Project Schoolhouse

Improving Nicaraguan lives by building new, community water systems, and improving sanitation.

Education

Greetings from Executive Director

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Dear friends,

We wanted to let you know about important milestones we’ve reached and update you on current projects.

We’ve successfully navigated the new government requirements to continue to operate in Nicaragua. I am grateful to our team in Rio Blanco for their persistence in working through those challenges over the past months. We’re happy to be working. The current school project in Bilampi is going faster than planned, with high levels of community engagement.

We are excited to be planning ‘Cien Amigos 2023’ in a new venue for us, The Austin Winery! It is our only fundraiser of the year, and we hope you will join the fun! More details here.

We wanted to share this video of our After-School and Programs Coordinators, Cristian and Norma. As they mention, we plan to build two new schools this year in the communities of Bilampi and Rosario Las Vegas. The two schools will complete our work in those communities where we finished fully distributed water systems in 2022. I get a little teary when I hear from them how much these projects mean. I hope you enjoy meeting them. They are an inspiration to the young girls who study in schools we’ve helped build.

With gratitude,

Selina Serna 
Executive Director

After-School Program – Project Update

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Our after-school club in the community of El Aulo has been running successfully, with students of all grade levels participating in different activities. Pictured here are the 5th-grade students practicing their computer skills and receiving much-needed homework help from our dedicated teacher volunteers. We hope to expand this program to two more communities later this year.

Greetings from Executive Director

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Bilampi, Bocana de Paiwas: We completed a water and latrine project in Bilampi, which began in 2021. This was one of the most extensive, fully-distributed water projects in our history, including 22 km of hand-dug trench to lay the water distribution lines to reach every home, plus two churches and three schools. It’s really a beautiful part of the country, further east than we’ve ever worked, in the region of Bocana de Paiwas. We’re grateful to Rotary International and several Austin-area Rotary Clubs who supported this project.

  Children in the community of Fatima, Bilampi, with clean water at their school!
Community member, Bilampi, Nicaragua, with safe water in her home. 

Rosario Las Vegas: In July we broke ground in the community of Rosario Las Vegas on a fully-distributed water and latrine project. We’re grateful to The Burdine Johnson Foundation for their support of this project. We expect to turn on safe, clean water in homes by Christmas! 

Image: Community members trenching for the main conduction line in Rosario Las Vegas, Rio Blanco.

San Isidro, Rio Blanco: Lastly, in partnership with UT Austin Enactus and Localized Water, we installed our first rainwater catchment system at the school in the community of San Isidro. This project was a pilot to test out a solution that gets safe water to schools in a quick, low-cost way while we work our way through the multi-year pipeline of communities waiting for the fully-distributed system we typically install.

Left to right: Community members in San Isidro with the UT Students, UT Team working on Rain Water Project. 

We are particularly proud to have completed all of these projects while navigating the ever-changing complexity of the local government laws and regulations. We are optimistic that we’re through the highest of these hurdles, allowing us to refocus on the projects and programs that are so crucial to the communities with whom we partner. Huge thank you to our local team who has worked tirelessly through these hurdles and uncertainties with persistence and tenacity. I wanted to share a couple of photos of our team at work. The treks into these communities are long and arduous; these projects would not be possible without their dedication. 

Left to right: Our head builder Manuel, with his trusty T-square. Maria Ines, Cristian, and Norma escorted by a community member.

Looking ahead to 2023:

I had the opportunity to travel extensively in Nicaragua this summer, my first trips since covid lockdowns, and I can say the need has never been greater. We plan to partner on new schoolhouses in Rosario and Bilampi and in a third community, a fully distributed water project.  Your support makes these projects possible – thank you. For any questions or a more detailed update, you can always reach me at selina@projectschoolhouse.org.

With gratitude and best wishes in the New Year!

Selina Serna 
Executive Director

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A New After-School Program in El Aulo

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While we build school buildings, the Ministry of Education employs and pays the salary for the teachers and sets all curriculum requirements.  Typically, one teacher tries to teach 40 children, grades 1-6, in the same classroom.  Schools are under-resourced with inadequate materials, overcrowding, and no extra-curricular activities to keep students motivated and engaged. Widespread poverty, low levels of adult literacy and lack of economic activity necessitating an education are demotivating to school attendance.

We are currently piloting after-school programs to provide children with opportunities that encourage them to stay in school. The goal is to create healthy, dynamic, and stimulating environments that respond to students’ interests (i.e. sports, arts, academics, leadership and service, science, and technology) and develop core life skills to help them succeed in school and beyond. These programs are led by university student volunteers, providing role models for the younger children, strengthening the social fabric by mobilizing students, teachers, parents, and volunteers, as partners in development. The longer-term goals are to see increased school attendance, higher promotion rates and an increase in adult community engagement in the schools. We are particularly focused on providing female university student volunteers to lead the Clubs, providing female role models and encouragement to stay in school. Sequenced after a water system and school project, the Club has the opportunity to tutor the children who have fallen behind, helping them catch up in their studies and on a path towards educational success. The Club is so well received by the parents, teachers and children.  Here is an update of the first session, from Norma, our Programs Coordinator extraordinaire!  

“We start the opening of the club at 1 in the afternoon. Giving thanks to God for allowing us to be in the community together with the boys and girls, and to be able to start this new program with the aim of reducing school dropouts, also helping these children in their classes where they have more difficulty through these clubs.As we began, a moment of joy was shared with the little ones. You could see the happiness, playing and dancing among them. Having the presence of 35 boys and girls, from first grade to sixth grade, we divided them into two groups, Jasmina and Josseling working with the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders as they worked on the reinforcement of mathematics. In the beginning, a review was made of History, Spanish and Mathematics to see the level of knowledge they have and it was then that we realized that these children have difficulty in division and multiplication.

Something very important was in realizing that they do not know the multiplication tables, which would make the mathematical exercises easier. So, we began practicing the tables by making a flipchart to have in the section for practice. Cristian and I work with preschool, 2nd and 3rd grade school children who cannot read.

These children have great difficulty in writing and have not yet learned to read. The preschool and 1st-grade children were grouped together and enjoyed stories being read to them, with the books in the new storybook library.

I worked with the second and 3rd grade children. They have difficulty, they do not know all the letters, it is difficult for them to form words, I made cutouts of the letters of the alphabet on colored sheets so that the colorful letters catch their attention. They also have difficulty in Math, not everyone knows the numbers or multiplication tables. There was a moment when we were also playing with dynamic songs.

There is much to do with these children, and we hope we can achieve our goal to help them overcome the struggles that lead them to stop coming to school. You can see the difficulty the children have. I think it is because of the teacher’s time, she works with six grades together, so she does not have time to teach each grade individually.

These two days the participation and dedication of the children was excellent. They are enthusiastic and happy. You can see that they are interested in learning and practicing and excited about this opportunity. “

Le queremos agredecer a nuestra coordinadora, Norma Valdez por su trabajo con este proyecto.

Jasmina’s Thirst for Knowledge

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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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Stories From The Field: A Student’s Journey Through Covid-19

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Since March, those of us who could work from home have been doing so for almost 4 months. In other places like Nicaragua, Covid-19 hasn’t reached its peak, and it’s nowhere in sight.

In Nicaragua, work continues due to the lack of safety net for most. People still need to go to work, take public transportation, and live their lives as if there isn’t a global pandemic at large. From the beginning, there were no clear guidelines provided or stay at home orders mandated, nor did schools shut down. Parents had to make tough choices to care for themselves and their families by determining whether to go to school or miss classes by sheltering in place. Fortunately, news about the danger of this virus was widespread and most parents are keeping their children home even without that government guidance being in place. They have been wearing masks, created innovative ways to wash hands, and have been able to take classes online. For one of our students, Mileydi, for whom not going back to school meant falling behind a year, and that was out of the question.  

Project Schoolhouse has seen Mileydi grow up, providing a scholarship to help her complete high school and enter her first year of college. Mileydi graduated high school with top honors and is now pursuing a degree in Business Administration at a university in Rio Blanco, which is a 2-3 hour commute by foot from her hometown of Martillo. If this routine was not demanding enough, Mileydi now has to adjust to the unfamiliar situation of taking classes online. 

I called Mileydi one morning to hear how her online schooling experience has been going and this is what she told me: 

Renata: How did you start taking classes online?

Mileydi: The students took the initiative to push the school to move classes online; we organized and provided a  list of students who could take courses online. Some can, though not a lot.

Renata: How have professors changed their method of teaching?

Mileydi: We have this app that we use for classes. We also use WhatsApp. They send attachments of tests and handouts through these apps. 

Renata: Do you have wifi? A laptop?

Mileydi: No

Renata: What do you use for school?

Mileydi: I sometimes borrow a laptop if I can, if not I can go to a cyber café or I use my phone.

Renata: How do you use your phone?

Mileydi: I look at the tests, and I can read class notes, or videos they send.

Renata: What year are you in?

Miledy: First year of Business Administration.

Unfortunately, our conversation was a short one as I learned the call was costing Mileydi phone minutes. In Nicaragua, the majority of people do not have a monthly phone plan, they have prepaid SIM cards with limited data usage. 

What I found impressive from our conversation was Mileydi standing firm in the decision she took, after much discussion with her parents, to continue going to school and finding a way to do it safely. Mileydi persisted that she would not miss any classes or exams; her recent exams have come back with high marks. It was truly so admirable to hear her explain how she was taking classes on her phone. Despite a lack of resources, such as a computer or at-home wifi, Mileydi has been able to persevere with only a smartphone at her disposal. Not even a global pandemic can stop a girl from getting an education.