Sustain and SupportTowards our
goal of building sustainable education for
this village
Montegrande Primary (Nicaragua)
Open: November 2011
Arriving at Montegrande feels like arriving in another world in another time.
Ancient trees tower over everything else, providing shade for coffee plants. In other parts of Nicaragua, trees like these have been cut down long ago for firewood. Here they are filled with wildlife- birds, insects, small animals, and plants. The dilapidated hacienda house, once occupied by the German owners of the nearby goldmine, also instills a sense of the community’s rich and varied history.
The school, built several years ago, is another surprise. It is immaculate, and looks as if it could have been built this year. The sidewalks are swept, the latrines are clean, and there is no litter anywhere. The people in Montegrande obviously value education—some of the children walk up to two kilometers every day to attend school. The families take great pride in their school and work hard to maintain it. They are accustomed to working together for the common good, as they are part of the Danilo Gonzalez coffee cooperative, named for a 19 year old from the area who died fighting against the Contras in the 1980s. The leaders of the cooperative and the leaders of the parents’ association are often busy in meetings and workshops with various organizations to improve life in Montegrande.
Unfortunately, the two-classroom school did not have the capacity for all the students in the community. The forty-two children in the preschool and the second and third grade classes met in an old storeroom built over twenty years ago. With its cracked and uneven floor and rain coming in through the leaky roof and the wood slat windows, it was not an appropriate learning environment. Also, during the coffee harvest the storeroom would be filled with sacks of coffee, crowding the children and teachers into even smaller spaces.
This project was conducted in partnership with Seeds of Learning.
Project News
There's no related news for this project at this time. Please check back later!
