New Website!

This marks our 9th year working within communities in Nicaragua and Costa Rica where we currently have enrolled more 300 at risk youth and street children in schools and have worked in depth with their families and communities to reinforce the educational efforts of each child.
In this time, we have learned much about the people, the cultures, the politics and the barriers to education and community development in this part of the world. We believe the stories of the kids, families and those of our staff and volunteers provide an interesting perspective -- a very different view of the world we all live in.

We've just launched a new website and encourage you to visit us at http://www.empowermentinternational.org/ . Our new website is an on-going initiative to bring these perspectives to light, to share the heart-warming and heart-wrenching stories and to explore the questions "why?" and "why not?"

Graduations!

I was told a story about a Nicaraguan lady who was in her 60ies. To this day she sadly recalls when she was a child that while she was able to attend school, she will never forget that she was not able to participate in the graduation cerimonies. In Nicaragua, these ceremonies come with many costs and while for us they are not much, for parents it is often difficult to find the funds.

November was a month of several graduations for our program participants and we are pleased they were all able to attend. I think you can see they were too. :-)

Nicaragua February 2006 - A day in a life of a young Nicaraguan girl

February 5, 2006

Bob wanted to film a "day in a life of Maria Magdelena" and while he focused mostly on the video portion, he took some still shots and some are here. Maria, is a quiet and reserved young of lady of the age of 8 and has 7 siblings. She attends the 2nd grade in school and hopes to be a teacher when she grows up. When she gets up in the morning she helps her mother by going out and picking chilli peppers which her mother sells in the afternoon while the children are in school (kids go for only half a day in Nicaragua). The walk is long to find these peppers and the amount of money her mother makes is extremely low. Maria also helps with household chores since her mother is on her own (no father in the picture). They live in a house made of plastic and it amazes me how they manage to keep the kids so clean, especially for school.

The road to Maria's house.

Maria and four of her siblings

Maria on her walk to get chilli peppers





















Maria picking the peppers.

Maria getting her school uniform off the clothes line.
















Maria and her brother.

Maria's little sister getting a bucket bath.


















While Her mother cooks lunch Maria get's ready for school, as well as her brother and sister.


















Maria gets ready for school.



































She eats her lunch





































Then off to school!