Over spring break, Jess Smith ’09 and Kevin Young ’07, members of the student group Wesleyan in Nicaragua (WIN), and Adjunct Professor of Spanish Octavio Flores spent 10 days in Nagarote, Nicaragua. At an informal panel on Friday, the trio, along with Perry Maddox, the field director for the Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project, discussed the trip and the future of opportunities for international service at Wesleyan.
“Academia is very isolated from much of the rest of the world and I see this project as trying to close the distance,” Young said.
While in Nagarote, Young, Smith, and Flores worked most closely with teachers, the student recipients of scholarships from Sister City, and the Sister City director’s board in Nagarote in order to address the need for teaching materials such as maps, charts, and textbooks. Smith and Young worked with the students to paint a mural on the side of the Sister City sponsored pre-school and near a housing project build by Sister City, and to write and perform two socio-dramas for the community. Flores coached students in the creation and editing of two ethnographic documentaries.
Smith, Young, and Flores all found the dire situation of families and students in Nagarote, a city with a 50 percent unemployment rate and 90 percent underemployment rate, eye opening. According to Young, many classrooms are equipped with one or two textbooks for a class of twenty or more students. Smith added that while in Nagarote, students explained to her that they often collect money in order to buy a single marker for a single teacher so that he or she may write on the dry-erase boards in their schools.
“[The students in Nagarote] really are thirsty for knowledge, but the lack of materials is prohibitive,” Smith said.
Sean Corlett ’07, who is currently studying abroad, started WIN, an international service group, in the fall of 2004. Young joined that year along with approximately eight other students. Though limited funding made a trip that year unfeasible, Smith’s presence in the group this year, and a collaborative effort focused upon an aggressive search for monetary support, led to a successful trip, which took place from March 14 to March 24.
Among others, the group sought the aid of Flores, who, impressed with the students’ goals, agreed to help.
“When [Smith] came to me and presented [the project] to me, I just couldn’t say no,” he said.
University Center Director and Dean of Campus Programs Rick Culliton provided the main financial support that ensured the success of the visit.
The group worked with the Norwalk/Nagarote Sister City Project, a non-profit based in Norwalk, Conn. Sister City was started in 1986 in order to show solidarity with the Nicaraguan people during the Contra-War in which the United States trained and supported the Contras. When the war ended, Sister City shifted its focus mostly toward sustainable development. The organization currently conducts eight projects in Nagarote, including a reforestation project, a system of bicycle loans for community leaders, scholarships since school in Nicaragua is not free, a housing project, an at risk youth project, and a new pre-school.
“Now knowing this group, I’d be happy to work with you on any of our projects,” Maddox said.
As part of Sister City’s reforestation project, Smith and Young went door-to-door with some of the students in Nagarote asking residents if they would like to receive a tree and if they would promise to care for these trees once they were donated.
The group’s two socio-dramas centered upon drug abuse and the repercussions of drug abuse in a domestic context, and on gender roles in Nicaragua. Smith stressed the productivity of the socio-dramas as a forum for the students to express pressing issues and concerns they may not readily be able to voice.
“These are things that don’t get brought up at the dinner table,” she said.
Flores also met with community leaders, parents, and public school teachers, but worked mostly on the video documentaries, including a second about the lack of readily available clean water in the Jerónimo López barrio near Nagarote, that were produced during the last three days of the trip. Yet, Flores took a role in the background, urging the students in Nagarote to take the lead. They rose to the occasion, designing, producing, and organizing the logistics for the two videos. In addition, Flores taught the students how to edit in the process of making the video without sophisticated equipment.
“[The students] really took it seriously,” Flores said. “For me [making the documentaries] was an exciting way of getting to know people and to see the real problems [in Nagarote].”
After their presentation, Smith, Young, Flores, and Maddox answered questions and discussed future plans for the group. Next year, Smith hopes to start a student group that will be responsible for fundraising and planning for the trip to Nagarote. In addition, Smith and Young intend to facilitate a student forum that will give a background in Nicaraguan history and culture.
“An educational component is really key because you can’t go to a country like Nicaragua and not know why you’re there,” Smith said. “I think that a marriage between educational systems down there and an educational institution here like Wesleyan could be very productive because we have a lot to offer.”
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