Jinotega, Nicargua - Central America

Some 1,500 Nicaraguan women took Esperança classes about maternal and child health in 2008!

In 2008, Esperança helped build 45 latrines in Nicaragua – improving the quality of water and life for hundreds!

Esperança built 9 houses in Nicaragua in 2008, benefiting 58 people. Each house cost less than $1,000 to build and greatly improves the recipients’ quality of life!

Please Help us Reach our Goals for 2009!

• Construct 248 Latrines for families involved in the volunteer network
• Construct 1 well for a small community of 48 villagers
• Provide dental consultations, extractions, and repairs to 629 adults and children
• Educate 3,300 family members on important health education topics such as prenatal care, maternal breastfeeding, water-borne illnesses, and malaria

Esperança’s has been working in Nicaragua along with our partner Asociación de Voluntarios para el Desarrollo Comunitario/Association of Volunteers for Community Development since 2001 in the northern city of Jinotega. In this Central American nation, an area ravaged by civil war some 20 years ago, we work to improve the health of Nicaraguan families through various public health programs including: water filters, community gardens, improved housing, latrines, wells, dental midwife training, micro-loans and health education.

Esperança’s work is accomplished through a community network made up of hundreds of volunteers. Volunteers from surrounding villages provide health education and training to their own communities. Members of the volunteer network identify participating families in need of improved housing, latrines, or dental services, and then the network collectively works together to make these changes.

Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Jinotega, being a mountainous region, is isolated from resources. The land is lush and tropical and farmers have grown crops for years in the fertile fields. However, with a limited infrastructure, increasing populations and stagnant land available, families struggle to provide for their family’s nutrition and health care needs. Some 46% of these children suffer from malnutrition which accounts for 54% of all deaths of children under the age of 5. Agriculture, the most common form of employment in Jinotega, is the lowest paying causing families to live in extreme poverty. And with development, the water sources in the region have also become increasingly polluted with silt, sewage and bacteria.

Esperança’s programs significantly improve the quality of life for families living in this rural area by:

• Training more than 75 midwives, who deliver an average of two babies per week, and help decrease the high levels of maternal mortality in the most remote communities
• Providing a clean water source, through wells or water filters, and preventing deadly infectious diseases.
• Supporting housing renovations projects using local materials that build more stable homes in lieu of traditional housing that can easily be destroyed in bad weather, and providing a skill that can be used for future employment opportunities
• Providing basic dental services to adults and children that would not be affordable otherwise