You Have Made a Lasting Impact on the Lives of Troubled Youth [with video]

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Fatima Cruz stands in front of her humble stone house with her two children, Harry and Alicia who participated in youth programs through CEPAD and are now more outgoing as they learned new social skills through playing soccer.

With your support CEPAD began working in El Guineo in 2009 and youth volunteers from the community identified many needs for children ages 7-12. They determined that soccer was one of the best ways to reach out and help these children overcome their challenges.

Fatima is excited to see the changes that CEPAD’s program made in her children. “They used to be shy, they didn’t like talking with other children, but now they are more outgoing with other kids and are doing better in school.”

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You Made Miracles Happen in Santa Maria!

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It’s hard to remember quite how tough things were in Santa Maria five years ago, said community leader Antonio Hernandez. They lacked electricity and water, and the condition of the road made it impossible for vehicles like ambulances to enter.

Life is different now. When CEPAD arrived in Santa Maria, they formed a Community Development Committee to seek support from the local government and NGOs. After CEPAD’s training, they began work to make their infrastructure goals a reality.

“We had been trying for three years to get electricity here and couldn’t get answers from the government,” Antonio said. “One year after CEPAD came, the project was underway. In 2013, we turned the lights on for the first time.”

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Santa Fe Dreams Big with CEPAD

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In Santa Fe, Nueva Guinea, community leaders wiggle with anticipation. They are just beginning a five-year process of accompaniment with CEPAD. They’re not quite sure what to expect, but they are ready to push the opportunity to its fullest. They are now organized into the four different areas: Strengthening Families, Sustainable Community Organization, Food Security and Environmental Protection, and Pastoral Leadership Training. We talked with Pastor Alexander David Valdivia Masiz, the vice president of the Community Development Committee in Santa Fe, and with Dorys Gonsález, who will be learning to grow a small vegetable garden and learn crafts and skills so she can earn money to support her family.

CEPAD: What are some of the biggest challenges you face in Santa Fe?

Alexander: We need to learn how to help the young people involved in drugs and gangs. We hope this will happen both in the youth leadership program and through pastoral training, because there have been a lot of problems.
Dorys: I agree. We also need to expand our education and help youth get involved in better activities.
Alexander: The other biggest challenge is, simply, poverty. There are months of the year when no one has enough to eat. It is so important for both men and women to learn how to grow better crops and also learn how to make some money in other ways. Read more

Leon High School Celebrates 36 Graduates

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Join us at CEPAD in celebrating 36 graduating seniors from the Instituto Marcos A. Mendieta in Leon, Nicaragua! We are so proud of these young people who worked hard to complete their high school degrees.

CEPAD founded the institute 25 years ago in response to a crisis of education after Nicaragua’s brutal civil war. Many adults had never been able to finish school, so CEPAD created distance learning opportunities so people could earn their degrees after the war. Today, the institute’s graduates are a mix of distance learning students and those who attend the school daily. The school is entirely self-funded but remains closely connected to CEPAD’s programs.

“We feel proud to be presenting 36 new graduates to the community of Leon,” said María Cristina Espinoza, the institute’s principal, during the graduation ceremony. “We hope you will join us in the honor of helping them continue in their development and education.”

Most of the students are continuing to pursue a technical or university degree. This week, they celebrated during a ceremony with music, performance and the presentation of their high school diplomas.

“We are so thankful to our parents, teachers and to God for helping us reach this point,” said Tercero Alfonso, one of the graduates. “I wish blessing for all of us so we may become great men and women.”

Strategic Planning Workshop Transforms Dreams Into Skills

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Unity. Strength. Forward Movement. Love as a family. Love for God. Deep thankfulness. Hope for the future.

These are a few of the things CEPAD community leaders said they felt after a two-day workshop where they learned how to solidify their visions for their cooperatives and associations and spring forward into success.

Inocente Ramos Hernandez, the president of the community association for seven communities in the Matagalpa region, expressed his sincere thanks to the U.S. donors and friends who made the workshop possible with their donations to a special campaign in September. “Thank you so much for this gesture, we are so energized after these two days,” he said.

“It was an excellent opportunity to develop a plan we can implement,” Inocente said. “Our association focuses on training our associates in farming techniques and commercializing our products, and now we understand all the elements that will go into making that happen.”

Inocente believes ASOCAD will transform the seven communities in Matagalpa where CEPAD began work in 2009.

Inocente says ASOCAD will transform seven communities in Matagalpa where CEPAD began work in 2009.

With guidance from CEPAD staff, participants outlined goals, set mission statements and developed action plans that will allow their six community organizations to bring better financial opportunities to all 43 communities where CEPAD worked from 2009-2014. Read more

Communities Celebrate Five Fruitful Years

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At a celebration in San Francisco Libre, community leaders gave a gift of squash, corn, plantains and limes to CEPAD staff. It was a beautiful gesture from families who are facing a difficult crop year because of record drought. And the gift held even more meaning because they learned from CEPAD how to grow a diversity of produce that didn’t exist in their communities before 2009.

“CEPAD has taught us to fish for five years, and today they are entrusting us with the fishing rod,” said Jose Reyes, a community leader from San Benito Uno.

He and others said they are ready and excited to take what they learned from CEPAD and continue to strengthen their crops, families, and businesses. In their testimonies, community members shared the ways CEPAD had changed their lives. After five years, farmers were producing a greater diversity of foods and higher quality products. Danilo Espinoza, who worked with the youth leadership and family development program, said CEPAD gave him a new lease on life after an illness badly damaged his eyesight.

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With New Skills, El Ingenio Leaders Move Forward

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Polvazal, and all the new communities in the Jinotepe region, have the potential to achieve a lot with CEPAD, said Cesar Chavez, a community leader from El Ingenio, one of the communities finishing its time five years with CEPAD.

“If they are serious, responsible and grateful they will see amazing results like we did,” Cesar said. After five years with CEPAD, the community has learned new agricultural techniques, created new opportunities for youth and women and developed an organizational structure that will carry the community into the future, Cesar said.

The community development committee there has already made progress — they successfully petitioned the local government to improve the road that goes through the community to improve access to schools and jobs. The road has improved access to goods and means it will be easier to implement future infrastructure projects.

“We haven’t achieved everything we want, and we have learned a lot that will help us continue into the future,” he said. “The next project we want to work on is getting potable water, because the one well we have only serves a few houses.”

Cesar says his two-year-old daughter Ixa will have many more opportunities.

“The biggest feeling I have is thanks,” Cesar said. “CEPAD believed in us, and that’s been just the beginning of so many changes. Ixa will never know the kind of poverty I did.”

In Polvazal, Community Leaders Tackle Challenges

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Polvazal’s 42 families see every day as a new chance. They work the land, travel to the river for water and make sure their children attend school. The next five years CEPAD will accompany this community to help them harness their full potential.

Sonia Maria Esteban Gonzalez, a 33-year-old community leader and mother of three teenagers, uses tires as pots for different vegetables — but they are mostly empty this year. She says the community’s biggest challenges are adjusting their agricultural practices to account for increasingly dry years and developing a community organizational structure that will allow them to pursue big goals, like getting a better well in the community. Despite Polvazal’s many challenges, Sonia and others are optimistic.

“I have seen what has happened in the communities nearby, they have learned so much and life has improved a lot,” Sonia said. “I know that we can see similar progress here because people are ready to work hard and take it seriously.”

For the last five-year cycle ending this year, Polvazal was a control community in the Jinotepe region. CEPAD visited with leaders there regularly but didn’t implement programs directly. This made it possible to see the changes in communities working with CEPAD compared to those that weren’t. After the experience, Sonia and other community leaders are ready to get started and plan to look to leaders in nearby communities for advice.

“We appreciate CEPAD isn’t here just to help one person or bring supplies, it’s about working for the whole community and region,” Sonia said. “The communities in this area are friends and help each other.”

The community had no May harvest this year because of drought, and many people had weak September harvests because of continued water shortage and lack of seeds. The community is also concerned about deforestation, which CEPAD will help address by providing seedlings and training. CEPAD couldn’t be coming at a better time, Sonia said.

We need your help to carry out a critical training workshop, please give today!

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As CEPAD finishes its work in 43 rural communities around Nicaragua, we need your help today to carry out additional training for 6 rural community organizations on Developing a Strategic Plan. 36 community leaders, six from each community association or cooperative, will attend the workshop and then take what they learn back to their communities to help them plan for the needs of their community for years to come.

Knowing how to develop strategic plans will allow the communities to better prioritize their needs and advocate for their citizens. Your donations will provide transport, lodging, materials and staff support for the training. With your gift we can make this critical training happen in the next few months. Once we move into 2015 we will be moving into new communities so your contribution today is vital! We’ve created a crowdfunding campaign on Razoo for this project to make it easy to give and share the effort with your friends, family and fellow CEPAD fans.

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