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A beautiful land of lakes and volcanoes with a rich cultural heritage, Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in Latin America and has a long history of exploitation, dictatorship and civil war. The 1979 revolution was followed by almost a decade of bitter conflict and a devastating trade embargo which claimed the lives of over 30,000 and brought the economy to the point of collapse. Since the end of the war in 1990, significant progress has been made towards national reconciliation, but subsequent corruption and disputes over land ownership have caused lingering unrest.
Nicaragua is also a country that has been repeatedly devastated by natural disasters, including the Managua earthquake of 1972 which killed an estimated 10,000 and Hurricane Mitch in 1998 which killed at least 3,500. Many other disasters have not attracted so much international attention as these, and the country is constantly at risk from earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, mudslides, and drought. Not only have the death tolls, mass displacements and human suffering been catastrophic, but the economic effects of these disasters have been profound and long-lasting.
The economy of Nicaragua has been based on a limited range of exports, resulting in dependency, vulnerability to adverse market conditions and concentration of resources and power into the hands of the wealthy elite. The growth and decline of export crops such as cotton consolidated land into huge plantations, dispossessing small farmers, depleting the land of nutrients and contaminating it with pesticides. |
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Key statistics
source: UNDP, 2009 |
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Nuevas Esperanzas serves rural communities in Nicaragua from its base in the historic city of León on the Pacific coastal plain in the west of the country. Whilst the main focus of work is on long-term development programmes in the Department of León, Nuevas Esperanzas also implements short-term projects in other parts of western Nicaragua from Somotillo, near the border with Honduras in the north, to Granada on the shores of Lake Nicaragua in the south. These short-term projects are usually in support of long-term programmes implemented by partner organisations. Nuevas Esperanzas is also committed to supporting emergency relief work in any part of Nicaragua if appropriate and in 2007 undertook emergency water and sanitation work in Rosita in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) after Hurricane Felix.
The two principal long-term programmes are:
Cerros de Los Maribios, Municipality of Telica, Department of León This programme aims to assist around 1,100 people in the dispersed rural communities of Agua Fría, El Ojochal del Listón, El Ñajo, El Caracol, Mata de Caña, El Cacao and Las Pilas located on the hillsides above the village of San Jacinto. Around 150 families live in the hills around Volcán Telica and Cerro Rota with virtually no water, sanitation or electricity, accessible on horseback only when the weather permits. These are families of traditional campesinos. Whilst very poor (most live from subsistence agriculture and have an income of less than $1/day), these rural people live in relatively stable, tight-knit families and communities. They manage and farm a very large area of land in the upper part of three important river catchments which have suffered significant environmental degradation over the last 50 years through deforestation.
La Palmerita, Municipality of Larreynaga, Department of León “La Palmerita” is the name for a former cotton plantation in the Department of León, near the town of Malpaisillo. It is occupied by former coffee workers from the north of Nicaragua who were displaced as a result of the hardships associated with a slump in the global coffee market from 2000 to 2001. Following protests in Managua, this low-lying farmland was promised to the coffee workers who started to settle there towards the end of 2001, living in shelters made from sheets of black polythene. Although the land had been given to the coffee workers by presidential decree, uncertainty over land rights continued. The lack of progress on land titling limited the potential for much-needed development assistance for this fledgling community until a concerted effort by Nuevas Esperanzas and several other charitable organisations and government agencies enabled the construction of 112 permanent houses in 2007.
Short-term projects in other areas include:
Department of Chinandega El Ojoche, Municipality of Somotillo: nine rainwater harvesting systems (with Food for the Hungry) San Gilberto, Municipality of Posoltega: design of water supply (with World Vision) Municipality of Villanueva: design of water supply (with Mayor of Villanueva)
Department of León La Unión, Municipality of Telica: design of water supply (with Mayor of Telica) Nuevo Amanecer, Municipality of Telica: rainwater harvesting (with Students for 60,000) Municipality of Telica: investigation of arsenic contamination (with Mayor of Telica)
Department of Estelí Municipality of San Nicolás: design of water systems for three communities (with World Vision)
Department of Matagalpa Waswalí Abajo, Municipality of Matagalpa: rainwater harvesting (with CARE)
Department of Granada Asese peninsula, Municipality of Granada: resettlement project, design and EIA (with SIFT)
North Atlantic Autonomous Region (RAAN) Municipality of Rosita: emergency water and sanitation (with MINSA)
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