English Summary

The Nicaragua-Verein Oldenburg e. V.
is a NGO that maintains a partnership with the county of San Francisco Libre in Nicaragua. Its representative in Nicaragua is the association APEDEN (Asociación para el desarollo y la recuperación ecológica de Nicaragua = Association for the environmental development and recovery of Nicaragua), which realizes the projects with the help of the Nicaragua-Verein.  With the program “Weltwärts” of the Department for International Development the Nicaragua-Verein sends four German volunteers to San Francisco Libre each year. There they support APREDEN working on different projects. The two organizations have been committed to the following projects.

The Library
With the help from the Nicaragua-Verein APREDEN maintains the county library. At present two Nicaraguan women and two German volunteers work in the library. One can borrow books in the library and children can participate in a program which is offered by the staff and the volunteers. They offer handicraft work, art courses, sports, computer classes, reading groups etc. They also offer cinema for children, teenagers and adults. In this year APREDEN is busy with the removal of the library. The removal has become necessary because of the floods that affected the county in the last years. The construction of the new building is financed with the help of the Kindermissionswerk in Germany.

Scholarships
Once a month 105 families in the county are given 350 Cordobas and therefore they are obliged to send their children to school. The money helps them to survive without their children working. Additionally they can buy the materials that are necessary for school and the school uniform. APREDEN organize the paying of the scholarships and one of the four volunteers is responsible for the exchange between the scholar and the German donator. In that way the Germans (school classes, families and individual persons) learn something about “Nicaraguan reality”.

Environmental center “La Guayabita”
La Guayabita is an area of 2.1 hectares with an original forest that has an extraordinary biodiversity. There is also an old and typical house and a house for the family guarding the area, a nursery garden for the reforestation in the county and an allotment for the production of medical plants and ornamental plants.