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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 care by nurses and midwives.

The Nicaraguan government’s Ministry of Health supports these centers throughout the country. Because of recent decades of much better maternal and newborn health care, the incidence of children with handicaps has significantly decreased.

Shown in the photo are (end left) Directing RN Antonia, 3 women in residence waiting to give birth there, (end right) Center’s head nurse Ilda, and (back row) the Somos Ohana team.

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 fruit weekly, who then enlist the help of parents. The fruit varies, and if it’s to be served in bowls, parents help prepare it at the schools.

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 latrine, a new “pila” or outdoor basin for hand washing, interior and exterior painting, window cleaning and screening, and a sidewalk. We are working on getting moveable whiteboards constructed for the classrooms.

Before our organization got involved, the school had had no regular, serious maintenance since being constructed by a US ngo over 20 years ago.

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 the improvements that our organization is providing, with your support!

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 and use the machines, and their sewing sessions are ongoing, now at the secondary school.

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 youth (children and older teens), the purchase of new bikes for the incoming secondary students with long walking commutes to the 2 rural high school we have built, meetings with our college scholarship students, a visit and donations to the Casa Materna maternity clinic, construction of a table for a school and visits to families with special needs children living in remote areas.

The community held a special commemorative mass in memory of Daniel Flavin who worked in solidarity with the people of Nicaragua for over 20 years.

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.

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 fence and portal that will control access to the school grounds, permitting the students to grow a garden of vegetables that can be enjoyed by the families without fear of marauders, both 2- and 4-legged.

Some students performed folkloric dancing in a classroom, seen in front of a Sandinista flag. The government fully supports the school and teachers’ salaries, but Somos Ohana Nicaragua helps with special projects that wouldn’t be affordable otherwise.

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 hope for a good growing season for the farmers and the school, once the construction is complete.

We have just added a 9th scholarship student who is studying Veterinarian Science at the the UNAN in Somotillo, the nearest university branch to the muncipality of Villanueva.

Students line up on the first day of the new school year to enter the secondary school at Rincon de Garcia, the Instituto Jose Dolores Estrada, greeted by the director of the South Villanueva Municipality school complex, Alvaro Mondragon.