Educational Projects

Scholarships to Rural Students

SHEAF/ESPIGA provides scholarships for rural high school students in the Matagalpa area, where the Macadamia Plantations are situated.  Although high school education is free in Nicaragua, some students need assistance to pay for uniforms, supplies and travel costs.    In this area most students require transportation to go to high school.  The bulk of the population is located in small rural communities around the town of San Ramon where the high school is located.  The majority of students attend high school on Saturdays and Sundays rather during the week because their labour is required on the family coffee farms. SHEAF/ESPIGA has been pleased to provide needy rural students with transportation, uniform and textbook costs.

Post Secondary Scholarships

SHEAF/ESPIGA grants part scholarships to post-secondary students.  These scholarships are designed to cover transportation, school supplies and part of the tuition.  Students tend to go to school on weekends and work during theweek to help pay part of their tuition fees.  The majority of the students SHEAF/ESPIGA supports come from a small community called Chaguitillo.  A local committee, including the principal of the high school, vets students who submit applications for post-secondary studies. Once a student has been awarded a scholarship, SHEAF/ESPIGA will support the student until graduation if the student has had passing grades. The photo shows most of the students SHEAF is supporting. They are in first to fourth year of a post-secondary program including business administration, teaching, nursing, computer science and other technical programs.

Teacher Training

Teachers require specialized education to teach students with special needs. Teachers’ salaries in Nicaragua are too low to enable them to pay for this training.  SHEAF/ESPIGA endeavours to help offset this cost by paying tuition fees. Currently SHEAF/ESPIGA is supporting seven teachers who are teaching in the School for the Deaf in Managua. SHEAF/ESPIGA believes special needs students are best supported by teachers who are well qualified to meet their unique needs and are thus pleased to be able to provide this help.

Graduation Fees

On completion of their post-secondary education, students are required to pay a graduation fee which can range from $700 to $1,200 dollars and is often beyond the means of most graduates.  SHEAF/ESPIGA will provide financial assistance to offset this fee. If the fee is not paid, students do not receive their degree or diploma which affects their ability to obtain jobs and reduces their salary.

The graphic shows one of these invoices.

 

 

Batahola Cultural Centre

This centre in a poor area of the capital city in Managua.  It provides arts programmes for children and adolescents.  Children can take classes in learning to play a musical instrument, guitars, recorders, flutes or violin, singing, folk dancing and doing fine art, mostly painting. 
For poor children, this program is a boon, it provides a respite from the poverty of their crowded homes.  It has been shown that the children who participate in these programs not only do better in school but stay in school longer.  SHEAF is proud to be able to support this program.

The centre also offers literacy classes for adults, cooking classes for would be restaurateurs and sewing classes.  It also has a lending library.  Books in homes are very rare.   Even the schools seem to have very few story books, they have mainly text books and they are in short supply.

Remote School in Syksayari on the Rio Coco

SHEAF/ESPIGA has started to support a very isolated school in the village of Syksayari which can only be reached by boat, usually a motorized dugout canoe. The journey, from the closets city on Shore is Waspam, takes about 12 hours. It includes navigating rapids toward the end of the journey. The school has 352 students but only 4 official teachers. To solve the problem of too many children per teacher, they use 7 volunteers, who get paid a stipend or nothing at all. Moreover, the school virtually had no furnishings. Children sit on the floor. SHEAF/ESPIGA has provided funds for furniture made by local artisan and funds to augment the salaries of the volunteers.

 

The one activity children and adults love is playing baseball. SHEAF/ESPIGA has supplied baseball equipment via their donors as well as baseball uniforms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other Support

As well, SHEAF/ESPIGA has helped a young woman, Ileana, who graduated from pharmacy school, by granting her a micro credit loan to allow her to set up a pharmacy in the community of Chaguitillo which did not have a pharmacy. SHEAF/ESPIGA  supported this student throughout her pharmaceutical studies and was delighted to be able to provide her with a loan for her pharmacy to serve the community in which she grew up. Arrangements have been made for timely loan repayment.

 

Ileana's journey from high school to pharmacist