Nicaragua Children's Foundation

We visited Los Pipitos again in March of this year and were really impressed by all the improvements and updates to the school. We have two teachers now and both work very hard each and every day (Thank you, Liliam and Sebastien!)

On our visit, we brought with us a few people from another organization. They, too, were really amazed by Los Pipitos. One of them, a speech therapist from Alberta, decided she wanted to become involved. On her return home to Canada, she arranged for an IPad to be filled with apps to help some of the students work on their speaking skills. Thanks to a rather roundabout route involving several Canadians, the IPad is now at Los Pipitos and is being used daily!

We will also be hiring an assistant teacher soon! Stay tuned for more updates from Los Pipitos...

Los Pipitos continues to grow and to gain the interest of other people and organizations. In the past year, there has been a steady increase in the number of volunteers as well. We have a long-term volunteer who is teaching some of the students to read and write. We also have a speech therapist coming in March 2013. Some of the older students have begun to make money for the school through the creation and sale of pinatas. Many of the students participated this year in a Paralympics event held in San Juan del Sur. The school also has a Board of Directors who are all very concerned with the well-being of the students. 

We have also gained a number of new students, who were previously not attending school at all. These students have benefited enormously just by being somewhere with new people every day. 

All in all, Los Pipitos has been very successful! 

Hello to everyone who has generously supported Los Pipitos, our school for the disabled in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua!

 This school has garnered a lot of attention since its doors were opened for the first time in 2008. There is one full-time teacher there (Liliame) and one very dedicated volunteer, Sebastian, who is from the Netherlands but who has been working at Los Pipitos for several months now. His focus is on teaching some of the older pupils how to read and write.

In our last report, we mentioned that we've hired Oliver to help oversee the various volunteers to Los Pipitos. We also wrote about how Oliver needed an MRI to determine whether he'd one day be able to walk again. Good news and bad news here: He had the MRI and with an operation and some physiotherapy, it is possible that he may one day walk again! However (and there always seems to be a "however" in Nicaragua), this operation costs approximately $10,000. We are now working on ways to fundraise for this.

Links:

• NCF website

• Oliver's Story (DOCX)