View the blog for our 2014 Nicaragua Service-Learning Trip Here!
From January 5th – 15th, a group of our Big Picture students will travel to San Ramón, Nicaragua for Explore Week on a service-learning trip with the Montpelier, Vermont-based non-profit Planting Hope /Sembrando Esperanzas.
Students will work with the children of coffee workers, who are busy around-the-clock during the coffee harvest (December and January). This is a fantastic opportunity for cultural exchange, learning language, and exploring the social and environmental aspects of coffee-growing regions.
Our students will work with the children of coffee workers, who are busy around-the-clock during the coffee harvest (December, January, and February). We will be running “Coffee Camps” for the children, where they are fed two snacks and a healthy lunch each day, prepared by a local cook and a parent volunteer.
They also receive healthcare checkups by a local nurse, day care and a chance to participate in organized alternative educational and recreational activities, all facilitated by a teacher and assistant. Coffee Camps provide less formal, more accessible educational experience for these children, in an attempt to bridge the gap between the children who do not usually attend school and the formal educational system in Nicaragua.
The Coffee Camps provide a pathway to formal education for those children who have slipped through the cracks in the education system. Meals, medical care and learning materials are provided to participating children at no cost. By creating a positive educational experience, it is hoped that parents are enticed to enroll their children in school and that based on their positive experience at camp, and children are motivated to study throughout the year.