Economic Empowerment for 200 Women in Nicaragua

Nora is 33 years old, with a low level of education, and lives in the community of San José, about 15 miles from the Self – Help International headquarters in Nicaragua. She has 3 children (including two boys and a girl), her greatest desire is for her children to study so that they can graduate and thus get ahead since studies were difficult for her and her husband living on a remote farms far from the nearest school.

Nora told us that it was difficult for her to attend daily classes because to go to the nearest school she had to walk long distance in an extremely lonely place where on many occasions her mother could not accompany her to reach that goal. In addition to the fact that during the winter time the rivers were rising and since it had no bridges she could not cross them in that way, she delayed her studies and in the meantime what she did was to help her mother with all the house and field duties and by selling the products they used to harvest in their farms. When she was 16 years old decided to work on her own, but since she was still studying her first year of high school, the only means of work she found was of taking care of the housework of a woman who lived in the community called Las Azucenas (the largest community closest to the farm where she lived with her parents). The woman emplyer allowed Nora to work part-time so that she would have the opportunity to study, even so Nora had this opportunity, as time went by, she found really tired to do both things, so she decided it was better to just work and leave her studies, desicion that now she regrets it, because she told us that a few years later she married with a young man with the same conditions as her, leading them to emigrate to the neighboring country of Costa Rica to according to her to get out of the situation they found themselves.

Years later and after experiencing so many difficulties and hard work in Costa Rica, Nora and her husband decided to return to Nicaragua and work in the only thing they knew best "Working in the fields", already with a child and with the little money saved from their job in Costa Rica, the couple bought some pigs while living at Nora's parents' house. The couple's goal at that time was to continue working and save to be able to build their own house in the future, but by then it was becoming more difficult for Nora to support her husband in the way she wanted as soon came her second and third child, so what Nora could do was only take care of the needs of her children and husband. As time went by, the eldest son had to start studying, so Nora and her husband decided to make their little house, even if it was made of straw and wood, and they lived in that house for many years as for them the most important thing was their son´s education.

As time went by, Nora's husband continued working for other people in the planting and management of land and animals, while Nora dedicated to keep raising pigs and chickens to support the needs of the house. But Nora also liked to participate on her eldest son extracurricular activities at the school, so teachers and the rest of parents saw that Nora was very responsible and chosed her to be the treasurer of the school.

In one those of her son´s school meeting Nora learned from her sister about an organization called Self – Help International which help women like her, who in some way want to improve their life. Nora immediately became interested in knowing more about that organization, but her sister did not have the answers she was hoping to hear, so she went to a niece (niece of both Nora and her sister) who was already a beneficiary of the program that supported the women and her niece explained to her all of the benefits that women have by being part of that program. Nora continued saying: And I really believed my niece, because she was a very shy person even with our own family members and now she impressed me with the changes she had and even the rest of the members of our community noticed it. So, I decided to try to be part of the program and I asked my niece to let me know when was going to be the next meeting for me to attend. It was in 2019 that I attended the first meeting with the former program officer Yolanda Fletes and I asked her to be part of the program inmediatelly, because the first topic I attended was Self-esteem, which encouraged me a lot and I understood that I needed to make changes in my personal life to be able t osee changes in my entire family, but what excited me most was upon hearing that women were not only helped with training, workshops and financing but also in agricultura maner and since that was the basic thing I and my husband knew best, I thought that it was going to work fine for us. This is how, after other trainings, I received the donation of the first 4 pounds of INTA – Nutrader corn (high-quality protein corn) and my husband I got trained together on how to make better use of the land using the double row technique, at that time Nora emphasized; we (my husband and I) did not have our own land but we rented a piece of land to work and the yield we obtained were excellent so for the next planting season we both decided to rent a larger space of land to keep our planting experiences.

Over time Nora continued saying: I applied to Self – Help International for financing to start a small business and since I already had experience in raising pigs I decided to continue with that work, but this time as a business by buying more pigs, fattening them and then selling them. Nora continued her story: at first I hesitated to ask for the loan since I had never had a great responsibility to manage money, much less having to pay a debt, but with the support of the women's empowerment program officer and my niece who helped me to believe in myself, I managed to overcome that fear and with the money they gave me I managed to buy 4 small pigs (3 male and one female), after 6 months of taking care of them I sold the three male pigs and with that money I managed to pay the loan back to Self – Help International and left the sow because she was already pregnant and gave birth to 9 little pigs. From there I decided to stop working in the fields with my husband to take good care of my sow's babies pig and then sell them, that's how things went over the years and continue this business of buying small pigs, fattening them and selling them and making the sows reproduce to sell the offspring. I continue receiving support from Self – Help International with training, coaching and financing and for my second loan I bought a calf instead of pigs because as I mentioned before, we (my husband and I) purpose was to repair and give better conditions to our small house and to reach it I had to take a bigger step, I sold my oldest sow to complement the funds, because I considered that with the sale of that calf and the rest of the pigs we could finally improve our house condition, and thanks God we finally achieved our goal, now my house has gone from being made of straw, wood and a dirt floor to being made of wood, metal roof and always a dirt floor. I feel happy because I have seen a radical change in my life and my family and in record time we achieved our goals compared to all of the years we had to live in the neighboring country of Rosta Rica.

Now, I have many new skills learned and developed, but the main thing I focus on is taking care of myself, my husband and children. I have also learned how to saved and invest money again and adjust for the goals we set out to achieve as a family. I know we have a long way to go thru still, but we are working step by step and I know we are on the right track.

I thanks Self-Help International and the Women's Empowerment Program for the support I have received from training, donations and loans because in this way I have been able to help my family without having to emigrate to another country and endure hunger, sleep , thirst and avoid that suffering for my children, for that reason I asks that the Women's Empowerment Program be extended by making other women aware that they can get ahead if they want to make a personal change to have a story to tell other women. Nora concluded by saying “I feel very happy and every time I find women who I consider that need help, I refer them to the current officer of the Women's Empowerment program so that she can guide them on what they should do to be part of this very important program for us” thank you very much Self – Help International.