One of our partners, Episcopal Relief & Development, shares how CEPAD works with local farmers to improve agricultural practices. We are very thankful for their partnership! Check out their article and video here.
We wanted to take a moment to thank every single individual and community of faith that has donated to CEPAD during this difficult time.
All of our staff are still working, despite the civil unrest in the country, this is all thanks to you.
Many organizations and businesses have not been able to survive and many thousands of people have lost their jobs.
Thanks to you all of our staff are still employed and are helping to ensure that the beneficiaries of the programs are still receiving important training that is helping them to confront the challenges they are facing. We wanted to highlight the faith communities that have donated during this crisis.
Giddings-Lovejoy Presbytery
Delmar Reformed Church
Davidson College Presbyterian
First Presbyterian of Ann Arbor
Presbytery of Lake Michigan
Brentwood Presbyterian
Benson Presbyterian Church Foundation
First Congregational UCC
First Christian Church, KY
Kentucky Partners
First Presbyterian St. Louis
Again, thank you to EVERYONE who has made our continued work possible.
Isidria is a mother of four children who lives about an hour outside of Managua. Thanks to your support she is now better supporting her family through craft training and a family garden she has planted. Despite higher food prices because of the crisis she has hope and is able to feed her family with the sale of crafts and the produce from their garden.
Pedro gives you credit for your support of his family. Despite the current crisis his family is harvesting food and have been able to stay in their home. He says without your support for training he would have had to sell his land and they would have had to leave Nicaragua. Thank you for your contributions that are sustaining rural villages in Nicaragua.
If you are looking for ways to be in solidarity with Nicaragua during the current civil unrest we have come up with some ways to do so. If you would like more information or have questions please write to emily@cepadusa.org.
We are excited to share some of the architectural renderings for this project. The image above is of the program office that will house all program staff and Radio CEPAD.
Your support of family gardens is helping women produce healthy food for their families. Some women have also used their knowledge to create gardens in schools! Carmen Brizuela is a teacher at a school in Aguas Calientes and she decided to help the students start a garden at school so they can be guaranteed better nutrition.
Eusebia is a mother of 3 children. She lives in the town of La Joya, Nicaragua, which is located approximately 16 miles from the nearest town of Teustepe.
Eusebia has participated in CEPAD’s family gardens program where she has learned to grow a small garden next to her home.
Bono and his wife, Ali, (to his left), at the Greenbelt Arts Festival in 1987 listening to Gustavo Parajón speak.
We are so pleased and honored to share some news of amazing support that we have recently received from the band U2.
CEPAD’s founder, Gustavo Parajón, was a very humble man who quietly developed friendships with many influential people around the world. He almost never shared about these relationships outside of his own family.
Dr. Parajón became connected with the band U2 in the late 1980’s after meeting lead singer Bono at a concert by Bruce Cockburn at the Greenbelt Arts Festival in England. Bono and his wife Ali had visited Nicaragua and Central America in the mid-1980’s and some of the songs on their album, The Joshua Tree, were inspired by that visit.
During 2017, U2 has been on a 30th anniversary tour of the Joshua Tree album and chose CEPAD to be listed in the tour program as an organization the band supports. This is truly a great honor for CEPAD and we are so grateful to be recognized in this way.