Involve your School
Become a Water Champion
Become a Water Champion
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“Education should not be the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” — William Butler Yeats
Change for Children offers professional development opportunities for Canadian teachers through an exploratory tour of projects for children and youth in Nicaragua. Email Lorena@changeforchildren.org for more information.
A Teacher's Tour sets out in long river boats on the Rio Coco in the BOSAWAS
For hundreds of years, the BOSAWAS Biosphere Reserve has been home to the Miskito and Mayagna peoples, currently the most impoverished population in Central America. Here, the situation is exacerbated by isolation, lack of resources, poor health conditions, child malnutrition, and child labor, since many poor children must contribute to their family’s income. The BOSAWAS has the lowest literacy rates in Nicaragua – especially amongst women and girls.
Education for girls is a priority! In addition to the construction of two new secondary schools in Bosawas, Change for Children is fundraising for education scholarships and a girls education campaign to support and encourage the education of girls and young women who currently lack opportunity.
Canadian teachers are needed to help with teacher training and curriculum development in BOSAWAS that will encourage education for girls and raise the level of education offered to the marginalized Miskito indigenous population of western BOSAWAS.
In Esteli, Change for Children works with FUNARTE (Foundation ART!) on a number of initiatives that support curriculum development and teacher training designed to encourage high risk students to stay in school or return to school. FUNARTE employs art therapy that reaches students within the school system as well as those who have dropped out to involve them in a process of healing through involvement in collective mural painting projects. As a result of FUNARTE’s amazing programming, Esteli is known as the “City of Murals” – with over 200 community murals promoting health, education, gender equality, environmental protection and human rights.
Canadian teachers are needed to participate in and expand programming to more neighbourhoods in Esteli, as migration to the cities by rural populations is on the rise.
In Northwestern Nicaragua our award-winning Nicaragua Water Project facilitates time for women and girls to pursue education and economic development by providing potable water access in drought stricken communities. Here, girls are now able to attend school because the time it takes to fulfill their household responsibility to secure the family’s daily water needs has been greatly reduced or eliminated. Many Canadian schools have been involved in fundraising to support water wells in Nicaragua communities.
Seeing this project first hand enables you to bring a unique and genuine connection to your students and school inspiring them to understand more deeply the global realities of water and the potential to impact change for others.
Email Lorena@changeforchildren.org for more information about professional development opportunities for educators.