Nicaragua in crisis: What Can You Do to Help

The sun is getting low in the sky as we near the end of our last home visit. The girls are excited to show us their notebooks. Jim and I flip through the pages of perfectly lined up sentences and neatly arranged numbers. “What’s your favorite subject?” I ask the younger sister through our translator, as my Spanish is to this day very poor. “Math” she responds shyly. Both girls are doing incredibly well in school in all of the subjects and their mother cannot hide the pride in her voice. We scan the small dark room where the family conducts most of their activities. The floor is nothing but hard clay and there are only bare necessities here, but it’s a cheerful atmosphere overall. We step outside and I take a family photo in their small front yard; I show them my LCD and the girls wave happily goodbye.

It’s July 2017 and we are visiting Nicaragua, the rather quiet, but colorful town of Granada. This is my second visit to the country and I’m delighted to be part of the girls’ success story. They are sponsored by Empowerment International (EI), a non-profit we are now proudly a small part of. Thanks to the organization and through individual sponsorships, young girls and boys of Granada and nearby communities are given a chance at a better life through education, after school programs and mentoring. The success stories are numerous and several of the children have now moved on to either well paying jobs or a university level education. This, in a country like Nicaragua, is no small feat at all.

But you may ask why I am bringing this up now. I wrote about my trip to Nicaragua back in 2016. So why am I writing about it again? Plain truth is this: Nicaragua is in trouble. The civil unrest that has plagued the country since April of this year is nothing short of astonishing. The country is in political disaster and, as in most cases of struggle for power, civilians are gravely affected. What’s even worse is that Nicaraguan crisis has not received its fair share of coverage in the international media. Most of us are completely unaware of what is going on over there unless we know someone who has been directly affected. I was even surprised to find out that tourists who have recently visited the more remote parts of the country were completely oblivious to what has been going on in the streets of Managua and beyond. And yet…Nicaraguans are suffering and their future is highly uncertain. The already fragile economy is currently in shambles. Inflation is on the rise, business are letting go of their employees and tourism is on a steady decline. All of these factors negatively affect the general population.

I think of the girls whose home I visited that hot July day last year and of all their friends who are likely struggling more now than ever. I look at the photographs of the proud, smiling faces I have met and my heart is heavy with sadness. I cannot help but wonder, where are they now? How are they spending their days? Will I be ever able to visit them again? My heart breaks and I feel powerless.

But there are things we CAN do to help. First and foremost, we can become educated on what is going on and spread awareness. I believe that the bigger the outcry from the general population, the more likely the international community will finally wake up and take action. The world is now more connected than ever and the information is available for those seeking it. As I google most recent news on Nicaragua and watch videos some of the bravest people have released to social media risking everything including their lives, I cannot help but to share my part and to say a prayer for the safe and free future of the Nicaraguan people.

Second of all, we can support organizations working on the ground in Nicaragua who help some of the most impoverished populations. One of those organizations is EI, which is relentlessly operating to keep the children in school and is now looking to provide them with at least one healthy meal a day as the economy plummets, severely impacting these already vulnerable families and children. Having seen EI’s work first hand over the past couple of years, I can vouch for its rectitude and its efficiency. EI has also started several additional initiatives such as First Aid training for community members and emotional support systems for families going through these very challenging times. For more info, visit Empowerment International 

But EI is not the only organization worth supporting. Another non profit we got to know first hand while visiting Granada is Tio Antonio The group does amazing work with handicapped youth and adults in Nicaragua. Their aid model relies on visitors purchasing hand made hammocks thus providing jobs for the most vulnerable in the community. Tio Antonio also ran a restaurant which has had to close since the situation in Granada worsened. Lastly, if you want contribute and learn Spanish at the same time, you  can take private online classes with La Mariposa Spanish School .How awesome it would be to learn another language and contribute to a social cause at the same time?

During my research on recent events in Nicaragua, I came upon With Many Roots blog authored by Sophia Cheng. She is a wonderful writer who has complied a list of the various organizations and financial initiatives on the ground in Granada and I kindly ask you check them out too. Sophia wrote an excellent post about the situation in Nicaragua and I’m totally deferring to her for more information. She is also asking a question that really hit me tonight: “Do we as tourists have a moral obligation to offer support (financial or otherwise) to the countries that we’ve visited?” Is it ethical of us to enjoy everything a country has to offer, including its food, its hospitality and the natural wonders we often explore, but then to forget about all of that as soon as some sort of crisis hits the region? It’s a tough question to answer and I will leave it at that for a while. As an avid and frequent traveler, I’m pretty sure you all know what my personal answer to this is.

http://www.withmanyroots.com/blog/what-s-going-on-in-nicaragua

This situation makes me think about one last thing too: you never really know whether the place you long to see will always be safe and available for you to visit. As history has shown, anything can happen anywhere and a country that is seemingly safe and welcoming today may suddenly close its doors due to political upheaval or even a horrific natural disaster from which it takes years to recover. So my point today and always is this: buy that plane ticket, take that trip. You never know if you’ll get a chance again.