Today’s La Prensa (national Nicaraguan newspaper) reports that the working age population grew by 70,000 people between 2001 and 2005. It’s estimated that by 2010, an additional 118,000 new workers will come of age to enter the workforce.

Great – more hands to work! Wait a sec: Nicaragua lags far behind the rest of Latin America in education. According to the article’s subheading, many Nicaraguan children don’t finish elementary school – city kids make it to 4th grade and children from the exterior reach just 2nd (I assume these are dropout averages; unfortunately, this report gives no specific numbers or statistics).

Economist Adolfo Acevedo Vogl identifies the problem: that this enormous mass of youth is entering and – without drastic change – will continue to enter the labor market with an extremely low level of education. The result? They won’t find decent employment, social discomposition will continue, as will migration, and Nicaragua’s poverty dilemma becomes worse with no forseeable solution.

What if there were a way to help education get better in Nicaragua? Instead of imagining the impact of 118,000 uneducated workers entering an economy (the horror!), let’s imagine 118,000 educated and empowered workers joining the ranks of Nicaraguan society. What a tremendous potential for change!

Listen: It’s no secret to Nicaraguans that they have urgent poverty problems. And it’s no secret to Nicaraguans that education is the key to a brighter future. What stands in the way is opportunity; they need to give their youth opportunities to develop into the free-thinking, sound-reasoning individuals that every human being deserves the right to become.

Opportunity lives in a spark of light.

The solar lamps from Bright New Ideas create opportunity because they bring light into a child’s evening, so that he or she can study, learn, and grow. Light leads to enlightenment. This is Solar EnLightenMent.

This is hope for Nicaragua’s future.