Project Schoolhouse

Jasmina’s Thirst for Knowledge

January 7, 2021 by Project Schoolhouse

Jasmina’s belief in the power of education gives her the perseverance to continue her studies despite enormous challenges.

The scholarship she receives has propelled her on a journey towards becoming a teacher and making a lasting impact on future generations of students in her community.

Imagine that you are in a crowded school room and are trying to concentrate on an important lesson, but heavy rains transform the simple dirt floor of the schoolhouse to mud. Then the leaks from the roof splash across your textbooks. Other times, you don’t even go to school because drinking the water from the local stream causes you to suffer from stomach cramps and diarrhea. Your family doesn’t have a toilet, so you have to walk far away from the house to relieve yourself. The only water that is available to clean up with is the same unclean water that made you sick. This is the reality for many families in rural Nicaraguan communities, such as Kiwaska.

Meet Jasmina. Project Schoolhouse first collaborated with her community in 2007 to build an elementary school.

Then an enthusiastic 9-year-old, Jasmina’s curiosity was ignited through the experience of going to school. She advocated for herself in order to attend high school and became one of the few people in her community to graduate from high school.

It wasn’t an easy path. Even with Project Schoolhouse providing financial support, she often had to remind her family of how important education was to her future. In these rural communities, high school is on Saturdays only and students take their homework for the rest of the week. The nearest high school was in a distant town. To get there, she would ride her family’s horse 2 hours and then cross the river Tuma. When she decided to pursue college, she continued to take that trip…and then hopped on a bus for 2 more hours. The time commitment kept increasing, and yet so did Jasmina’s perseverance.

She remains dedicated to completing school; it’s her dream.

Not only does she want to push herself to graduate, but she also wants to become a teacher so that she can give back to the community where she grew up.

The challenges that Jasmina faced don’t have to continue being problems for future generations of Nicaraguans. They need partners who share the vision, and the willingness to make it a reality.

Written by Heather Heiss

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Derlin’s Story

December 26, 2020 by Project Schoolhouse

Derlin Activates Community Spirit

Derlin Activates Community Spirit

Because of the local geography, the walk to school was often unpredictable and unsafe for half the children of San Antonio. Parents took matters into their own hands and built a permanent pedestrian bridge across a river that was dividing the community in two. The bridge is a great source of pride, providing children a safe, reliable path to school, and the entire community consistent accessibility that sparked capital investment and growing economic opportunity.

What kind of memories do you have of being a kid and exploring the neighborhood? Was it going to your friend’s houses? Or being grown up enough to walk to school all by yourself? In the rural community of San Antonio, the children on the opposite side of the river from the school could see the school from their homes, but would walk an hour in the opposite direction to a different school because often times the river was too high to cross safely.

Meet Derlin. When the community was in discussions with Project Schoolhouse to collaborate on building a school, they decided it was important to make sure children on both sides would be able to have equal, safe, and convenient access to the school. When the residents voiced this need and asked Project Schoolhouse to collaborate on building a pedestrian bridge, Project Schoolhouse was happy to respond to the request.

Derlin is a local father who stepped in as a community organizer. His easy smile and approachable nature contribute to his ability to bring people together to pursue a common goal. While Project Schoolhouse paid for the materials, engineering plans, and skilled labor, the community volunteered all of the manual labor to bring this project to fruition.

The roughly 35 families of San Antonio volunteered 3 days a week to excavate and build a school and bridge. Derlin reflects, “It’s really worth dedicating this time to work. It doesn’t matter if we have to dedicate a year or more to work because it’s an effort that we as parents can do so that our children can achieve more opportunities, so that they can have their school, have water, so that they can feel safe and happy.” Derlin kept everyone energized and engaged throughout the project with his positive attitude and reminders of why the work is important.

The people of San Antonio truly demonstrated their capacity to organize and work collectively. With a Project Schoolhouse master builder directing them, the families volunteered countless hours to get the job done. They collected 5,000 boulders from the river and then excavated the riverbed using 5-gallon buckets. They dug pits, built pillars, and even learned how to weld! They did everything by hand…including lifting and placing the giant metal beams. It took 9 months of hard labor, but the 100-meter bridge that now exists enables all children a quick and safe walk to school.

The bridge has also contributed to a great deal of community pride in San Antonio. Because they built it with their own hands, the bridge has a special meaning. Having this key piece of infrastructure has also contributed to economic activity since it provides consistent, easy to access the community. We see residents investing in their homes and farms thanks to the stability this infrastructure lends to the community. The bridge has united the community and set them up for growth and prosperity. It is an example of why Project Schoolhouse takes great care to listen and respond to voiced need, the bedrock of how we work.

Written by Heather Heiss

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Project Update: We push onward into 2021

December 26, 2020 by Project Schoolhouse

2020 has been a challenging year in so many aspects, but in spite of that, our work in Nicaragua has continued to move forward. We are proud of the fact that in collaboration with three different communities, we’ve delivered water to around 1000 people in over 120 households in rural Nicaragua.

Two of those community projects were part of our very first Rotary International Global Grant which we received in 2019 for $89,000. We are pleased to announce that those projects are both complete and the final report has been accepted by Rotary. In 2021 we hope to embark on our second Rotary Global Grant project in the community of Bilampi, Nicaragua where 41 families, three schools, and a church will have clean spring water delivered to their doorsteps through an underground distribution system.

We are growing as an organization, which is so rewarding to see. Our team in Nicaragua has grown to seven this year, our largest size ever, as we stretch to manage and implement multiple projects simultaneously. In Austin, we have a core three-person staff buoyed by a strong network of volunteers, interns, and board members all working together.

Without every component of this complex puzzle, we could never make schools, water, and latrines a new reality for these communities in Nicaragua. We are so grateful to all of the financial supporters, volunteers, team members, and especially the community volunteers in Nicaragua working to improve their own lives through their own hard work.

I’ve always been amazed by the determination of our crew on the ground in Nicaragua to overcome the unbelievable logistical challenges they confront in making these projects a reality and this year has been no different. And so we push onward into 2021 determined to keep going and grateful for the opportunity to keep doing so.

Thank you.

Tab Barker
Director of Operations

Greetings from our Executive Director – “We need your help!”

July 10, 2020 by Project Schoolhouse

Dear Friends,
Much like the rest of the world, we are flexing our resilience muscles here at Project Schoolhouse as we navigate the operating changes needed as a result of the pandemic and scenario plan for the impact of the impending global recession.

Tab has been working hard to keep our Nicaragua team safe. We prepaid staff wages to limit how often they needed to travel into town to do their banking. Our Project Coordinator was able to advance purchase the construction materials we needed for the two ongoing water projects, limiting community exposure to potential outside carriers of the virus. Fortunately, the work in the communities can mostly carry on as normal, being outside and socially distanced. We are turning on in-home water service to 130 families this year, which eliminates the need for them to congregate at local water holes to collect life-sustaining water.

Our financial capacity to fund those prepaid wages and material purchases that are helping 130 families(!) were the direct result of our fundraising efforts in the Fall of 2019. As we kick into planning gear for our Fall 2020 annual fundraising efforts, we need your help more than ever, and we’ve listed those opportunities below for your thoughtful consideration.

Our team and partners on the ground in Nicaragua share that this virus is spreading rapidly in the cities and smaller towns, but it hasn’t yet made its way into the remote communities with whom we collaborate. We’re proud that some of the students we sponsor had the motivation to advocate for online learning so they didn’t lose a year of schooling. The children we support know that education is the key to their future and we are grateful to all of you who invest in their futures.

With gratitude and best wishes for good health.
Selina Serna
Executive Director

Greetings from our Executive Director – “An Unprecedented Opportunity”

March 28, 2020 by Project Schoolhouse

Dear Friends,

Wow, how our world has changed in just a few short weeks. Our work continues and the need has never been greater, as is highlighted in industry publications we monitor, one of which we wanted to share with you below, ‘COVID-19 a collective failure, an unprecedented opportunity’. Sanitation and hygiene are the most basic needs, particularly today when diligent hand-washing is top of mind for the world, virtually impossible for those without access to clean water.

We are so pleased to share our 2019 Impact in the Annual Report linked below. Beyond the numbers, I’d like to also convey the emotion I see as I talk to moms who worry about the contaminated water they are forced to use all day, every day, to drink, bathe and cook, even when they see the rashes that break out on their children every time they bathe. Your generosity truly changes lives.

We had a strong kick-off to 2020, finishing up water and latrine projects in two communities. We visited the mayor of a neighboring region, Bocana de Paiwas, when touring the projects in early March and were thrilled to come away from that meeting with a commitment of funding towards a project in this region. As we were driving to the meeting, we took a right where we always take a left and Tab said “haven’t you always wanted to turn this way? I have.” It’s good to see our reputation spread and have the opportunity to expand our reach by tapping into additional municipal funding.

The mayor is excited to collaborate, allowing him to stretch his budget through investing in our community volunteer model of building. The area has some of the most stunning vistas I’ve had the pleasure of seeing, and I got to meet this cute little boy in the community of Bilampi. We hope to be able to build him a new school in the not too distant future.

In these uncertain times, please know that we wish you and your loved ones good health.

Selina Serna
Executive Director