Welcome
Somos Ohana Nicaragua is an all volunteer organization called to cooperate with groups or individuals seeking to improve their lives, especially those who are marginalized by socio-economic, political, cultural, or enviornmental conditions.
What We Do
The community of Villanueva, in the northwestern part of Nicaragua, receives us each year as partners. We work with the local teachers, nurses, doctors, farmers, parents of children with special needs, to address a few of the many urgent needs they face each day.
Donations delivered to Casa Materna
During the visit of the Somos Ohana Nicaragua team to Villnueva in July, 2024, many donations of home-crafted baby receiving blankets, wooden toys and personal care items were delivered to the center where women near their time to give birth can stay free and have good medical [...]
Teachers and parents in 5 primary schools enable nutritional supplement
These students at Enmanuel Mongalo Primary school in El Platanal hold up the fruit supplement we supply weekly to pre-school through 3rd grade for 5 primary schools in the Municipality of Villanueva. Our wonderful retired RN Doña Tala handles the money, distributed to teachers who buy the [...]
Mata de Caña school gets new fence
As the final step in our renovation of the rural Mata de Caña primary school, Somos Ohana Nicaragua is providing requested fencing to protect the school and the vegetables that the students are growing there from wandering animals. We have completed the new cafeteria roof, a working [...]
Great progress on school renovation!
The primary school at Mata de Caña is getting outside electrification, a partial new roof, screens, cleaned and painted window hardware and walls, a sidewalk, and working boys and girls latrines. The new, larger water tank was supplied by the government when our engineer began working on [...]
Sewing classes continue after summer workshop
Women who were in Adrianna Flavin's sewing classes during Somos Ohana Nicaragua's trip to Villanueva in July are continuing to hone their skills on the donated sewing machines which are now at the Instituto A.C.Sandino in La Carreta. They learned well how to make their own patterns [...]
Sewing machines and lessons focus of Summer 2022 trip
During this summer's visit of the Somos Ohana volunteers to Villanueva, Adrianna Flavin taught sewing skills for 2 weeks to 20 women, using 3 donated electric machines that the team took down this year. Other projects completed were a day camp for 2 groups of special needs [...]
Team Returns After Summer Trip
The Somos Ohana Volunteers returned in August from their 2022 visit to Villanueva. One of their projects is the annual luncheon for cancer patients. These folks receive a grant to cover transportation from Villanueva to various urban cancer treatment centers.
Festivities in Rincón de García
High school director Álvaro Francisco Mondragón Maldonado and a number of the students at Instituto Jose Dolores Estrada in Rincón de García celebrate cutting the ribbon and inaugurating their new perimeter fence which the school community had requested. Workers contracted by Somos Ohana Nicaragua recently completed the [...]
School new fence, veterinarian student scholarship
Our latest project at the Instituto José Dolores Estrada secondary school in Rincón de García is a strong perimeter fence to protect the vegetable gardens the students will be growing and tending. It is coming along well, and the rainy season has begun a little early. We [...]
Edith Don – In Memoriam
Somos Ohana Nicaragua will remember with great love and appreciation our board member Edith Don who passed on December 21, 2024, at the age of 85. She was a native of Bluefields, Nicaragua, who emigrated to the United States with her parents at a young age. Although Edith grew up in the US, she always remained interested in the people of Nicaragua and began working as a volunteer with our organization in 1999, going there with the team during reconstruction in Villanueva after Hurricane Mitch. Edith joined the board of Somos Ohana Nicaragua in the early 2000’s and continued to help with many projects, especially garnering medical supplies and other necessities to send to the villages we work with. A former teacher and always a community leader, advocate and activist, hers was a life dedicated to education and community service, and she led and taught her own four children to care about others less fortunate and to work to help improve lives. As one of her legacies, her daughter Katherine has joined the Somos Ohana board to take her mother’s place and continue to help the people of Nicaragua.
Charlotte “Maura” Flavin – In Memoriam
It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our wonderful friend and our organization’s leader Charlotte “Maura” Flavin on June 21, 2023. She and her husband Daniel Flavin, co-founders of Somos Ohana Nicaragua, started going to Nicaragua in 1998 after the devastating Hurricane Mitch. They worked in cooperation and compassionate solidarity over 23 years with people there who were inspired to help their communities but lacked access to resources. When Maura wasn’t in Nicaragua, she was on the phone talking with the scholarship students, the teachers who recommended them, the nurse who handled transportation help to the cancer patients for getting to their urban treatment centers, the vendors of bicycles for kids with long walking commutes to their regional high school, 2 of which the organization built, the engineer who added the auditorium, new classrooms and fencing to the schools, the doctor who contacted the families with special-needs children for the summer camp, the teachers who coordinated help for school nutrition, and more, much more. Maura was a can-do person, all the way.
The board of Somos Ohana Nicaragua, in concert with Maura’s family and our wonderful volunteers in Nicaragua and Hawaii, will do our best to keep the organization going, always inspired by Maura Flavin’s shining example of a confident, selfless and compassionate leader.
Daniel Flavin – In Memoriam
Somos Ohana Nicaragua co-founder Daniel Flavin passed from this life Aug. 6, 2021, at the age of 89. Dan spent his whole life working in compassionate solidarity with people – those in faith communities, those with material as well as spiritual needs and those who have the inspiration to help their communities but need access to resources of all kinds. Along with his wife and co-founder, Charlotte (“Maura”) Flavin, they worked in solidarity with communities in Peru, New York City, Maui Hawaii, and Nicaragua.
After the disastrous Hurricane Mitch struck Nicaragua in Oct, 1998, Dan and Charlotte began going to that country to help rebuild houses and provide other solidarity. Soon after, they formed a non-profit registered in Hawaii. Somos Ohana Nicaragua was recognized by the IRS in 2006. Since their first trip to the Municipality of Villanueva, Departamento de Chinandega, they have traveled with volunteers from Hawaii and other states from 4-6 weeks yearly through 2019, assisting the teachers, students, health care workers, and children with special needs.
Somos Ohana Nicaragua’s Board of Directors, and our network of friends and supporters miss him greatly.
