CEPAD Volunteers Learn Value of Community

This week CEPAD said goodbye to three fantastic volunteers who shared their talents with CEPAD this year.Wytske Postma and Julia van Riezen, recent Dutch university graduates who studied tourism, worked for six months in the Carazo region teaching English to students in two communities. They said they came to Nicaragua looking for a new adventure and left with a deeper appreciation for the challenges of poverty and the importance of education.

“The most important thing we did is get the kids interested in learning another language,” Wytske said. After only six months, “they don’t speak English in this moment, but at least some of them are very motivated to learn more.”

Filipe Franca, a senior at Florida State University, spent his summer break helping with CEPAD delegations as a translator. Fil studies political science and international relations and said working with CEPAD provided an internship experience that showed him “what organizations do in real life. Before I’d only seen it in textbooks.”

Despite limited material resources, CEPAD makes a huge impact on the families in the rural communities where it works, Fil said.

“I saw CEPAD helping people become leaders and training them so they could go out and get what they need for their communities,” he said. “It’s not just people going out and giving them things, it’s them going out and getting things for themselves.”

In Nicaragua, people focus less on material possessions and more on family, education and community. Julia and Wytske said North Americans and Europeans could learn from the values of Nicaraguans.

“Where we come from, you just want more and more and more, you’re not satisfied,” Julia said. “If you live here for a while, you learn to be happy with the things you have.”

We’ll miss you, Wytske, Julia and Fil! Best of luck in the future.If you or someone you know is interested in volunteering with CEPAD, check out the Visit Nicaragua page to learn more.