The Rotary Club of Toronto-Leaside

Superemos Foundation and "Christine King" Multi-Service Cooperative

Report On Projects For The Month Of June

Prepared by Vengel Moreno and Stephen Sefton, 9th July 2003

June was a busy month for all the projects. The continuing rains at the start of the month affected some of the activities and more students and pre-school children than usual were absent through illness. The cooperative agreed to start a low cost grocery store for project beneficiaries and we received news that a European organization has approved a grant for the legal advice activities we have been developing slowly since January.

Over the next few months the projects will be assisted by Fiona Graham who will help the cooperative improve its planning and evaluation routines and also provide English teaching support to the women's secondary school program and the pre-school. We also received important funding news from the Schooner Foundation, which has allocated a total of US$24,480 to the projects for the next twelve months. This grant provides much-needed financial stability for the women's education program and the pre-school covering 70% of the total costs of those programs for the next twelve months.

Environmental Workshop

In June the workshop completed the first phase of a program to help 20 communities in the northern department of Madriz. It is sometimes hard to visualize that these rural communities have virtually no amenities or services. Our cycle pumps help provide abundant water for domestic use, for irrigation of vegetable crops, and for watering farm animals.

The Association Europe Tiers Monde has provided this finance developing work originally started with funds from the Rotary Club of Toronto Leaside. To date this year the program has benefited 259 people.

Pre-school

The pre-school held several extra activities in June including a games day and a joint day of activities with another local pre-school. Very heavy rains made it impractical for us to hold our monthly Parenting Skills workshop. We were able to give the older children two weeks of English teaching with the help of Imra a young volunteer from Canada in Estelí for a month studying Spanish. Average attendance this month was 32, down slightly on May. We made no home visits in June because a letter from the parents explained all absences.

Healthcare

25 patients received attention during our monthly visit to assist the prison medical service in the local penitentiary. Dra Ivet Castillo hands the prescriptions to Gladys Ruiz in the dispensary and Gladys dispatches the medicine with the corresponding prescription to the penitentiary where the prison doctors distribute the medicines to the individual patients.

Dr. Aura Estela Garmendia is now giving general medical attention to the project beneficiaries, including the pre-school children, twice a month. Psychologist Dr Elena Corrales gives attention to project beneficiaries once a week.

Gladys Ruiz also gave four health education workshops in June; three to women in the craft skills program in the town of Santa Cruz and one to women in the secondary education night class program. The workshops cover reproductive health, sexually transmitted diseases, hygiene, and how to deal with parasites and other common ailments.

Social work

The social work program continued its normal activities in June except that no workshops were given to the night class students of the women's education program as a result of timetable changes to accommodate exam revision and the end of semester vacation. The other activities were:

Cake making - the best bit

Two workshops in the local penitentiary with women and young offenders

A total of 9 craft skills workshops in Estelí and Santa Cruz with 13 regular participants
Four sewing classes training two women in advanced dressmaking and tailoring skills
Setting up a full time legal aid service to supersede the program's informal legal advice work

Women’s Education program

The women's Adult Baccalaureate program reached a turning point in its development in June. It currently has over 180 active students.

Recent Ministry of Education policy changes make it difficult for our students to continue in the Adult Baccalaureate program we have run successfully since 1999. In June, the program focused on supporting students through the half yearly exam cycle applied for students of the Adult Baccalaureate program by the central Ministry of Education based in the capital, Managua. We expect the results during July. We are currently working with the local education authorities to broaden the options available to our students.

In our other programs of adult secondary education, our remaining 160 students are doing well. They will take the baccalaureate exams supervised by the local Ministry offices at the end of the year in which on past showing we expect to obtain a pass rate of around 70%.

Financial information

The June activities were financed as follows:

Program	Amount (US$)	Funding Source
Social work/skills training	605.00	Dorchester House Multi-Service Centre
Women's secondary education	1,120.00	Fiona Graham and colleagues (Brussels Belgium) and the Schooner Foundation (US)
Administration costs	235.00	"Christine King" Memorial Trust (UK) and own funds
Pre-school	1,248.00	Fiona Graham and colleagues and Schooner Foundation
Healthcare -	300.00	De Kalb Interfaith Network
Environmental workshop	608.00	Own funds and Association Europe Tiers Monde
Totals	4,116.00

We thank all our donors for the great support you give us to make these services possible to local people in Estelí. We are glad to be able to acknowledge the support of the Comité Aide a Nicaragua of Belgium, which has enabled us to improve the simple legal advice service we have offered in the past into a well-resourced legal aid office. That project began in the first days of July. We will report on its progress in the August report.