The Friends Project

Emiliano, one of our Friends Project scholarship recipients for this year, with some of his school  supplies.  School attendance is free. The scholarship provides the students who walk down to school from  the mountain community of Ocotal with the $35 worth of pens, bags, notebooks and other tools they need. We provided 8 scholarships this year.

They can be difficult to come by, but I’m proud to     announce that thanks to Kingdom Ventures, the fair trade crafts seller who is a regular Fuente de Pino buyer, we will have an assortment of baskets handmade by the women of El Sauce for sale at my photo exhibit reception this Friday, May 6.

All profits go to El Sauce improvement projects.

In the past, that has included

• Purchase of a portable coffee bag sealer so the eco-tourism cooperative members (who are also organic coffee growers) can self bag some of their wares to sell to visitors, eliminating a costly middleman.

• Supplies for the eco-tourism cooperative to complete their 40-foot well, which will provide fresh water to the guest house/area and that they are digging by hand.

• Scholarhips for eight high school students

If you’re in the Rochester, N.Y., come on out:

Reception for “Life in Remote Places: A Fragile Balance”

494 East Ave., Rochester, N.Y.

6 to 9 p.m.

Refreshments, music, baskets and cards for sale, in a mansion with plenty of ambiance and places to relax!

Darling, Jacqueline and other members of the Fuente de Pino, the all-female co-op who makes pine needle baskets with thread and the needles from the pine trees near their homes, have been selling their creations to a Rochester, N.Y.-based retailer, Kingdom Ventures.

Kingdom Ventures is a fair trade crafts seller. Owners Rebecca and Glenn visited El Sauce recently to meet the Fuente co-op members, and chronicled their journeys.

Congratulations to all the women in El Sauce for gaining another market! The six-week artisan training The Friends Project helped provide recently is paying off.

Life in Remote Places: A Fragile Balance

Photojournalism exhibition featuring images of the Amazon and Nicaragua — including villages in which The Friends Project has worked — opens May 6 in Rochester, N.Y.

Opening reception with the photographer: May 6, 6 to 9 p.m., at the American Association of University Women, 494  East Ave.

ABOUT THE SHOW: In the aftermath of civil war in El Sauce, Nicaragua, residents are drawing on ways of life that haven’t changed in 100 years to build sustainable artisan enterprises, coffee production and eco-tourism.

In the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon, families struggle to survive in isolation and with consequences of industrialization — and researchers work with communities to try to preserve the delicate balance of an endangered environment.

In her solo exhibition “Life in remote places: A fragile balance,” photojournalist Kris Dreessen explores life in these two distinct remote communities, how the families there work with and against nature for survival, and what the world stands to lose if we can’t find a balance.

The photographer recently launched an initiative to share the language of photography with young people of El Sauce. As a special addition, images taken by the teens documenting their own lives in El Sauce will be on display.

The latest Enlace newsletter is out, updating supporters of El Sauce’s tourism cooperative with the lastest good news.

Read this issue to see how the basket-making cooperative can now work at night, and how The Friends Project is helping El Sauce area teens attend high school and our friend Manuel attend his first year of college in Léon. Congratulations Manuel!

I was invited last night to speak with the Honeoye Falls-Mendon, N.Y. Rotary International club about The Friends Project and what we’ve been able to accomplish.

It was a pleasure to share the stories of the people we’ve met and become friends with since 2006 — and the lasting changes we have been able to facilitate with this grassroots initiative.

Rotary has been helping people in many cultures for generations so it was an honor to be there.

Members of the Los Altos de Ocotal cooperative look at the photographic book I made them.

Kellan and Yacarely made a special delivery to Mauricio and the other farmers of Los Altos de Ocotal who are building their eco-tourism business high on the mountain.

I created a book with many of the images I took of them — including the milestone day when most of them officially joined the cooperative — during my first visit in 2009.

Here are many of the farmers looking at the book, which will be kept at the Ranchón, the small shelter and cooking center for visitors.

This way, visitors can discover more about Ocotal culture and the history behind the tours they are now taking.

Congratulations to Manuel Munguia, who I met in January 2009 as a student of English in El Sauce.

Back then, he was learning his first words of a new language.

A few days ago, he earned a spot in the Saturday school at the university in Léon to study marketing or economics. Friends helped him hone his math skills and he studied like mad to pass the test.

The Friends Project is providing Manuel with a $350 scholarship to cover some of his costs for the first year, including books and tuition. He will attend on Saturday so he can work during the week to support him and his family.

Manuel’s also one of our photographers, who recently began to document life in El Sauce — from his perspective.

The Friends Project photo initiative has officially launched! We are sharing the language of photography with young people in El Sauce, Nicaragua. Three friends are documenting their own lives with donated cameras, and images will be posted in their own online gallery, and displayed in conjunction with my upcoming exhibition. Here is a first from Manuel!

The Friends Project recently provided a small grant of $350 to the Ocotal coffee cooperative in El Sauce to purchase a portable bag sealer and to buy enough coffee bags at a discounted price.

Now, they can offer their organic and sustainable coffee to tourists who come to Ocotal for overnight and eco-tourism visits. Previously, they had to sell their coffee wholesale to middlemen. They will still do that, but now have another option for which they can make more money and be in control.

Enlace, the tourism organization created by El Sauce residents, bought the bags at a discount and are selling them to the cooperative for 25 cents each. That money will be used to buy more bags at less expensive prices.

Read all about it — and see photos of the cooperative members trying it out in the Enlace newsletter.