Helping a Community Help itself – The Santa Ana de Malacos Project
In October of 2007, a new community approached Empowerment International to ask for its help. Called, Santa Ana de Malacos, this community is a very impoverished, small and rural farming community outside of Granada in Nicaragua.
The Need –
Although, Santa Ana lies only 10 Km from EI’s office, it is a world apart. The standard of living is markedly lower in this community. Most of the children here do not have shoes, despite needing to cross over farm lands and giant puddles to reach school and work in the fields.
Most of the parents are illiterate and without a method of transportation. They work as subsistence farmers, using horses to cultivate the fields, or in other manual-labor positions. The community is serviced only by a 4WD dirt road, with no public transportation, and is frequently impassable in the rainy season. There are approximately 80 primary-school-aged children living in the Santa Ana Community. The community has a government-provided small primary school and two teachers, but does not have the financial or mentoring resources necessary to keep children in school. Read more…
Forced to Drop-Out: Story of Desperation and Hope
Parents try very hard to ensure that their kids do not drop out of school. But what if the situation was reversed? What would a kid do if forced by his parents to drop out of school? Read on to find what happened with Felix Pedro, a 16
Drop out of school?
year old Empowerment International student, who was asked by his parents to quit school.
One May morning, Felix came crying to the EI office. He declared sadly that he had to quit school as that was what his family wanted. His parents had been putting a lot of pressure on him lately to drop out of school and to help out with the family business. He was very confused and did not know what decision to take as he really liked going to school. He was sure his parents would not change their mind and he was so distressed that he “could not contain (his) tears” Read more…
A Traveler’s Impressions of Nicaragua
When Timothy Ryan, an avid traveler and photographer, visited Nicaragua, he was captivated. Not only did he lose his 
heart to the unique beauty of the land but also to the resilient courage of its people. The second poorest country in the Western hemisphere, Nicaragua, is full of amazing contrasts. It has the most heartbreakingly desperate circumstances and the most uncomplicatedly joyous people trying to make the best of the muck and mire of their lives.
Timothy, whose travel blog has been selected as one of the 10 best travel photo blogs recently, visited Nicaragua on behalf of Empowerment International last November as a photography trip. Read more…
Ready for an Exciting Tour!
From November 8-15, 8 participants get a chance to go to Nicaragua on an exciting tour!
The tour is being organized by Susan Boe, Morgan and Julie Smith who are Santa Fe residents. Their goal is to take groups to Nicaragua to give them the opportunity to learn about the country and see programs like Empowerment International. Any “profits” that they make will go to Empowerment International and would be tax deductible to the participants.
Located between Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south, Nicaragua is about half the size of Colorado or New Mexico and has a population of roughly 5.5 million people. It is a country of striking beauty – coast lines along the Pacific that are becoming famous for surfing; a series of volcanoes, many of which can be easily hiked; beautiful colonial cities like León and Granada; natural areas full of more species of birds and trees than the entire European continent. Most important are its friendly and welcoming people. Read more…
May marks the beginning of the rainy season in Nicaragua, bringing heavy rains that rarely let up until the season ends in October. Rain can fall every day for weeks or months at a time, causing flooding that destroys homes and crops, washes out roads and bridges, cuts off villages, and compromises fragile food security in some areas.
Along with torrential rainfall, the situation can get even worse during hurricane season. In the last ten years this country that straddles the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean has been hit by three hurricanes and 25 tropical storms. The most recent hurricane, Felix, left 220,000 people homeless in 2007.
As in most natural disasters, the poor are the hardest hit. Along with losing their homes they can also easily lose their means of making a living, especially if they are self-employed, selling food they grow or products they make. U.N. resident representative Alfredo Missair warns that the vulnerability of people in the areas hit hardest by the natural disasters would increase the already wide gap between rich and poor, according to Inter Press Service. Read more…
