We have been working furiously preparing for Patrick’s trip down to Nicaragua next week. Expect to see a lot more content and information in the next month.
For now, here’s an interesting blog post on baseball in Nicaragua. Hopefully this will help understand more of the culture of the area.
While we are having a conversation about Nicaragua and renewable energy, I wanted to call your attention to another organization working for electricity in Northeastern Nicaragua. In September 2007, Hurricane Felix devastated the Northeastern part of the country. It destroyed nearly 90% of the civil infrastructure and completely wiped out many communities. This is a a link to an organization online if you want to read more about this situation.
One of the jobs of this blog, as I see it, is to promote the humanitarian work already taking place in Nicaragua, and showing you the full spectrum of work that is being done so you can know the different ways in which you yourself can help. We are not just promoting energy solutions, but encouraging activism as well.
Microloans have received a lot of publicity in Bangladesh, but there is also a lot of work in microfinance being done in Nicaragua as well. Make sure to check out this article on how university students are bringing the idea of microfinance to Nicaragua. If you don’t know what microfinance is, you could read this wikipedia entry to learn more.
Local students from St Olaf (in Northfield, Minnesota) recently went to Nicaragua to take health surveys of the local population in Jalapa, Nicaragua. I think this closely ties to what we hope to see through our own organization, Bright New Ideas. We hope to build awareness of the situation in Nicaragua. Many of the students traveling there had their first experiences with poverty. Continue Reading
I came across this article about William Walker, the King of Nicaragua in the 1850’s. It’s an interesting look at history and events that not many people know about it. I also think it’s important to know the previous history of the United States in Nicaragua to hone our communications techniques in talking to local populations. To many people in Nicaragua, they know the intimate details of US involvement in their country. For us to ignore the historical background of the interactions of the two countries would put us at a significant disadvantage when talking to Nicaraguans. Rest assured, we are doing all the research we can on solar lighting as well as the culture and history of the country.
Finding good blogs in Nicaragua is a difficult task, but some of the best ones are actually those started and maintained by Peace Corp members.
Here is a directory of all the Peace Corp blogs in Nicaragua. Feel free to comment and tell us which ones you like the best!
