Sharing Resources Worldwide Brings School Desks to Mulukuku, Nicaragua
Lisa Fernandez, BSN
This article originally appeared on the Nursing Matters Website. Reprinted with permission.
Click here to see the article on the Nursing Matters web site.
In the past year, Sharing Resources Worldwide (SRW) has shipped 4 40 foot containers laden with school desks, school supplies and basic medical supplies to Mulukuku, Nicaragua. Mulukuku is a remote, impoverished area in the mountains of northeast Nicaragua, populated by subsistence farmers and virtually ignored by the government. State schools are almost non-existent and few children have access to education. Sister Sandy Price has lived and worked in Mulukuku for the last 22 years, and has built 40 one- and two- room schoolhouses. Her parish provides teacher training, and children are served regardless of religion, race or culture. These schools were in desperate need of supplies, and even basic furnishings. When SRW heard in 2003 that there were over 1000 children in these schools who were sitting on dirt floors to do their studies for lack of school desks, we knew we could do something about it.
So ... SRW put out a message to the Lion’s Clubs of Wisconsin, and the calls started coming in! From Kiel, Cornell, Cadott and all over Wisconsin, Lion’s Club members responded. And lo and behold, in barns and storage rooms and hay carts, Lion’s club members had been storing discarded school desks, knowing that someday they would find a new home. Over the last year and a half, we have picked up and shipped close to 1000 school desks, and hundreds of boxes of school supplies.
Close to $20,000 to cover shipping costs has been raised through generous individual donations and a marvelous fundraising event organized by two nurses, an OT, and a physician. (The Best French Toast on the Planet benefit breakfast for Mulukuku, Nicaragua, drew over 150 people and raised over $3,400; funds that were used to ship a container of desks and supplies to Mulukuku.).
Here is an excerpt from my diary as I traveled to Mulukuku in November 2004.
I got up at 4 a.m. to shower and prepare for the trip to Mulukuku, and then hopped into a taxi for the trip across town to the bus station. Of the 8-hour bus ride to Mulukuku, about 45 minutes was on paved road. The rest was either mud or dirt. The bus trip comes complete with mud, chickens, roosters, lots of pressing human flesh, and no restroom stops (therefore, nothing to drink!). Moments of beauty throughout - the tenderness of a papa with his baby son on the bus, a glimpse of a beautiful and exotic bird out the bus window, watching a passenger give up his seat to a mother carrying a small child.
I arrived in Mulukuku hot, hungry and dirty and made the short walk to the small compound of buildings that houses Sister Sandy and the young sisters and others who work with her and the programs she oversees. It is a beautiful spot, with lots of exotic trees and plants, and animals everywhere - horses, ducks, chickens, roosters, and the resident pet parrot. The buildings are very primitive and simple, but the exteriors are painted with beautiful murals by local artists. The atmosphere is gentle and kind, and I was warmly greeted and fed rice and beans, tortillas and coffee. All our meals there were rice and beans and tortillas, with the additions of duck or chicken on occasion. (You know meat is fresh when you just saw the chicken get its neck wrung about an hour before dinner) And the tortillas!! They are puffy and fragrant and delicious!
Mulukuku was everything it needed to be and more, and though it was not an easy four days, it was very rewarding and necessary. I want all of you who have helped with the Mulukuku school desk project to know that there are desks everywhere you look! In the buildings, in the streets of Mulukuku, and of course in the schools. The school supplies are in use all over the community. The medical supplies are in use at the local health clinic run by Nurse Dorothy Granada. Everywhere you look, you see things SRW has sent, and you can be sure that everything will be very well used. I was able to see first hand just what a difference our efforts are making, and how badly our help is needed.
I spent one day visiting a school way up in the mountains - an hour by bus and then an hour walking through mud and fording two streams on fallen-tree “bridges.” Though the trip was a bit harrowing, it was worth every step. For there in that remote mountain school were those cast-off desks we gathered from schools, sheds and barns all over Wisconsin! And there were these kids sitting in them, so proud and happy.
What an improvement over the dirt floor which had been their seat for so long! They were very shy at first, but then opened up and sang for us. They asked politely if we could send them baseball equipment: they have absolutely no sports equipment or anything to play with. As we walked back from the school, a boy came by on horseback and offered me his horse to ride back out to the road. It was great fun trekking through the hills on horseback and it kept my shoes dry too!
You may wonder how those cast-off desks arrived in such a remote community to begin their new lives. Earlier this fall, they were unloaded from the container in Managua and transferred to cattle carts, which transported them to Mulukuku.
From there, fathers of the students have been picking them up to carry them by horseback to the mountain schools. The school we visited was by far the closest - many are an all day trip by horseback. But one way or another, those kids are getting their desks and supplies!!
Possibilities and opportunities - that is what Sharing Resources Worldwide and nursing are all about. The chance to help, to heal, to make a difference. Would you like to explore opportunities in SRW?
You could: organize a school supply collection drive, host a fundraiser, volunteer to help sort medical supplies at the SRW warehouse, make a donation, and much, much more.
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