The Friends Project

I’m standing on the Mirador (lookout) in Las Minitas, on top of the mountain.

Down there, where I’m pointing, is the school in El Jicote that the kids in Las Minitas had to walk to every day — at least an hour each way — to attend elementary school. Their parents lobbied the Nicaraguan government for four years to obtain a permanent teacher.

For a year, they studied with the teacher under a tree at a neighbor’s porch, until the residents built a makeshift shelter for a school with salvaged wood.

There will be a big celebration Feb. 10 or 11 to open the first school ever in Las Minitas!

Still amazed that we were able to raise $11,000 to help the community of Las Minitas build a new, sturdy and permanent brick school.

One room, brick, with a latrine and enough left over to put in a teacher’s desk, locks and a latrine!

It has been a true community effort – here and in Latin America.

Three years ago, Emiliano helped me plant a coffee sapling on his small farm up in Ocotal, on the mountain in El Sauce, Nicaragua.

When I first met Emiliano by chance in the street this visit, he asked if I remember him, and my tree, Pablito.

He’s a teenager now by coffee tree standards. I’ll visit next week.

Last May, we raised money to help the Los Altos de Ocotal cooperative of sustainable coffee farmers purchase a barrel and other materials to make a “tostador.” They encase the barrel in an oven and use the handle to continuously shift the beans inside as they toast evenly.

Before,they did it pan by pan over a kitchen fire.

It is up in the ranchon, where the community has a place for tourists to eat, with latrines and a lookout all over central Nicaragua.

See the entire photo album of its installation.

Landed in El Sauce on Dec.3. It’s hot, sweaty, dry and it feels like home. The first few hours, buying water, I ran into Emiliano, the coffee farmer from Ocotal with whom I planted a coffee tree 3 years ago. He asked if I remember him – and Pablito, the tree.

By noon, I had seen one of the women from the basket-making cooperative and Gustavo, who has led the fight to obtain a permanent teacher for the mountain community.

In a few days, I will be working beside them to lay the foundation and bend some metal to get started.

I will soon be in El Sauce helping to build the school. I can’t wait to teach English at night, visit with people who have become dear friends and continue to document the community of El Sauce’s incredible journey to improve conditions in their town for generations.

They will become role models for other small communities.

Nicholas, Ocotal, Nicaragua

Thanks to a generous donation from the Honeoye Falls-Mendon Rotary club in upstate New  York (and my hometown) and through the sales of baskets handmade by the Fuente de Pino women’s cooperative in El Sauce at my photo exhibit, the Friends Project has helped farmers in El Sauce better provide for their families and refine their coffee-growing endeavors.

Friends Project donations in 2010 helped the coffee farmers purchase a low-cost manpowered foot pump, which allows them to bag their own coffee to sell to tourists. Producing the coffee in a very traditional, artisan way, this means they grow, roast and do it all by hand. The $100 Rotary donation and some $100 in basket sales allowed the farmers to purchase a small toaster, which allows them to toast coffee beans a bit more efficiently. They were doing it pan by pan over a fire.

Every sale, the cooperative members invest part of their small profits back into the cooperative, to obtain more bags and help grow the initiative.

Pics to come!

Emiliano's coffee plantation in Nicaragua.

I have been photographing families, life and economic development efforts in El Sauce since 2009.

The Friends Project provided three digital cameras to El Sauce teens so the can document their own lives and share what is most important. They’ve got a keen eye for good images to boot. Check out the Friends Photo Project gallery.

This photo is by Lester Martinez. I love it.

SUNY Geneseo students held a backyard barbecue and also an a capella concert to raise money for the school project as well as a micro-loan program, which his in its infancy.

They have raised nearly $700 total for the cause and we are very close to our $6,600 goal … We WILL be building this school, to open in spring!

I look forward to posting images of work crews — which include me starting in December – and students in the new school.

Time has flown by … and now the Friends Project is helping to build a school in El Sauce.

We are collaborating with community members in El Sauce and stateside and students from the STate University of New York College at Geneseo who have volunteered or studied there to build a one-room schoolhouse that will provide a great atmosphere for dozens of elementary-aged students.

Their parents lobbied the government for several years to obtain a dedicated, full-time teacher. Now, they need four sturdy walls and a roof.

Learn more about it here:El Sauce school