Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Volunteer day in El Pantanal


On Tuesday of last week we ventured to the school "Jose de la Cruz Mena" with a group of 30 students from San Francisco. The goal was to get their hands dirty and to experience Nicaragua outside of the tranquility of Granada. Our 3 projects included painting a murale, planting trees, and collecting garbage along the edges of the school. For the most part, the projects went smoothly and the teenagers got to know the children of the school quite well. Unfortunately, a crazy Spaniard named Nas started a paint fight and everyone ended up covered from head to toe. Luckily for everyone, the paint came off our skin and clothes easily.
The project with the trees will also provide volunteer opportunities for the students in Casa Xalteva. We will be needing students to visit the school and look after the trees. Watering and care projects will soon be implemented. As for now, the director of the school is in charge of making sure that the trees are watered.
The best part of the day was seeing all the children having fun with the "gringitos". So far we have been quite successful in making the children of the school laugh.. as we have wanted to (Si Quieres, Pueden Reir.)

Pictures from the volunteer day with the teens from San Francisco









Sunday, April 13, 2008

Do you want to help us??

If you would like to send us something that could help right now... We need dry eraser pens for the new acrylic white boards that we donated to the school. We have donated about 12, but we need to continue to donate the pens to the school as they dry out quite fast. Here is the address to Casa Xalteva if you are at all interested in this opportunity.

Casa Xalteva
Calle Real Xalteva #103
Igl. Xalteva 1/2 al Norte
Granada, Nicaragua
Please address your package with the name Juan Carlos Roblero and Si Quieres, Pueden Reir.


We are still working on a good way for foreign donations that does not require a lot of time or hassle. However, money is continually needed as our next big project requires a fairly large amount of money. We are hoping to build a few toilets for another school close by to "Jose de la Cruz Mena". The situation is very horrifying as there are 900 students and one toilet that does not work. Therefore, the conditions are EXTREMELY unsanitary and unsafe for the children. I will be posting more information on this topic soon. But for now, I would love to have feeback about ways to promote foreign donations and ways to send money to a country like Nicaragua.
please email me at puedenreir@gmail.com

thanks!

We Care About the Kids in El Pantanal


Jose De La Cruz Mena is becoming a more adequate environment for the Children of El Pantanal. On Friday, we delivered the school 2 brand new beautifully handcrafted wooden book shelves. The director of the school had made it clear to us that his biggest desire was to have a place to put all the books that had been donated to the school. So the director was extremely appreciative of the donation and requested that we place a plack on the book shelves with the name of our project "Si Quieres, Pueden Reir". This is so that the students of the school remember that our project has helped their school tremendously. We will of course follow through with this request.

This Tuesday, we will be returning to the school with a group of 30 students to do some serious volunteer work. Our plan for that day is as follows- 1 group will be planting trees around the edge of the fence to promote shade for the students. We will be buying trees that do not require a lot of water and thrive in the tropical conditions of Nicaragua. The second group will be collecting garbage in El Pantanal with a group of designated students from the school "Jose de la Cruz Mena". This is a great learning experience for the students from the USA because they will get to see how people in El Pantanal are living and will have a chance to improve the environmental conditions. It is also important for the Nicaraguan students, as there is a severe problem or lack of consciouness towards the physical environment. This beautiful country is ridden with garbage because of the simple act of littering pretty much everything. We hope to promote the simple task of placing garbage in the correct place (not in the streets, trees, gutters, ditches ect.) Our third project is going to be a murale that both our American students and Nica students will be doing together. The murale will be placed on an obvious wall in the school, so that the kids in El Pantanal can remember this day. I will be writing about this day, after it occurs, and I will be positing many pictures!

I also want to especially thank a fellow named Karsten from Denmark who not only donated a very generous amount to us but encouraged his friends at home to donate. Thank you so much for your kindness and generosity. His passion to help others is extremely obvious and we all think very highly of him. Que te vaya bien.

Que tengan un buen dia.
Kathryn, Andres, y J.C.

Monday, April 7, 2008

More Exciting NEWS!!!!!!~



We are extremely proud to tell you that we have completely finished supplying all the children in the school "Jose De La Cruz Mena" with school supplies (both the morning and afternoon classes.) As well as, we gave the preschool class a large package of colored paper, felt pens, glue, scissors, and other kinds of materials that are useful for art projects.

We also donated 6 brand new dry eraser boards to the school. This was one of the best moments for us, as the appreciation from the teachers was intense. One of the teachers almost cried as we presented her with a brand new "black board" for her classroom. This is a very special donation because the blackboards that the teachers were previously using were those that require chalk. Chalk is considered a health risk that can cause lung problems and conditions like asthma. Thus, we have improved the working conditions for the teachers greatly and it makes us feel very satisfied! THANKS TO YOU!!!


What is next? We have payed for 2 book shelves that will fit 300+ books. They are currently being built and we will deliver them to the school as soon as it's possible.

This week and the following week we have a group of 30 students from a highschool in San Franciso (French American International High School) studying spanish at Casa Xalteva and tonight we will be giving a presentation about our project! We will be presenting them with our goals and what they can do to help us. Our hope is to have a day where we can all go to El Pantanal to plant trees in the school yard in order to create needed shade.

Thank you for continuing to check the updates on our site.

Gracias por todo.
Kathryn, Andres, y Juan Carlos.