Improve Nicaraguan Farmers Nutrition & Incomes

New School Uniforms Call For New Training Classes

Thanks to a special designated donation for school supplies and school uniforms to start the new school year, and the support of GlobalGiving donors, Self-Help was able to ensure that students of Treinte de Mayo School and students that are children of women in the Micro-Credit Program were able to get the clothing they needed to start the school year. All while supporting the local economy and micro-credit beneficiaries.

Treinte de Mayo is a particularly depressed shantytown located outside of San Carlos, Nicaragua. There is limited running water and very few families are able to afford school uniforms for their children to attend school. Self-Help saw the need in this community and helped to build a school for pre-school, kindergarten, and first graders to attend since the nearest school was too far away for these young children to walk to.

This uniform order for the new school year not only benefited students of the community who otherwise could not have afforded them, but also the four women of the Micro-Credit Program that were commissioned to make them, and the community as a whole. On September 10, 2015, the beneficiaries and their families gathered at Fred Strohbehn Training Center to receive their new school uniforms. The Self-Help International staff saw this gathering as a perfect opportunity to educate students, their parents, and community members in drug prevention and alcoholism, school bullying, and domestic violence.

To make this possible, Yolanda, the Nicaragua Micro-Credit Program Officer, wrote a letter to the San Carlos police department sheriff requesting some police expertise, and a visit from an officer to teach drug prevention. The police representative was extremely excited to learn that there’s an organization that cares so much about the youth in rural Nicaragua. And so, the representative told Yolanda that the department not only send one officer, but they would send three. That way, each officer could discuss a different topic that is affecting the community’s children.

These topics were: drug prevention and alcoholism, school bullying, and domestic violence. The three female police officers that visited to conduct these classes were delighted and impressed to find that the training center was full of children accompanied by their mothers and fathers. Each student, along with their parents, were paying close attention to what the officers were saying, as well as participating in dicussion. This resulted in an extremely successful, interactive, and progressive experience for all that were involved.

After the training was complete, each student received their uniforms. It was plain to see from the students’ huge smiles how ecstatic they truly were to have new uniforms for the new school year. Even the police officers thanked Self-Help as well as the all of the people that were making this possible by supporting Self-Help through donations.

A training session of this kind, with such substantial outreach to so many families, would not have been possible without a place to host it in, the training center. The Fred Strohbehn Training Center and all of its training sessions, of the past and future, are due to Self-Help’s generous and caring donors. Thank you to our donors for the support that has made this and all other trainings possible to improve education and quality of life for residents of Rio San Juan.