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British Ambassador pays us a visit

Last week the British Ambassador to Nicaragua and Costa Rica, Tom Kennedy, made a two day visit to León.  His time here was spent visiting four different projects with British connections.  The Ambassador visited the Nuevas Esperanzas office in León to meet the team and watch the new DVD of our projects.  The following day he visited some of the members of the community of San Jacinto who have been involved with Nuevas Esperanzas’ rainwater harvesting projects.  He met Rolando Castillo, the pastor of the Baptist church, and saw the rainwater harvesting tank at the church as well as visiting Doña Lucretia, one of the beneficiaries of the project, to hear about the change that having a better water supply has made to her over the last year.  She was not at all intimidated by her important visitor although did joke about how small she felt standing between the Ambassador and Nuevas Esperanzas Director, Andrew Longley, for a photo!

Writing after his visit, the Ambassador said "It makes such incredibly good sense to harvest the excess of rainwater during the rainy season and store it for use in the dry season. But the methodology is all important. You have found a method that works. I wish you all the very best in extending your project up into the hills. I am sure it will be a lot more work for you. But I am also sure that the people there have great need and will appreciate all the more the results of your work."

The Ambassador also had the chance to see Del Campo, a cooperative set up by Nick Hoskyns who came to Nicaragua from the UK almost 20 years ago.  Del Campo and Etico, an ethical trading company he also set up, work to export sesame and other products to markets in the UK as diverse as The Body Shop and McDonalds.  The Ambassador visited the processing plant of the Del Campo cooperative where imported sesame from Ethiopia was being unloaded at one end, whilst at the other end Nicaraguan sesame was being packaged for export to Israel.  Those seeds will be well travelled when they reach their final destination!

This visit was followed by a tour of the geothermal power plant at San Jacinto, managed by British engineer, Jim Randle, where the Ambassador saw first hand the potential for generating power which exists in such a volcanically active region.  Construction work is currently underway to scale up the output of the plant which has the potential to meet half of the energy demand for the whole country.  Nuevas Esperanzas has received assistance from Polaris Energy Nicaragua for projects in San Jacinto and looks forward to developing this constructive partnership in the future.

There was also a visit to the office of Condor SA, a British mining company based in León with interests in many different parts of Nicaragua.  British geologist Lewis Harvey explained the process of prospecting for gold whilst his Nicaraguan colleagues explained some of the work which Condor undertakes to fulfil its environmental and social obligations in the communities where they are working.  Nuevas Esperanzas is now investigating possibilities for future collaboration with Condor in implementing environmental and social projects.

We were really pleased to have this chance to meet the Ambassador and introduce him to our work, as well as to visit the other projects. The Ambassador was the first official visitor to the newly furnished office of Nuevas Esperanzas UK since our separation from FUNDAPADELE in April this year.  As an independent NGO registered in the UK and in Nicaragua, we now work as a single team from our office in León.  Looking to the future, plans to establish Nuevas Esperanzas Nicaragua as an independent national NGO are already underway.

26/05/08