we close this year on this happy note, we at Empowerment International hope that you stay with us through our journey with many such kids who fight similar or, often, worse odds to continue their education.

For the last three years Empowerment International has proudly maintained more than a 92% school retention rate. Many of our students are now in University, balancing family’s monetary burden while handling their demanding schedule in college. In fact, we are now looking forward to our first University graduate.

Wishing you all Happy Holidays and a New Year full of dreams and successes!

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -

Filed under: 2011 program, barrio, education, empowerment, Graduation, Nicaragua Program ]]> http://empowermentinternational.org/2011/12/15/year-of-dreams-and-successes/feed/ 0 KathyAAdams 385162_10150454092654344_42357679343_8406431_1915043370_n Facebook:Share del.icio.us:Year of Dreams and Successes Digg it:Year of Dreams and Successes reddit:Year of Dreams and Successes Stumble it:Year of Dreams and Successes furl:Year of Dreams and Successes Bookmark and Share Donate at Change.org http://empowermentinternational.org/2011/10/07/my-camera-my-world-see-the-world-through-childrens-eyes/ http://empowermentinternational.org/2011/10/07/my-camera-my-world-see-the-world-through-childrens-eyes/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:07:45 +0000 kathyei http://empowermentinternational.org/?p=1475 ]]> What do kids view in their daily lives? A little girl at the gate, a dilapidated doorway, a grinning old lady, a man working on a sewing machine, silhouette of a father and child.

You would be surprised at what Empowerment International’s kids see in their Nicaraguan neighborhood. Forty of some of these best and brightest photos taken by kids ranging from 11 to 19 years, have been exhibited in Denver.

These limited edition photos will be open for auction for one day only on October 8, from 6:30 PM to 10 PM. You can get the tickets here. The proceeds of the auction will directly benefit Empowerment International kids.

Kathy, EI’s founder, had noticed children’s enthusiasm for photography a few years back and since then has made several efforts to keep their spirit up. Every year, EI kids get their most cherished lessons when a photographer teaches them the intricacies of taking good pictures.

These kids now take photos that impress even professional photographers!

So do remember to view their bright photographs at Root Yoga, Denver in Mi Camera, Mi Mundo (My Camera, My World) – an exhibition and auction of photography – on October 8. You even get to meet the young photographers via Skype!

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -

Filed under: 2011 program, empowerment, Exhibitions, photography ]]> http://empowermentinternational.org/2011/10/07/my-camera-my-world-see-the-world-through-childrens-eyes/feed/ 1 KathyAAdams Girl in the doorway Alicia Fox Photography Facebook:Share del.icio.us:My Camera, My World Digg it:My Camera, My World reddit:My Camera, My World Stumble it:My Camera, My World furl:My Camera, My World Bookmark and Share Donate at Change.org http://empowermentinternational.org/2011/06/21/join-the-ei-family-a-donor-and-retired-teacher-shares-his-ei-experience/ http://empowermentinternational.org/2011/06/21/join-the-ei-family-a-donor-and-retired-teacher-shares-his-ei-experience/#comments Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:13:23 +0000 kathyei http://empowermentinternational.org/?p=1417 ]]> My third trip to Nicaragua in February 2011 felt like a homecoming. This trip, as I walked down the rutted, muddy streets of Barrio Esperanza, a poor neighborhood in Granada, I was accompanied by a group of older students from the area. My Spanish was improved enough from the year before that I could listen to them talk about what they were doing or planned to do after high school graduation.

Anyelo was a softspoken star among the graduates. He is studying to be a pharmacist, while also returning to tutor younger children in his neighborhood as a way to pay back what he has been given by Empowerment International. He and other kids like him are dedicated students whose parents or who themselves never could have envisioned a life beyond poverty before Empowerment offered them encouragement and support.

The EI model makes sense to me, a retired teacher.
Help children get to school with the required uniforms and supplies.
Work closely with their families, who often have little or no education and who rely on their children to help earn a living for the family, often at the expense of school attendance or completion beyond the elementary grades.
Provide after-school tutoring programs, conducted by both staff and some of the older students.
Engage kids in extracurricular activities that promote health and self-confidence. Connect graduates with higher education and training opportunities.

One goal of the Empowerment program has been to simply keep kids in school, and for the last two years they have been able to do that at a rate above 90%, despite the pressures of poverty and culture that pull about half of all students out of school after the primary grades in the country as a whole. I saw those pressures in the small rural schools I visited on my first trip to Nicaragua in 2005. Students there were eager to learn. But isolation, parents’ lack of education, skepticism about the value of school, and only intermittent contact with a supporting nonprofit all combined to make it difficult for children to stay in school.

EI, on the other hand, has been successful because staff live and work in the communities they serve.  Daily contact with students and families make the difference.  That was very apparent as children and parents came out to greet our group of students and EI staff members as we walked through the Barrio.

Our family’s involvement with EI started on the recommendation of a friend, Morgan Smith, in 2008.  After meeting founder, Kathy Adams, at a celebration and fund-raising event in Boulder, Colorado, we began sponsoring students in Barrio Esperanza.  For a modest monthly contribution, we were assured that these children would have the support they needed to stay in school and to develop academic and life goals.  And that has been the case.

Plus, EI has been wonderful about negotiating letter writing between us and the students we sponsor.  The icing on the cake is that I have been able to visit these children and their families twice, now.

This year, my visit really did feel like a homecoming. One of the students we sponsor, 6th grader Maria Dolores, shy but all smiles, invited me into her shanty and brought me a chair.  On the way to see her, I had passed her mother and father atop a horse drawn cart full of reed mats they make, on their way to Managua to sell them.

Maria and I had exchanged letters several times and so our conversation covered familiar topics – school and family and what she hoped for her future.  She couldn’t let me leave without a hug and a photo, many thank you’s and a promise to study hard.

A few hundred yards down the road, I stopped to visit another of our students, Katerine, a second grader, who came running from a friend’s house and latched onto my waist in a bear hug.  She couldn’t wait to show me her report card and a medal she had won in school.  The previous year just days before my visit, her mother had lost her job at a local maquiladora.  This year she was again without employment, but had been able to spend a few months working in Costa Rica. Life here is very difficult, she told me, but I know that Katerine will have better chances than I did.

EI’s programs are transforming lives in Nicaragua. My involvement with EI has helped me to understand how powerfully they represent a much-needed positive image of America-as partners in the construction of a better world. My wife and I support education-related non-profits in the U.S., but we are also committed to spending our time and talent abroad.

As travelers we know firsthand the importance of sharing our lives and stories with the people we meet. A world of strangers teeters always on the brink of misunderstanding and conflict. Even a modest effort to communicate with people beyond our own country helps us feel we can be at home anywhere.

Having seen their work firsthand I can say that Empowerment International is a trustworthy, effective organization. Even if you never have the chance to visit Nicaragua and its friendly people, you are making friends and representing your country by financially supporting EI’s work. If you are lucky enough to see that work in person, it will feel like a homecoming, not just a visit.

~ Alan Olds (Denver and DC)

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -

Tobias, who is a teacher in Mühlematt-Schulhaus (Mühlematt School) in the city of Binnigen in north west Switzerland, was very impressed with EI’s work. He promised he would try to do something for EI with his class kids once he was back. And now, it’s not just his class kids but the whole school that is involved in raising funds for EI!

Till date the children have raised $962 and intend to continue doing the same. They are also sponsoring Ericka who is in 6^th grade and want to keep in touch with the kids through Skype.

Tobias started the Empowerment project by first informing all his colleagues in school and asking for their support. The response he got was super positive, thus making the project official. Next, he introduced the project to his students, showing them the pictures he had taken during his visit to Granada. He informed them about the problems EI kids faced and the possibilities they could have with better education. Their responses and questions showed real empathy and Tobias says that to see their emotions was often very overwhelming.

Each class signed a paper and the students put their signatures on it to express their personal support for this education project. Also, each class supported Tobias to build up a “Money-Meter”, which is a five-meter high construction made out of a giant plastic tube. This replaced the Christmas tree so everyone could see how much money had been collected.

In fact, so committed have the students become to EI’s cause that for the first time in school’s history, every student is working on the same project.

The money was raised through various methods like sandwich selling and sponsored running. There were also donations from individuals and the local church. For near future, the school has planned to put this charity project online on its homepage.

We are very grateful to Tobias and all the children who have been so supportive of our cause. These children have worked hard to help kids they have never met. It is amazing to see them being incredibly sensitive to the plight of kids living far away from their country. Here is hoping our Swiss connection gets even stronger!

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -

Kids writing to their sponsors

Our office was a scene of organized chaos on the inscription weekend when we do all our school related preparations. Inscription time is when we update all data from the participating families, have parents and kids sign contracts for the new year, get kids to write to their sponsors and distribute school supplies to the kids for the year. The best part – this time our teenagers did most of the running of these activities.

And now let the school time begin! 

Children updating data

Shoes to distribute

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -

So, unless a little background of him is considered, it will be tough to imagine why even at 19, he has not finished 10th grade.

Or why school proved difficult for him at times.

Or why he was rebellious and disrespectful towards his parents.

Rafael comes from a very large family – 10 members in total. Out of 7 of his siblings, 2 of the oldest are addicts. One brother is addicted to drugs and the other to alcohol. His family is very poor with his father is the only earning member.

Life, as expected, is hard. It is particularly hard for young Rafael who has easy access to the wrong crowd to hang out with and violent brothers to contend with on a daily basis. With so much stress and abuse in family, it would be easy for him to fall into his older brothers’ ways.

But, Rafael is holding his own. He has committed to not resorting to drugs for escape. He, along with 3 of his younger siblings is in the EI program. But, school was not easy for him either. His reticent behavior made it difficult for him to fit into school life. The first year of high school was very difficult.

He says “I was in the same grade as my younger sister and that year I was very defiant and rebellious. She passed the year and I did not!”

However, working with EI staff, Rafael has showed a tremendous improvement in his attitude towards education. When an EI volunteer taught math and English for 2 months, he was present every day at the center to receive classes. He is very focused in school now and rarely misses a day.

Rafael now dreams of becoming an automobile engineer. A few weeks back he had an opportunity to visit the local technical school, and he now aims to get into this  tech school next year. He is determined to make his new dream a reality.

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -

You can buy some of last year’s photos from our online gallery and support our budding photography program. We are also about to have our 2nd annual photography exhibition in Toronto on November 14th. Our last Toronto exhibition was a 100% success The details of this exhibition (called MiCameraMiMundo) are as follows:
Address: Edward Day Gallery Toronto (952 Queen St. West Suite 200)
Time: 7 PM – 9:30 PM
Date: November 14th

In past years, he was a very shy kid and didn’t interact much with the EI staff. But last year he joined the team of teenage tutors, and because of that is more sure of himself and interacts much more with the EI team.

He has also participated much more in events in the office.  He even spoke with people in the US at the Fiesta de Esperanza over Skype!  He has participated in five photography exhibitions, some in person in Nicaragua and some international exhibitions that included his work.  This has been the biggest success in his life.  He says, “I like photography because through it I have come to know places that I didn’t know before, and have learned more about myself and how to look at the world differently.”

Melki loves going to school and is a very attentive and responsible student.  Last year he finished primary school and was given the award for being the best student.  Because of this honor, he got to carry the flag of the school!

His parents, siblings and all his family are very proud of all of the successes that he has had.  He is grateful for the chance to be a part of the EI program – “From the time I was in the first grade, (EI) has helped me very, very much.”

He has also participated much more in events in the office.  He even spoke with people in the US at the Fiesta de Esperanza over Skype!  He has participated in five photography exhibitions, some in person in Nicaragua and some international exhibitions that included his work.  This has been the biggest success in his life.  He says, “I like photography because through it I have come to know places that I didn’t know before, and have learned more about myself and how to look at the world differently.”

Melki loves going to school and is a very attentive and responsible student.  Last year he finished primary school and was given the award for being the best student.  Because of this honor, he got to carry the flag of the school!

His parents, siblings and all his family are very proud of all of the successes that he has had.  He is grateful for the chance to be a part of the EI program – “From the time I was in the first grade, (EI) has helped me very, very much.”

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -

Upon arrival to Nicaragua, I knew at once that I was in for more than I bargained, for better or worse.  I quickly realized how poor my Spanish was, and was adjusting to the constant heat and humidity when a powerful storm knocked out the power and water for the better part of three days.  This native West Virginian, accustomed to mild weather and constant water and electricity, was quickly finding how different Nicaragua is from the US.

Despite my misgivings, the first time I set foot in the EI office, I knew it was going to be a great experience.  The children were warm, friendly, and greeted me with “Buenas dias!” and a smile.  I started giving classes in math, physics and English to the teens in secondary school, and was excited to see how fast they picked up new concepts.

I began with basics, which many severely lacked, and we slowly worked our way up over the next month to material within their grade and indeed beyond.  Now most are confident with their school work, and have learned to incorporate old concepts into new material, an extremely important part of math. Now Maycol, a teen tutor, gives my Spanish an encouraging 40% and I’m able to give class without reaching for a Spanish-English dictionary every couple minutes.

The most rewarding thing about my work here is seeing the children learn and grow even in the short time I am here.  To see such bright, friendly, caring children come out of a place as destitute as the barrio in which they live is moving and inspiring beyond words.  Empowerment International is giving children the chance to break the cycle of poverty and unconcern for education, and I am thrilled to be a part of it.

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -

Here they share their experiences while in Nicaragua with us –

“Nicaragua is like no other country we have ever visited; the people  are warm and the landscape is beautiful, but the challenges are many.

The first thing that hit us as we drove through heavy downpour from Managua to Granada on the night of our arrival in Nicaragua, was that this was neither going to be an ordinary nor an easy experience.

Of course, as two English speaking climate and culture-shocked Canadians, we were nervous the first day as we walked to the Empowerment International office to meet the 10 children who had signed up to take a week long photography course with us.

We had thought that we were heading into the office too early that morning, but many of the children were already waiting for us there when we arrived, and they were eager to get started. They greeted us with big smiles, plenty of curiosity, and an instant desire to get involved in helping us set up in any way that they could.

They lent a hand in setting up a workroom for us and we could feel the level of excitement in the room mounting as we unpacked the new cameras that had been donated to the program by our friends and colleagues in Canada. All of the students were eager to have a chance to examine the new digital cameras they would soon have the chance to use.

Throughout the week-long course we had the opportunity to see Granada through the eyes of the students as we accompanied them to various sites around the city armed with cameras and eager to shoot. We were impressed to see the skills the students possessed, and marveled at how quickly they caught on to the new concepts we were teaching them.

All of the students shot with confidence, unafraid to try the new techniques they were learning, and the beautiful images they began to capture reflected this instantly.

As the days wore on our nerves calmed as we learned that the kids were open to learning from us although we did not share their native tongue. With help from translators (few of who were students in the program itself) we were able to share our knowledge with the students, and learn first hand
about their world.

We felt honoured by the constant enthusiasm, dedication, and patience they demonstrated while working with us, and we were blown away by the quality of work they produced during our short time together.

It became clear to us very quickly that some of the students possessed a raw talent and keen eye for photography.

This natural talent, when coupled with unbridled enthusiasm, resulted in the creation of some truly beautiful images.

We were most impressed by the eagerness the children showed both to learn as well as to teach. We were able to pass on some of our knowledge about the art and business of photography, and they were willing to open up to us to teach us about their language, culture and community.

One of the main highlights for us occurred near the end of our time in Granada when we were accompanied on a walk through the barrio by a few of the students in the program.

They invited us into their homes, introduced us to their families, fed us, and gave us a tour of their community.

We were humbled by the realities of the lives of the children we had had the opportunity to teach, and grateful for their willingness to allow us into their worlds. Seeing first hand the difficulties that these children face on a daily basis made us more fully appreciate their dedication and commitment to learning.

When it came time to say our goodbyes we couldn’t help but wish we had more time to spend with the students, as each one of them truly touched
our hearts.”

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

$30/month is what it takes us at Empowerment International to put a child in school. If you would like to help a child stay in school and get better life, please click on the link below or contact us -