• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Project Schoolhouse

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

  • About Us
    • Meet Our Team
    • Financials
    • Careers & Volunteer
    • Contact Us
  • Our Work
  • Progress
    • Stories
    • Newsletter
  • Get Involved
    • Agua For All
    • Info Sessions & Events
    • Fundraise
    • Partner With Us
    • Travel
    • Cien Amigos 2023
  • Donate

Stories

Berlina on Water and Health

February 23, 2021 by Project Schoolhouse

No matter which continent you live on, you try to do your best with what you have. In rural Nicaragua, many parents don’t have much extra. In fact, most don’t even have the basics.

Instead of having the convenience of a tap in or near their home, families in rural Nicaragua walk to a nearby stream multiple times a day to gather water. Most families will spend nearly 2 hours per day just gathering water. They get up before the sun in order to fetch the water that will be used to prepare breakfast. The walk is often a half mile or more, and the return journey feels longer when carrying full jugs of water.

They have to work hard to gather water, and that water isn’t clean. You can often see sediment or insects floating around. However, it is the only option. Without water, they would die from dehydration. But the diseases caused by drinking unclean water can be just as deadly.

Meet Berlina. She has 3 children, and her only source of water was a stream shared by the entire community as well as the livestock and forest wildlife. Because the water they had access to was contaminated, her family faced serious health issues.

Berlina recounts, “My little girl almost died. I was told it was because we drank polluted water. My youngest daughter almost died when she was three months old. She had ongoing diarrhea, fever, and vomiting.” For parents who already have limited resources, a medical emergency like this can be terrifying.

Unsafe water creates other economic issues as well. When children get sick, they miss school and their parents have to stay home from work. In communities where most people are subsistence farmers, time away from work can also translate to food scarcity.

The factors of environmental dangers, increased disease, time away from school and work, and food scarcity put these vulnerable communities at even more risk. One solution can minimize all of them: clean water in their home. 

In Berlina’s community of Rio Lindo, Project Schoolhouse collaborated with residents to build a spring-fed gravity-flow water system. The families trenched all 7 kilometers (about 4 miles) by hand and laid the distribution pipes themselves. The community’s involvement translates to a sense of ownership. The skills and knowledge that they gained during the project means that they won’t have to rely on outside organizations or the local government to maintain the water system. They can rely on themselves, which is a point of pride.

These days, instead of spending hours walking along a risky path to find a basic necessity, Berlina and her neighbors can access clean water by simply turning a spigot. Each family that chooses to participate in the project gets a water tap installed at their home. Having easy access to clean water has made a world of difference. They don’t get sick as often, and the children’s education doesn’t get interrupted as much. Berlina and her community feel much more hopeful for the future.

Written by Heather Heiss

We Need Your Help

We Need Your Help


Donate


Get Involved


Fundraise


Partner

Filed Under: Clean Water, Women's Empowerment Tagged With: Stories

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


We Need Your Help


Donate


Get Involved


Fundraise


Partner

Filed Under: Clean Water, Education, Women's Empowerment Tagged With: Stories

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

We Need Your Help

We Need Your Help


Donate


Get Involved


Fundraise


Partner

Filed Under: Community Engagement, People Driven Development Tagged With: Stories

  • About Us
  • Our Work
  • Progress
  • Get Involved
  • Donate
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy

Footer

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Vimeo