Helping Rural Communities in Nicaragua to Flourish

Amos Director, Chris Rose, and Amos supporters recently visited Nicaragua. Whilst there, they went to see 5 of the 7 communities that we support through our partner CEPAD, they met with community members and heard how much their lives had improved thanks to your support. All 7 communities are based in Teustepe in the Boaco region of Nicaragua - known as the dry corridor. 

At the beginning of the 5 year cycle working with CEPAD, none of the communities had electricity, just over 2 years on, 6 of the 7, now have electricity. All were struggling to grow anything due to a lack of access to water but now the installation of electricity means that CEPAD has been able to provide water pumps, giving   communities vital access to water and thus the chance to grow far more crops. Meanwhile, many of the women have received microloans enabling them to set up small businesses  including baking, dress making, keeping livestock and running a corner shop. 

Chris Rose describes his recent visit to    San Diego,  one of the 7 communities we are supporting. 

“San Diego is down a dirt road which is unpassable in the rainy season and when the hurricanes hit. Upon our arrival we were greeted by Rosa, who  is head of the Community Development Committee (CDC) – she tells us of the struggles they have had with the hurricanes and that when the rains come, they are cut off completely. The recent hurricanes destroyed their crops and blew the roofs off some  of the houses.

The new water pump has transformed their lives – CEPAD worked with the village to purchase the pump, to pump water from the well to a reservoir 200 metres up on the hill (which is over 1km away). This now feeds the village and its two main communities on either side of the hill.  CEPAD provided the plastic pipes and rubber tubes for this so that gravity will take water to all those who need it.

At the start of the current programme none of the 7 communities had access to electricity and no means to pump water from their wells. Now 6 of the 7 communities have water and a pump for their wells.  This allows CEPAD’s agronomists to carry out their work and to support the farmers and patio members to pursue new crops. It also means that women and children (who traditionally carry the water from the well) do not need to do so. 

Petronas is a remarkable woman. She is on the women’s empowerment programme and took out a micro loan as parof this programme to allow her to make and sell pastries to the community. The women’s empowerment programme was not planning on giving out micro loans until the 3rd year, so that the participants would have time to be trained and to develop their business model, but following the hurricanes in 2020 CEPAD realised that they needed to move these up the schedule to support the communities.  They released microloans of up to $120 to women from the communities. The women receive training in how to set up their own business, how to manage money, how to understand their market and how to reinvest in their business. While the profits from Petronas sounds small 200 – 500 Cordobas (£5 -£ 13 a time), they have transformed her life and the life of the family.  She has reinvested much of this money and bakes every other day.  

Petronas also organises those working on a piece of land owned by a few families near the village centre. This land was used for rough grazing as it was impossible to water it consistently enough. But the gravity fed drip irrigation piping provided by CEPAD has allowed them to start to use this land for a wide variety of new crops. The families started on a quarter of the land which they were able to fence in with chicken wire, supported by CEPAD, who also provided seeds, training and manuals for how to farm the land.

Arsenio takes us around the field explaining how successful their tomato crop has been and continues to be. They sell a bucket – 8- 10kg for 600 cordobas (£10) to the local community and are looking to start selling them in Teustepe, where they will be able to get a higher rate for these. He continues to explain how they sell 3 or 4 bell peppers (depending on size) for 10 cordobas. The bell pepper season is nearly finished – when they plant these, they plant them next to watermelon plants which will then grow in the same space, coming through after the bell peppers. They have also grown cucumbers and squashes and plan on extending the range of plants they grow. They  now use organic fertilisers and pesticides that CEPAD has trained them on how to use and they rotate their crops around to stop pests.  The 5 farmers on this piece of land will have saved enough by the end of the month to buy tubing and pipework to irrigate the rest of their land. Now they just  need to raise enough to fence  the land with chicken wire to stop chickens, goats and pigs from eating the crops!”

Thank you for helping communities like San Diego to flourish.