Blog

Short-term NDI community enhancement projects are one-time events that fill a need that the community is unable to manifest often due to a lack of economic resources. These projects have included an art project where community members painted basketball courts with beautiful mural artwork and an electrical project that fixed electrical wiring in the Moyogalpa Center of Health.  Short-term projects are implemented as needs are discovered and volunteers with tremendous hearts and skills discover NDI.

Art Project: Painting “La Cancha”

This 4-day project could not have been realized without the tremendous efforts of Josúe Rojas of San Francisco, a native Salvadoran artist. Over 100 kids and adults came out to paint “La Cancha”, the community ball courts where townsfolk spend their evenings talking and hanging out. The project inspired people of all ages to express themselves through artwork. Local kids were filled with a sense of pride as they took brushes in hand and watched their old faded walls transform into new murals that have become the talk of the island. Painting “La Cancha” has been, by far, the most fun project that NDI has done so far!

Retired Northeast Utilities worker, Clifford Parker, made his first trek to Central America in May of 2005 where he worked for 2 weeks re-wiring the Moyogalpa Center of Health. Mr. Parker found the original wiring to be quite advanced, but found that environmental factors, particularly the humidity and insects, had damaged many light fixtures and switches. Thank you Cliff for brightening our world in Nicaragua.

NDI worked with local community health workers to build a community garden in 2006. The small teaching garden was housed at Casa Xilohem, a local women’s cooperative that has a group who practices botanical medicine but has since been closed.  While the project taught us many lessons about the pros and cons of a community garden, we learned how to make it more viable in the future. Plans to build a NDI medicinal plant garden at the Moyogalpa Center of Health where NDI has its clinic are developing. This garden will provide the space to teach classes on botanical medicine for those interested.