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- Education - Health |
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* Health Insurance * Aguas Negras * Doctor |
| - Miscellaneous |
| Don Wilfredo |
The education program, as previously mentioned, is a program that runs for 2.5 hours in the morning and another 2.5 hours in the afternoon, tutoring kids so they can advance in their studies. We currently pay two teachers, and have about 6 volunteer teachers. About 50-60 kids are involved in the program which costs them one cordoba per week ($0.12). They come in either the afternoon or the morning, and go to the regular school the other half of the day.
The year is winding down and the kids now mostly know whether they will pass or not - the final exams in the schools are at the end of this month/beginning of December. We just have a few diehard kids left in our program who are trying to pull up their marks before the finals.
Recently, a friend in Costa Rica (Roger), sent us new Frisbees to play with the kids and 2 new games: Scrabble in Spanish (Alegrama) and a math scrabble game. The kids in my class (grades 3-5) love it and they learn spelling/math at the same time. We play twice a week. The Frisbees also see a lot of use, of the new ones, one is already broken and another cracked. It's just that they are so well used.
The insurance had a bit of a hiccup last month, as the Cuban doctor got a new job, so we were without a doctor for the barrio for 2 weeks. As a result, very few participants paid their quota last month. Hopefully things will return to normal now that a new Cuban doctor will be coming twice per week. So far 36 visits have been paid for by the insurance program.
Not much has happened in the last month. Because of the elections, INAA (the Nicaraguan water works) didn't arrive to collect the outstanding water bills in the community. A new date has not yet been set for their arrival. INAA is saying to the community that the project cannot move forward until the people in the Barrio pay their water bills.
Another of our projects was paying a Cuban doctor who comes to the barrio three half days per week. Dr. Marcos has now left the barrio and a new woman will be coming. It appears that we will continue supporting this project financially but we have not yet discussed it in detail. The new doctor will continue to offer services under the medical insurance program in addition to the regular services she provides.
Our other projects here include:
Our house that we are staying in is a project, in the sense that we pay $100 US in rent each month for the house and the money goes directly to the community and the various projects that the nuns are coordinating here, such as the food program for the children.
Gretchen Ferguson is now here, doing research for her thesis on micro-credit at UBC. She is helping out in the barrio, also, by taking a few of my English classes, freeing up more of my time.
We have 2 computer contracts at this time. One is with Cantera, a popular education NGO here in Managua. We provide them with computer support/systems analysis in exchange for courses for people in the barrio. In August, 4 of our teachers went on another course at Cantera, to improve their teaching techniques. Our other contract is with Oxfam Canada, for whom we provide some computer support. We have received some advice from them for writing up our funding proposals.
Don Wilfredo is one of the community leaders in the Barrio, in charge of the community's Alfabetizacion (Literacy) program and our medical insurance program. Every weeknight in the community centre, he teaches literacy classes from 6-8 p.m. as well as organising the program in general. He used to work every day as well, but unfortunately he recently lost his job. To support their family, he and his wife are now selling soup, tortillas and beans.
His duties as volunteer coordinator of Alfabetizacion include teaching, meeting and recruiting other volunteer teachers, recruiting students and organising with the government contacts.
He also volunteers as the coordinator of our medical insurance program, collecting money from the people, organising meetings, keeping the accounting up-to-date. In exchange, he receives computer classes from me, usually once a week, and English classes from Gretchen.
He is one of the few men involved in the community programs and is also one of the few men who acts responsibly toward his family.
We took a trip to Guatemala and El Salvador. We hit all the big Mayan ruins there Tikal in Guatemala and Joya de Ceren, Tazumal and San Andreas in El Salvador. We also went to Antigua in Guatemala and San Salvador. We flew to Tikal from Guatemala City - it is the BIG Mayan ruin, with the biggest indigenous made structures in this hemisphere - 68 meters high is the biggest, and they did it without even any beasts of burden. It was a big adventure getting to Tikal - we were in Antigua and booked a minibus ride $5 to the airport at 4 a.m., but it didn't show, threatening to make us miss our flight. Fortunately, another minibus stopped and offered us a ride for $7 each. We spent way too much money on this trip, but, it was worth it.
Things in the community are going OK, the end of the year is coming and all the projects are kind of wrapping up, so we're evaluating and trying to find new better ways of running things. I'll probably talk about the evaluations next month or in January.
Well the national elections have just officially wrapped up this past Friday, 20 days after the elections. Some of you may have heard bits and pieces through our woefully inadequate North American media industry, but I'll fill you in here on how we saw it.
The elections took place on Sunday, October 20th, just over three weeks ago. There were 24 candidates for president, although from the beginning it was apparent that only 2 candidates and parties were at all viable - The Sandinistas (FSLN) and the Alianza Liberal (closely associated with the former dictator, Somoza) fielding their presidential candidates, Daniel Ortega and Arnoldo Aleman. The two parties are opposite poles, left and right. Socialism versus Fascism. It is said that there is no middle ground between them. They agree on nothing, and some fear it could lead to violence, whoever wins.
The campaigns were nothing pretty, especially with all the mudslinging that went on, probably worse than the mudslinging in Canada and the States. There were many television ads showing atrocities attributed the FSLN and also to the Guardia of Somoza. This polarized the vote and the country even more, forcing the people to choose between "the dark night" of the FSLN and "El Somocismo". The campaign focused very little on the actual policy issues of the two groups, which was very sad. The closing of the campaigns were like nothing we see in Canada, with several hundreds of thousands of people gathering the centre of Managua for the two main parties (Aleman in the a.m. and FSLN in the p.m.).
The election day here in the barrio as in most of Nicaragua, was very peaceful. The outstanding characteristics included long line-ups from 2 a.m. until 9 p.m. Most people waited patiently for up to 5 hours to vote, because only one person could go into the polling station at a time.
Almost all the polls before the elections indicated that Aleman was going to win, so it was no surprise on the 21st at about 4 a.m., when the results started to come in, in favour of Aleman. (Woke us up too! The neighbours playing the results on the radio at the highest volume) The results were about 49.5% Aleman, 38.4% Ortega.
Then the next day, the real excitement started. Daniel Ortega complained about "irregularities" in the election process. Cries of "fraud" went up all around the country. There was claims of burnt, lost and miscounted ballots; missing signatures on the counts; and misrepresentations on the telegrams sent to Managua. The fraud that occurred was in favour of the Liberals, even though all indications were that they were going to win anyway. Who knows what the Liberals were worried about if they did commit the fraud. So we've had three weeks of uncertainty, waiting for the results to be recounted. Now the results show Arnoldo with 51% and Daniel with 37%.
So where does that leave us now? The FSLN has almost as many seats as the Liberals in the national assembly, so it is hard to see how the government will function. Probably this will lead to more confrontations and little good will come of it for the poor of Nicaragua.
So here, we'll stay, fighting for the poor in our own small way.
(Thanks to Gretchen Ferguson, Roberto Zub and the local newspapers for the information)
Skills needed for the education, computer, health or other programs:
Civil Engineers, Computer Analysts, Teachers (Math, Spanish,...) - one year commitment, and the nuns are also looking for a driver for the truck - to drive the nuns around 6 days a week for 6 months. It's a pickup truck, so a regular license will do.
Please email for details.
Naturally, we still need money for the projects. Any help is appreciated.