The Nicaraguan people have a very festive culture, with many celebrations and fiestas throughout the year, Christmas being no exception. The staff and volunteers of Education Plus were lucky and blessed to be a part of the Nicaraguan Christmas celebration this year for the first time.

It was a labor of love to plan and present the students and their families with gifts on Christmas Eve and a big party on Christmas Day. The month of December was spent making a list, checking it twice, and then collecting Christmas donations of toys, clothing, school supplies, and money to purchase additional gifts and food for our celebration. On the 23rd, eight volunteers, along with Monica and Jim, gathered at Jim’s house in Granada for a gift wrapping party. What was thought would take just a couple of hours ended up taking 6 hours to wrap almost 200 gifts for the boys and girls that attend Education Plus.

On Christmas Eve, early in the afternoon, the crew of volunteers transported all of the gifts and supplies for the party to the schoolhouse in Pantanal aboard an open tour bus provided by Granada Tours. With everyone hanging off of the side of bus singing “Feliz Navidad” the crew was greeted with cheers and laughter by many of the students at the schoolhouse. Some gifts were given at the school, while others were delivered by volunteers to the families’ homes. For some children this might have been the first time that they had a received an individual gift at Christmas. Some didn’t even know how to unwrap their gifts, afraid to tear the paper they were wrapped in. Others cried with joy, while some were very quiet.

A typical package

A new pair of shoes

Estefanie speechless when she sees her new doll

Christmas morning found the staff and volunteers scurrying around the market in town to gather the fresh chicken, rice, and vegetables for the Christmas meal, Arroz a la Valencia, which several of the local parents helped us cook.

The Christmas Fiesta was a grand success!  Donor sponsorship provided funds to hire a party company which provided music, a “bounce house”, and a cotton candy machine. There was face painting, 3 piñatas, and a whole lot of dancing. It was a day that the children will never forget!  Everyone had plenty to eat and all of the children and their parents left with big smiles on their faces, not to mention a lot of creative paint designs on their faces too!!

Thank you to to all of the wonderful donors who made these holiday celebrations possible. And a special heartfelt thanks to the selfless, hardworking volunteers: Camilla, Lisanne, Verena, Sabrina, John, Brandee, Melissa, Eduardo, Amanda, Matt, Ashley, Scott, Marty, Pip, Diane, Esther, and her granddaughter Rowan.  Education Plus is blessed by you and your efforts and this year’s Pantanal Christmas wouldn’t have been the success it was without you!!

For more photos see our CHRISTMAS ALBUM ON FACEBOOK

Effecting Change: Concrete Results in Just 6 Months

Of the 22 students that submitted their 2012 year-end report cards to us and that have attended our program for at least one quarter, 12 showed improvement and 7 maintained their grades – an astounding achievement in Nicaragua, where student’s grades generally start to deteriorate in the second half of first grade until they eventually drop out. The most profound changes appeared in the grades of our most regular attendees who have studied with us for two quarters, some who have gone from failing to top of their class.

Success!  Below are a few examples of our student’s report cards:

8 year old Prisila was failing second grade before she started in our program. After 6 months with our program, she is now amazingly earning perfect notes in math and reading/writing.

6 year old Andy was at high risk of not passing first grade. In six months of supplemental tutoring he has improved his math and readin/writing scores by 50 – 55 percentage points!

Keyla is another one of our students with excellent and attendance. In 6 months her grades have jumped 40 points in math and 30 in reading and writing. As her teacher has written: Great job on your improvement Keyla!

Francisco is consistently one of our best students. His teacher has written on his second grade report card: I hope you stay in school! We at Education Plus will do our best to help Francisco in this endeavor.

Prisila studying with the help of one of our dedicated volunteers

What Does Change Really Mean for the Children of Pantanal?

Nicaragua has the lowest net secondary school enrollment rate in Central America (43%) and the highest primary school dropout rate in Central America (50%). In Pantanal, which is extremely poor even by Nicaraguan standards, the graduation rate from elementary school is closer to 3 in 10.

While primary and secondary school education in Nicaragua is technically free, the Nicaraguan government spends barely over 3% of its GDP on education, and the quality of public education is substandard, to say the least.

Also due to poverty, Nicaragua has the highest child labor rate in Central America (11% of all children between ages 10 – 14), and is one of 13 countries in the world where coffee is produced by child or forced labor.

Education is key to breaking this cycle of poverty, but under these conditions, where do we start?

1. Proper nutrition through balanced meals daily gives the child energy to study and focus in class, and keeps them from begging in the streets.
2. Basic school supplies facilitate daily school attendance.  A pencil and notebook will allow the child to take notes and complete their homework.
3. A uniform allows the child to start school at the beginning of the year.
4. Learning English at Education Plus allows a child to obtain a skill that alone opens up a wealth of opportunities in tourism, teaching, and other middle class industries.  There is no more valuable skill for a young person to have in Nicaragua.
5. Supplementary tutoring, such as we provide in our after-school program, allows the child to fill knowledge gaps that are a result of the poor quality of education in the public school system, improving their grades and allowing them to pass university entrance exams.
6. Fun activities and rewards for hard work, all that make kids want to attend school!

Education Plus Nicaragua implements ALL of the above solutions.  Our goal is to give children real childhoods, the kind that come from learning and playing. You can read more about our developmental activities HERE.

Our “Zebras” class with the school supplies they earned through excellent attendance!

On November 6 and 7, 2012, Keith and Kelly Rodgers of Hope for Nica made a visit to our community as leaders of a Teethsavers Dental Brigade.  Teethsavers conducts dental brigades in impoverished communities throughout the world, teaching oral health, doing routine checkups and filling minor cavities.  But this is not all.  In Nicarauga, Teethsavers is an organization which works with the ministry of health in order to train local dental technicians.  When these technicians are not taking part in brigades for Teethsavers, they are at home helping their own communities!

Malnutrition, high sugar consumption (Nicaraguan’s consume more sugar per capita than any other country in the world), lack of funds for dental hygiene products, and a lack of dental services and education contribute to the generally troubling state of our students’ teeth.  The long term results are evident in the state of the teeth of the adults in our community, who begin to lose theirs at an early age.

The Rodgers family and 3 technicians kicked off the brigade by conducting a dental health class in the streets.  Over the course of 2 days, they then examined 132 of our students ages 6 – 13, filling 20 cavities, and visiting the homes of two of the most afflicted students.  Kelly Rodgers also donated dresses on behalf of Dress a Girl Around the World to these students.

Technician home visit

Teethsavers does not usually conduct brigades in our part of Nicaragua, but after months of campaigning we finally convinced the Rodgers’ group to pay us a visit from San Juan del Sur.  While they work in Barrio la Planta, the poorest barrio outside of San Juan del Sur, still, in Pantanal they were shocked by the poverty they saw. One of the technicians, herself from a poor town in the mountains of Nicaragua, broke down crying when she made the home visits and saw how our children lived.  She said had never seen such poverty in Nicaragua.

However challenging this brigade may have been for the team, we hope they think it was worth it as they made a big impact on the children’s lives they touched.  Besides helping prevent future pain by filling in minor cavities, they no doubt had a lasting impact through the education they provided.

Thank you so much to the Rodgers family and the Teethsavers technicians for coming to visit us.  May you be blessed as we have been blessed by you.

Boys watch the proceedings with curiosity

A majority of the children that come to Education Plus are hungry and malnourished.  The meal that they receive at our school may be the only meal they receive that day, and some may not receive meals at home for days at a time.  Even children that do receive meals at home end up malnourished because the inexpensive staples – rice and beans and oil – lack the necessary nutrients that children need to develop.  Milk is expensive for families and so many mothers give their children only sugar water.  This is why sometimes children as old as 2 years old still cannot walk.

Evidence of malnutrition in children can mostly be seen in lack of pigmentation in hair and skin, and also in energy levels (a telltale sign is children who chronically fall asleep in class and never smile).  Distended bellies and extreme thinness are also obvious sign.  However, obesity can actually be a signal of both malnourishment and undernourishment.  Obesity in our children comes not just from eating poor quality food, but also because many of our children were undernourished in the womb and as babies. Because of this, their bodies can no longer metabolize and store what food they do eat properly. As a result, their bodies store fat more readily than your average, non-malnourished person. 

While it is easier to see the change long-term change in nutrition levels in girls hair because they tend to wear it longer, you can see what just two weeks worth of proper nutrition made in Jose’s hair

For this reason, ten percent of adult Nicaraguans have Type II Diabetes, and one in four women in Nicaragua will die of this disease.  This is why it is so important to break the cycle of malnutrition if our children are to have a chance at real futures.

With your support, we fight malnutrition by providing at least one balanced meal and glass of milk or natural juice per day to all of our children, as well as a banana before they enter class, and a daily multivitamin for children 6 and under.  Every day our children receive a serving of fruits, a serving of vegetables, and a protein.

To help us in our mission to feed, educate, bring joy, and form a bright future for these children please consider visiting our donation page and making a donation today. 

Before (2012) and after (2014) photos of two of our current students.  You can see the major difference in energy levels.

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Below are photos and stories from 2012, our first year in operation.  Thanks to you, our supporters, things are much different today.  We now have 180 healthy children thanks to you.

Sweet little Karen in front of her house, where she lives with her mother and 2 siblings. The kitchen is a pile of wood located inside of the plastic bag house.

Elia is shown here smiling after an art project day. If you have a look at her arms though, you can see how skinny she is. She and her sister frequently ask for more food at school because they are very hungry. When they get their food, they eat it rapidly, as if they are afraid someone might take it away.

Little Diana (1.5), was recently very sick and had to go to the hospital. When her mother was asked what she fed her, she replied, only water and kool-aid, as this is all she could afford at the time. While we do not normally provide food to individual families, we went out and bought Diana milk and yogurt (pictured) as we considered this an emergency situation. She is now doing much better.

One clear sign of malnutrition is an unnatural lack of pigmentation in the hair, resulting in coppery and even blonde streaks. All three of these students, pictured during a library field trip.  show signs of malnutrition in this aspect.