Just sharing a friend’s friend’s project (supporting eco-tourism, animal husbandry/rescue, conservation, re-forestation, education/literacy, horticulture cultivation, etc) in Nicaragua. If you are planning a holiday there, stay at their B&B, www.spanishschoolnica.com
Snippet from their project update bulletin:
This is an information bulletin, at the same time I am asking for ideas and a little of your time to help us …
We really need to try and think about ways of fundraising – we have had to postpone the process of becoming a non-government organization whilst we get a load of other bureaucracy sorted so for the moment I have to do it on a personal basis. Although we are beginning to build up our visitor numbers, I now realize that even if we were permanently full we probably couldn’t fund everything we do in the longer term.
What I need specifically is –
- Ideas for fundraising.
- A volunteer who can live here just for a contribution for her/his food who could make us a video to send to prospective guests.
- If I send you some brochures and fliers could you put them in strategic places and distribute them?
- For those of you who have visited us and not already done so, writing to the websites which have us listed would be helpful and writing to whichever guide book you use.
We have several different projects up and running, all of them very small scale and emerging out of what local people suggest is most important – as I speak they all seem to be going rather well, maybe too well for our capacity….but it is hard to slow down when there is so much to do and so much enthusiasm. We are working alongside other people now which is very exciting and gives me an excuse to have nice lunches at the Mariposa with invited local dignitaries – especially the Town hall in relation to conservation stuff and the Director of the Nicaraguan zoo (who is a really remarkable woman) on the parakeet rehabilitation project. The local big NGO is World Vision and they are anxious that we work together on a number of things but I have some issues about their methods so we shall see. We have also now met with the Education Ministry on the literacy project and been well advised by their Cuban advisor. So we are pretty busy – one of our main problems in the future will be avoiding too much bureaucracy I think and not upsetting folk who see us as treading on their patch. Oh, and I have just been introduced to an extraordinary group of women – the Damas Diplomaticas (diplomatic ladies!!!) who do good in their own inimitable fashion, including at the Panama school. More of them later.
Some updates:
- The Eco-tourist project generally is going well – most of the Mariposa workers really enjoy acting as guides and we have worked out some great local walks and horse rides. The current activity is putting in some footpaths through our little wooded area and signs on the trees so visitors know what the different trees are called. We are also extending our use of solar power (Nicaragua currently has power cuts of up to 12 hours per day and our fridge is not on solar power!!!) which in general has been really successful. Some of the workers have particular areas they would like to develop individually – Rogers orchid project (more of that below), Reina wants to do more training to start teaching some Spanish and a couple of the guys want to learn English……anyone out there with a TEFL qualification and a couple of months to spare.
- The pig and chicken projects are at the pig and chicken stage – at the moment we are building up our ability to produce (we have five delightful piglets – three of whom are female this time!! Who we will use for breeding. Don’t ask about the males….). In a while we can start identifying more families who want and can feed chickens and/or pigs, and we are also thinking of putting in an education component to help people realize you can raise pigs without buying expensive commercial pig food (which mostly consists of crushed up bones of dead animals and we all know the result of that little technique…)
- A big success story already is the conservation project. We employ Franklin full time to teach a course on conservation which he designed – what I really liked about it is the combination of discussion of issues at global level together with what going on in San Juan de la Concepcion in your own back yard – issues around rubbish, water cleanliness, importance of trees etc and things the kids can do themselves to improve their own situation. We also acknowledge big time that the “First World” has NOT got it right (something many aid and developing agencies kind of forget to include!!!) and that, for example, my part of Britain is now practically devoid of tree cover…. Franklin includes lots of practical stuff in the course which frequently means groups of young people at the Mariposa, checking out the solar panels (wish we could afford to install some on the houses here), giggling at the worm project (a particular favorite of the mayor of La Concha!!) and being fascinated by the idea of freeing parakeets from their cages. They have also been very involved in lots of tree planting around the public spaces in the community.
- Which brings us neatly to re-aforestation. We have now pretty much planted all we can on our land, there is not much space for anymore and as we are successfully growing a number of vegetables (okra, French beans, tomatoes, have been brilliant) and have a small field of corn, we need to keep some areas relatively tree-free! So we have been supporting the Town hall efforts to plant trees in public spaces and in sending groups of young people out from Franklins class (several of whom are now very keen and committed) to other schools to hold “charlas” (small group discussions) on environmental issues. We have also identified two very poor areas, Panama and Nispera, where we are now going to concentrate on planting more trees. A neighbour has just offered me 300 young trees of various sorts, it has been fascinating learning all about the different varieties and what grows well where, to buy for 10 cordobas each. Cheap at half the price!!
- Working with the infant/primary school in Panama has been amazing. We have a volunteer (a teacher from Plymouth) who has been spending her mornings doing great work alongside Hector, helping children learn to draw and paint – they absolutely adore her! Two previous visitors gave me donations to re-build the toilets which were latrines (very deep holes and perfectly sanitary) but which did not have any walls!!! So not surprisingly were little used by the children. So there we were, all ready to hand out the dosh, when along came the Damas Diplomaticas – they wanted to build an eating space – the New Sandinista government is doing its best to lower levels of hunger and one of things they are doing is to send out sacks of rice and beans to the schools so the kids at least get a midday meal. The Mums then take it in turns to cook the food and hand it out. At the same time the Diplomatic Ladies decided to build toilets. The only problem is, that in spite of all advice, they insist on putting in flushing toilets – very photogenic for the press but next to useless in the dry season (water only comes to Panama once a fortnight and that is in the wet season!!!). Furthermore, the school is built on a hill and the land is slipping away immediately behind the classrooms – two more severe rainfalls and the whole lot will slip away!!! The DDs apparently didn’t want to contribute to this as its not sexy enough…..so we are using the toilet money!!! But I think that, come the dry season, we will find ourselves having to dig more latrines as the flush ones become blocked up and unusable…..so we will end up doing the toilets after all… This school and loads of others just like it need practically everything, Hector teaches with no resources other than a blackboard, chalk and himself, I think we will stay involved for quite a while yet.
- In relation to the animal rescue project, I would have to say we are now pretty fullup and no matter how sad and skinny the dogs at the beach are, I cannot take on more than our 5 dogs, 6 cats, 5 horses (2 pregnant) etc. Our group of parakeets is close to being released, we rebuilt their aviary on the advice of the zoo director and I am hopeful she will pass on to us another group of confiscated birds to rehabilitate. But we cannot take more dogs because I think we would have a hard time now integrating any more with our well established group – both Condor and Holly have moved in full time which is wonderful. Holly sleeps all the time, recovering from her ten puppies. The others do good guard dog activity, if a little noisy at times. We are still doing wildlifey things, building up the number of wild things on the land – the group of butterflies we have here now is fantastic and there are varieties no-one has seen before including a small brilliant metallic blue one. We also now have millions of frogs, baby iguanas, squirrels…..and lots of nesting birds including the guardabarranco, the national bird. And a beautiful family of wrens who nested in a piece of bamboo.
- Last but not least – the literacy project. I have employed Yvonne part time to help especially with this one as it is getting too big for me to manage…she is working with Danilo,- lots of meetings with the Town Hall and the Education Ministry, lots of forms to fill out which I could happily live without I have to say. But Yvonne is doing a great job and yesterday and today she and Danilo were compiling the lists of the students they have recruited. Hopefully we will have two groups starting up before too long. The method is the Cuban one which uses a video as the basic teaching tool – it is good as far as it goes but gets problematic if someone gets left behind for whatever reason. That, hopefully, is where we come in because thanks to a donation from the Bath marathon we can employ teachers as well as buy the necessary materials. Thomas, the Cuban advisor, was a little suspicious of us at first but he seems to be relaxing and thinking we could be a help rather than a hindrance!!
- That wasn’t the last, I forget about Rogers orchid project, also set up with the help of a donation. The idea is that he will start at some point to sell some of the amazing orchids he has planted and make a bit of extra income, both for himself and the Mariposa. We have just hung some up in the hotel entrance and they look terrific, really impressive.
OK, I think that is about it for now!
We have plenty of ideas for future projects, especially trying to some work with teenagers with learning disabilities……..
