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Classes are in session for the 2016 school year at our new high school at La Carreta with two of its wings finished.  To construct the remaining wing, Somos Ohana Nicaragua is continuing our school construction campaign to raise the needed funds, around $53,000 more, USD.

Please help us toward that goal.  One way is to enjoy brick-oven pizza with us at The Flatbread Company of Paia, Maui, on Tuesday, April 26, 2016.  A portion of every size of pizza purchased, including take-out, between 5:00 and 10:00 pm that evening will be donated to Somos Ohana Nicaragua.  A silent auction of interesting and valuable items will also be happening.

Muchisimas gracias to the generous owners and staff at Flatbread Paia for their solidarity and on-going, very generous support!

The first 2 pavilions of the new La Carreta high school were completed just in time for the beginning of the school year on February 8.  Now there are 133 students receiving classes there!  We are waiting on a grant from a Rotary Club in Washington State to habilitate one of the classrooms with air-conditioning in order to set up a computer lab with donated computers from a private school in Seattle.  This will help the computers survive in the hot and humid climate of Nicaragua.

The 3rd pavilion, for which we are still fund-raising, will house a library, a teachers’ room and a kitchen where the students will clean and prepare the vegetables that they plan to grow in the school gardens.

We believe that with more opportunities to learn a variety of skills, these youngsters can choose to study at a university and to serve their families and their country as health and educational professionals.  If they don’t attend university, a secondary education will enable them to find jobs in Nicaragua to sustain themselves and their future families.

Somos Ohana Nicaragua started giving bikes to secondary students with long walking commutes to their schools in 2009, the year our first high school-building project was put in service, the José Dolores Estrada Institute at Rincón de García. We worked with the head teacher and the parents of bike recipients to encourage a strong commitment to good attendance. Here are some results from that ongoing program.

Wilber Javier Betanco from Mayocunda got his bike in 2009 in order to ride to the new high school, and in 2015 he graduated from the National University with a licensure in Law.

Holman Arnoldo Cadena got his bike in 2009 and attended the Rincón high school, too, and this year he will graduate with a diploma of Auxiliary Nursing, the equivalent of an LPN degree. Holman’s sister Ingris Waleska Cardena graduated from the high school at Rincón de García in 2015 and has started classes at the UNAN (National Autonomous University of Nicaragua) at Somotillo, majoring in Education with a minor in Language and Literature.

Edgar Efrain Aguilar graduated in 2014 and now works as a health educator for the Ministry of Health (MinSa) in his home town area, the Municipality of Villanueva.

What impact does having transportation to school make? What impact having a school where there was none? What ripples out from the local jobs for teachers? What future good will flow from the hearts and minds of these and other successful students?

Maybe we will never know how far out the ripples will go, but we believe in planting the seeds that the youth of Nicaragua will nourish and develop.

More progress!  On January 18 our excellent master builder Marvin Abad sent photos of the past months of progress toward completion of the first 2 pavilions of the La Carreta secondary school as well as the separate bathroom building.  We anticipate completion soon for the 2016 school year, which in Nicaragua runs from mid-February through the start of December, similar to the old “coffee schedule” of Hawaii’s Big Island schools.

Somos Ohana Nicaragua is still fund-raising to build the projected 3rd pavilion which we intend to start this year.  This much-needed high school will serve rural youth with a standard curriculum plus agricultural classes.