The Organizations Behind CHESS Nicaragua

The key national program involved with CHESS Nicaragua is Programa Alianzas para la Educacion y la Salud USAID, which brings together private businesses and helps them allocate funds given by USAID to create collaborations that will improve education and health in Nicaragua. CHESS Nicaragua is the result of one of these alliances between part of the Nicaraguan private sector, Gran Pacifica, and Rotary Clubs in the USA, who are very excited to join forces with Programa Alianzas para la Educacion y la Salud USAID. The aim is to improve the lifestyle of the people who live in Villa El Carmen, the vicinity of the Gran Pacifica development, knowing that healthier and more educated communities will contribute to a better relationship with the development and a more positive experience overall for everyone involved with the project. CHESS Nicaragua - aim is to assist the municipality in achieving community empowerment through improved primary school education and health.

Managed by innerCHANGE associates international, (CHESS Nicaragua) will, over the course of the next 28 months, deliver almost $300,000 in products and services to the communities of Villa el Carmen, the municipality in which Gran Pacifica is located. The formalization of the alliance between Gran Pacifica and Rotary, and USAID funding has enhanced the potential for multiple long-term projects that can be sustained and helpful in the future.

CHESS Nicaragua covers 12 schools within the municipality, each with different numbers of primary school aged children, all in dire need of study materials and qualified teachers to help them improve their educational experiences. Another important goal CHESS Nicaragua has is to teach the primary school children the English language, as this is an increasingly integral skill in Nicaragua for future employment and lifestyle improvement. Libraries are another important aspect of the project as well as security in the schools. In addition, we would like for every teacher to know how to use the water filters CHESS Nicaragua will donate to ensure that water-borne illnesses are a thing of the past.

To see updated statistics on the population CHESS Nicaragua is benefiting please click here


Where is Villa el Carmen?

PROJECT SPECIFICS


This project builds on primary school peer-mentor programs, primary youth leadership programs, mother's nutrition programs, parent teacher associations, and health education programs in primary schools that are constantly being strengthened in the target communities. The CHESS Nicaragua project proposes to extend and enhance these initiatives through the following eight programs:


(1) Health education workshops in schools- will include topics such as appropriate use of latrines, importance of washing hands, handling water, and keeping water clean. The project will run six workshops as a whole and train 64 teachers in total.


(2) Training on how to use water filters- workshops will be given for educators with the objectives of (a) teaching the definition and importance of keeping and consuming clean water; (b) teaching the consequences of not doing so; (c) imparting the significance of a device that will bring them safe water; and (d) introducing the device and training for its use.


(3) Continuing training for English teachers- Workshops on interactive methodologies of teaching the English language will be held four times in 28 months. The workshops are run by professors from Universidad Centro Americana (UCA) with Masters Degree in teaching English. They are also members of the National Association of English Teachers in Nicaragua and offer these workshops almost for free as part of their mission to improve the quality of English Teachers in Nicaragua. At present there are 10 English teachers in Villa El Carmen. Gran Pacifica and Rotary Clubs will cover 18 courses in the English language at $90.00 each approximately for those teachers that need it the most.

(4) English for primary school kids- Local English teachers from Villa el Carmen schools will teach 2 hours per week to the students in 5th and 6th grade or if the school is multigrade and very small to all the students in the classroom (5 schools have only 2 or three classrooms which means that up to four different grades are together in one classroom). 11 schools out of the 12 are not teaching English to their primary grade students.


(5) Educational programs for pre-school and primary children

(6) Library programs for primary schools- Workshops on how to organize and use libraries


(7) Hands-on science and history in nearby protected nature/archaeology reserve in close coordination with students' parents and local government representatives –Workshop for primary teachers on Precolumbian history of the area.


(8) CHESS Nicaragua plans to fix a few wells with funding from Rotary Clubs and Gran Pacifica as well as do some physical improvements to the schools. In some schools wells have not been working for six years and children bring their own water to school. Gardens can not be planted and certain hygiene measures are very difficult to follow, such hand washing. We believe that having access to clean water is very important when talking about healthy productive students in school.