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For many years our non-profit has been helping Villanueva area college students who are pursuing their degrees in education and health fields with partial scholarships that pay for fees, books and transportation to classes. (Tuition at the national universities is free.) The following students on Somos Ohana Nicaragua scholarships are at the Autonomous University of Nicaragua (UNAN) Somotillo branch campus, which is in the Departamento de Chinandega, fairly near the Municipality of Villanueva:

Arlen Mercado is writing her monografia to be able to enter RN program in 2020. She has been one of our scholarship students for 3 years in the pre-nursing program.

Kareling Estrada is finishing her fifth year in Social Work.

Nayeli Diaz is in 3rd year of studies for Social Work

Lener Montalban is in his 2nd year to become a teacher of Social Studies

Maria Elena Torrez is in her first year of the nursing program

Because some specialized programs are not available at the branch of the UNAN in the nearby city of Somotillo, the following scholarship recipients have had to go farther afield.

Elizabeth Montes graduated and completed her practicum as a Speech Pathologist and will take comprehensive exams for her license soon in the Costa Rican Universidad Santa Paula where Somos Ohana Nicaragua has paid her foreign-student tuition. She returned in summer 2019 to Villanueva to help our visiting team from Maui work with the special-needs youth, and will return to seek work in her home Department of Chinandega upon receiving her license.

Miguel Angel Castillo is studying at the Universidad Popular de Nicaragua (UPONIC)), a private university in the regional capital of Chinandega, in his 1st year of Engineering in Systems of Computation. He had already been teaching at La Carreta with an entry-level tech certificate, but upon graduation he will be able to teach the teachers of the Ministry of Education as well as the students.

Somos Ohana Nicaragua has supported over half a dozen other scholarship students in the past who have already graduated. Most are working in their home region, a strong goal of our program.

The newly finished 3rd wing of the La Carreta secondary school Instituto Augusto C. Sandino in La Carreta has a kitchen with a built-in stove. This will allow the teachers, students and parent helpers to prepare lunches for the kids, utilizing vegetables being grown in the school gardens.

The community designed this school to ultimately have an agronomy and animal husbandry curriculum in addition to basic education. The kitchen is intended to facilitate preparation of market vegetables in the future.

The Somos Ohana Nicaragua team just returned from their summer 2019 trip, marking the 20th consecutive year of working in the Municipality of Villanueva, Dept. of Chinandega.

The 3rd wing of the La Carreta secondary school, Instituto Augusto C. Sandino, is completed and in use! These students are studying in the new library. We’ll soon be acquiring more books, too.

We continue to support the library and secondary school students and teachers at Rincon de Garcia, built by Somos Ohana Nicaragua in 2009.

Maui friends of Somos Ohana Nicaragua, come eat pizza with us on TUESDAY, JUNE 4, at The Flatbread Company, 89 Hana Highway in Paia, and check out our Silent Auction from 5:00 to 9:00 pm. We have many excellent deals! Flatbread will generously give Somos Ohana Nicaragua a portion of the money from each pizza sold between 5:00 and 10:00 pm that night, and all proceeds will go to furnishing the 3rd wing, under construction now, of La Carreta’s secondary school Instituto Augusto C. Sandino. Muchas gracias for your support!

Members of the Somos Ohana Nicaragua board and other volunteers held a very successful yard sale on Maui April 27. All the proceeds are designated for the furnishing of the 3rd wing of Instituto Augusto C. Sandino secondary school in La Carreta, Departamento de Chinandega.

The 3rd wing is currently under construction while students attend classes in the first 2 wings completed in 2016. Somos Ohana Nicaragua is very grateful for the many generous donations of good to our yard sale, as well as to the Maui community members who came out to purchase and support our programs!

Many of the students come to school hungry. They now receive their breakfast, prepared by Head Teacher and Language Arts instructor Prof. Luvy. She prepares a healthy breakfast drink of local fruits and milk and serves a locally-made bun. The breakfast is served while the students work on their lessons, and the nutrition boost enhances their ability to focus and learn.

Somos Ohana Nicaragua is providing funds for this meal until they can start harvesting enough foods from their school gardens. We are looking forward to the new cafeteria under construction in the 3rd wing where the students can eat more comfortably.

Amazing progress was made on the 3rd wing of the La Carreta secondary school by the construction crew during the dry weather at the end of 2018 and start of 2019. This wing will house the school library and a kitchen and dining area for the students and teachers. The kitchen will be used to prepare the produce grown by the students, for their own mid-day meal, for their families and eventually for sale.

The parents of this school community chose the site for this school and decided that, long term, the focus of the school would be, in addition to the normal curriculum, an agricultural and animal husbandry education for the area youth. We are all very grateful that the recently dug well has reached a good water source.

On Monday, February 4, the school year starts in Nicaragua. Teachers and community members are cleaning the classrooms of construction dust, and students prepare to begin the 3rd year of classes at Instituto Augusto C. Sandino secondary school in La Carreta. The first 2 wings were built in 2016 and 2017 by Somos Ohana Nicaragua and house classrooms and a computer learning center. Construction of the 3rd wing of the school began over the vacation time in December and January.

At the secondary school Instituto Augusto Sandino in La Carreta there will be water for not only the construction of the 3rd wing, for which we’ve signed the contract and construction is soon beginning, but also for the on-going use of the school: water for drinking and sanitation and for growing the school’s vegetable garden!

We were delighted to hear from our contacts in the non-profit that is working with us to put in the school’s well and pump infrastructure that it’s all working properly and that there will be water year-round.

The students are on their “summer” break, December and January. They’ll have water when classes resume in February, and the construction team during the break is starting their 3rd wing, which will provide a library, kitchen, dining area and teacher work room.