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| coffee + rosquillas |
Last week I visited another 2 schools (in Somoto and in Estelí) affiliated with the ATC.
Somoto
Just outside of the city of Somoto is a school operated by UCANS, the Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of Nueva Segovia. UCANS was founded by some of the founding members of the ATC and thus is still heavily affiliated with ATC's work.
UCANS includes 35 official cooperative members as well as many other affiliated cooperatives.
There are cooperatives for basic grains, coffee,
rosquillas (a local corn-based cookie), wood furniture, community tourism, and more.
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| A view of the school and office grounds. |
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| More school grounds, including a tractor that cooperatives can rent. |
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| UCANS produces and sells local agricultural products for income and education. |
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| One of UCANS' products is tamarind jam. |
Alicja and I were fortunate enough to visit UCANS on a day when two team members were distributing plants and seeds to
promotoras de género (in this case, women who are trained in a to be popular educators and provide support in their own communities, especially with other women). We were able to meet and speak with a number of promotoras as well as see their homes and production spaces.
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| Somoto is known as the city of burros. |
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| A neat chicken house at the home of one of the promotoras. |
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| Chickens and turkeys in the home of another promotora. |
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| Tortillas being made by the mother of one promotora. |
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| Yum. |
While distributing plants, we took a side trip with Marlen (one of the promotoras) and David (Marlen's brother) to visit a remote Rio Coco foot bridge project completed last year by the Nicaraguan government in the community of Las Papayas.
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| En route to Las Papayas. |
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| River crossing for humans and other animals. |
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| Hiking up the hill to the bridge. |
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| We arrived. |
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| View from the bridge. |
Estelí
In Estelí, we visited
the ATC's Escuela de Tabaco (School of Tobacco), formed in 2014 at the ATC
departmental office. Here, youth from the countryside and city come to
learn how to roll cigars in order to gain employment in one of the town's
countless tobacco factories. Work in one of Esteli's 60+ tobacco factories is
one of the best paying jobs in the city (although not without many
problems). Most of Estelí's completed cigars are bound for Cuba, Europe,
and the States.
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| Entrance to the Escuela de Tabaco. |
The day we visited, we were able to observe the practicum portion of a month-long tobacco rolling course for women. These practice days provide valuable training that makes gaining employment much easier. In 2015, 90% of graduates in the tobacco rolling courses have gone on to find employment in local factories.
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| Students in the course practice rolling cigars for a full weekend. |
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| Rolling |
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| Cutting out a piece of tobacco leaf to make the cigar cap. |
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| Finished cigar. |
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| Escuela de Tabaco team |
To date, I have visited 4 ATC schools - all with different types of courses, goals, resources, and historical contexts. Visiting these schools has helped me learn a lot about the ATC's methods of organizing and education. It has also helped put into context the work to construct IALA Mesoamerica, where I am assisting some program development initiatives. Later this week, I will be visiting the site that hopes to become IALA Mesoamerica.
