Nicaraguan Partnership
This May, five adult delegates from the Lake Michigan Presbytery will travel
down to Nicaragua to visit our partners in Nueva Guinea. During this time,
we will have the opportunity to learn more about our partners’ education and
health care systems, as well as finish the peace monument project located in the
city park. With a relatively small group this trip, we are sure to
experience abundant time for bonding with our partners and one another.
Our group will be extending our stay in Nicaragua this year in order to spend
additional time with our partners in Nueva Guinea, as well as to explore various
projects in the greater Managua area which are serving to improve the lives of
the Nicaraguan people. Some of the visits we will be making include Radio
CEPAD, La Chureca (the municipal dump) and the programs in place to assist its
residents, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and a Compassion
International project in Ciudad Sandino. We anticipate that this
trip will be an incredible learning experience and look forward to strengthening
our bonds of friendship and partnership.
In late August and early September, the Lake Michigan Presbytery’s Nicaraguan
Partnership will host eight of our Nicaraguan partners, as well as two CEPAD
translators, in various locations within our Presbytery. Brooklyn,
Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and Lansing will serve as the primary hosting cities.
Our partners will also enjoy a weekend at Camp Greenwood. During this
visit, the governing body of our Partnership will meet in order to brainstorm
project ideas for the upcoming five years. We will also spend plentiful
time in various churches throughout the Presbytery in hopes to introduce more
people to our Partnership. Please take the time to meet our Nicaraguan
friends; it will be time well invested.
Download Flyer
Download Application
Contact the partnership at
LMPNicaragua@yahoo.com
Click on the map to learn
more about Nicaragua (source BBC)
Click here for timeline of Nicaragua History
Visit the CEPAD web site
www.cepad.org.ni
Check the
weather in Managua,
Nicaragua
Nicaraguan Mission Partnership sewing project
Our Nicaraguan partners visited the Crazy Ladies quilting
group in Coopersville in September, 2005. The ladies arranged to have 5 sewing
machines donated to the Nicaraguans which were delivered to them in April,
2006. After much discussion, the Nicaraguan ladies have organized a sewing
cooperative at the CEPAD office in Nueva Guinea. They are teaching women to use
the sewing machines and plan to sell items that they sew in the local market.
They would appreciate more sewing machines so if you would like to donate a
sewing machine, please contact the partnership at
LMPNicaragua@yahoo.com
SCHOOL SUPPLIES ALLOW NICARAGUAN
CHILDREN ATTENDANCE
Who
could forget the sight of elementary aged children in the poor barrios of Nueva
Guinea, unable to attend school because they lacked the prerequisite pencil and
notebook! One of the Pastors from CEPAD (The Council of Protestant Churches)
explained that while there was no charge to attend public school in Nicaragua,
the second poorest country in Latina America, children had to have the resources
to supply their own pencil and notebook.
Before our group from the Lake Michigan
Presbytery had left for Nicaragua April of 2006, our Christian Education
Director from the Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn, Michigan asked us to look
around for a Vacation Bible School project. As I listened to the Pastor
interview the children who sat or stood in the shadow of a group of lop-sided
shacks, I knew I had found the project we were looking for.
“Do you know the alphabet?” the Pastor asked
the children who shyly examined these strangers touring their village. A couple
said they knew some of the letters, and one reported he knew them all. “Have
you learned to read?” he asked again. The children looked down ashamed and
said, “No, we don’t know how to read.”
Since all projects must be approved by both
parties in the Partnership with CEPAD, we asked the leadership in Nueva Guinea
if such a project would be welcomed and received hearty approval. We were told
that even the timing was good: if we could collect the money during July, we
could send it with the delegation coming to Nicaragua from the Presbytery in
October. In January is the beginning of the Nicaraguan school year, and our
partners in Nueva Guinea would distribute the supplies before the first day of
school.
People in our church had met people from Nueva
Guinea when the delegation visited the Presbytery churches in fall of 2005.
When told of the little that was needed to make such a difference in a child’s
life, the response to the VBS offering was generous. We collected $508.72
during that week.
In January we received a thank you, emailed
from the office of the Director of CEPAD in Nueva Guinea. Not only were the
supplies distributed to children in the churches and seven communities in which
CEPAD works, but this February, on a return trip to Nueva Guinea, we learned how
one couple targeted the children who shined shoes on the streets. They promised
the children that if they enrolled in school, the directors of the school had
supplies waiting for them, and the directors, in turn, gave the couple names of
the children from that group who had enrolled in classes and had received the
precious supplies. What a blessing to be able to give to a project, that from
beginning to end was the work of The Partnership of Christian Brothers and
Sisters in the USA and Nueva Guinea.
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2 Cents a Meal Money Will Benefit 30+ Families
in Nueva Guinea, Nicaragua
The Lake Michigan Presbytery’s Mission Partnership with the Council for
Evangelical Churches (CEPAD) in Nueva Guinea, Nicaragua will use 2 cents a
meal (Cents-ability) money to develop and strengthen a sustainable backyard
nutrition program. Through a project proposal of the joint partnership
committee in Nicaragua and Lake Michigan, $7,000 was allocated to the
revolving grants given to women in families for Patio Projects.
CEPAD works through means of self-empowerment to develop processes of
social promotion, communal organization, and the preservation of people,
environment, and also provides opportunity for spiritual development. Patio
Projects concentrate on nutrition and self-sustainability of the family.
Providing nutrition and opportunities to develop the diet of families is a
priority for the partnership. With the 2 Cents a Meal money, approximately
212 people will receive better nutrition and provide sustainable ways of
continuing these improved dietary habits by allowing families to have more
accessible food sources.
Patio Projects are small backyard gardens and farms that allow a woman and
her family to raise pigs, chickens, and food that will provide the family with
necessary food and a small source of income. A person is given training and
education needed to develop and manage her patio project. After completing
each segment of training, women are given a loan to complete the next section
of her project. This means purchasing such things as chickens or pigs. A
woman will receive 2 pigs and approximately 14 chickens and one rooster
through the project. This can be used to raise more animals, and provide eggs
and protein to the family. Women receive follow visits and assistance while
they are working with their projects.
The unique piece of the Patio Project is that it is set up through a loan
system. Each complete patio project costs $200.00, and because CEPAD believes
in providing systems that can be sustainable and are truly owned by its
beneficiaries, the money is given as a loan. Women receive the money as the
go to training, and then begin to pay back the loan at a very low interest
rate so that as their project becomes sustainable, the money can be used to
benefit another family in the community. The partnership is happy to be able
to support the continued work of CEPAD and its work in the communities of
Nueva Guinea and throughout Nicaragua.
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Intentional
Mission
