Background Information

By Robert Terenzi, Jr.

As our Toyota 4-Runner climbed nervously over four-foot pot-holes on the dirt road out to the school, Susie began to explain the history of the El Chagüe project to me. It was hard to get a cohesive and complete picture though, because every few minutes we would stop and chat with the people who lived along the isolated road. It seemed as if everyone we talked to not only had something to say about the school, but was involved with its construction in someway or another. Since beginning my work at El Chagüe I have seen primary school students lugging buckets of water to workers and elderly men on their hands and knees helping finalize the flooring. On a typical sun-drenched day anywhere from ten to twenty community members show up to lend a helping hand, even putting in a full day’s work on Saturday.

By Gabriel B. Brunnich, Advocacy Intern

Educational Landscape

Nestled in among the low-lying hills around Leon, surrounded by tamarind and jícaro trees, rolling fields of corn, sesame and wheat, and set against a majestic backdrop of towering volcanoes, lies the small rural community of El Chague. A community of just under 800 residents, El Chague is a village that despite its high level of organization and strong partnerships with a number of civil society organizations such as PMGL, is also one that is facing significant hurdles as it struggles to meet the needs of its residents. A community with neither electricity nor running water, El Chague also lacks a health center and secondary school. Claiming one preschool (housed in a local resident’s open air living room) and one three-room primary school, El Chague offers little possibility of pursuing an education after the 6th grade.

Part 1: Teachers Struggle Through Four Month Delay in Pay

In a classroom filled with little chairs, 4 knee-high tables, a stack of wooden blocks, handmade name tags and brightly colored vowels and numbers, Elsa Maria Caballero, preschool teacher at La Concepción school in the rural community of Chacraseca, keeps watch over the preschoolers busily at work in her classroom. Sunlight pours in through the open door and filters through the star-shaped motifs of the cinder block walls as some of the children busily practice writing the number 1 while others look quietly on, and while still others amuse themselves by noisily building a precarious tower out of blocks. A typical day at preschool. Aside from the blocks and a small box of crayons however, the visible lack of storybooks, toys, pencils, paper and art supplies leaves the small 8' x 10' room feeling empty.

Managua – On October 12, the Dia de la Raza, a day celebrating the multicultural heritage of the people of Latin America, thousands of people converged on the capital to march in protest against the decision to privatize the Commercial Management services of Enacal (Empresa Nacional de Acueductos y Alcantarillados, National Firm of Aqueducts and Sewers), set to take place this coming January. Those present, representing numerous NGOs, religious groups, syndicates, unions, universities, indigenous groups and consumer groups marched under the baking afternoon sun from the central offices of Enacal to the National Assembly, where cries of “Water is life! And life cannot be privatized!” filled the air.

As North Americans we can't avoid the consumer focus of our economy nor our status as benefactors of this system. Less obvious but quite as important, is our power as individual consumers. What we purchase can, with a little effort and attention, begin to affect the lives of workers around the world who supply us with our needs and wants. The point is already proven in the case of coffee, thanks to the people who have succeeded in making "Fair Trade Certified" coffee a major force for good among the world's coffee growers and processors.

How low does one have to fall to “hit bottom?” How long does it take before someone makes an intervention? Many an alcoholic gets a faster response, it seems, than coffee growers and workers in Nicaragua. Children had died, families had lived for months at near starvation levels and acres of delicate coffee plants had suffered serious neglect. Additionally, over 600 farms in northern Nicaragua were days from complete financial failure. Finally, in September, the Nicaraguan government agreed to a program of aid to rescue what was, until recently, the country’s largest source of income.