Chase Community Giving Awards Update #1

Thanks to your support, we’re off to a great start in the Chase Community Giving Competition. We’re extremely excited at the opportunity to win $1 million, and our goal is definitely within reach. As of right now, we’re in third place, but are only 150 votes behind the leading organization!

For those of you who are just now joining us, Manna Project has been chosen as one of 25 organizations competing in the Chase Community Giving Awards. Voting started today, and we need your support in order to win! If you haven’t already, please take 30 seconds to go to this link and cast a vote for Manna Project.

You can also help us raise awareness by attending our facebook event! Just click here to join the 6,000 people invited to attend!

One million dollars could change the lives of thousands of children and young adults in Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Guatemala. Here in Nicaragua, additional funding would enable to us to expand our child sponsorship program in La Chureca, meet the growing demand for additional English classes in Cedro Galan and Chiquilistagua, and further develop new programs such as our microfinance initiative and women’s exercise classes.

Stay tuned for more updates on our progress in this exciting competition, and thank you again for your invaluable support!

We Need Your Help!

Hello everyone! We have some very exciting news to share! Two years ago, Manna Project participated in the Chase Community Giving competition, and won $25,000. This year, we’ve been invited to participate again, and we have the chance to win up to $1 million!! We are extremely grateful for the chance to compete, and excited about all the ways that the money could help the communities we work with in Nicaragua, Ecuador and Guatemala. Here in Nicaragua, the money would allow us to provide more financial support to the clinic in La Chureca, more microfinance loans to start-up businesses in Cedro Galan, and much more.

We need your help to win! The week-long competition takes place on Facebook, and voting starts today. Can you take 30 seconds to help us? All you have to do is go to this link and cast a vote for Manna Project. If you have 30 more seconds to spare, can you help us even more and send this information to your contacts to encourage them to vote, as well?

We are very appreciative of your support in this competition and in all the other ways you support Manna Project, and hope to have great news to report about the Chase Community Giving competition when voting ends in a week! Thanks for your vote!

Things that made us smile this week, part two

After a two-week hiatus, we’re back! Sorry again for the delay in posting—most PDs went out of town last week during the holiday celebrating Central American independence, and we’ve been extra busy since our return! As promised, here are more anecdotes that made us smile this week.

· Watching Agdiel, who is extremely handicapped and generally unable to articulate sentences, answer a question asked in English correctly. –Davis

· A three-year-old Nicaraguan student asking if she may use the restroom in English during our Kids English class at Salero. –Davis

· One of our students, who is thirty years old, sprinting to the board during a game of Pictionary yelling the English answer at the top of her lungs, and telling us multiple times how much she had loved the class. –Davis

· Ariel, who generally struggles at math, confidently explaining to Flor, one of our best students, how to find the area of a circle; which we had just taught him. –Davis

· Watching our women’s exercise class do a zumba workout to Danza Kuduro in the water during our pool workout at the Manna house! –Anna

· This week my kid's English class at Colegio Cristiano La Esperanza in La Chureca was amazing. All of the kids were so motivated and focused on learning a hard concept. To see them eager to learn and willing to try with great attitudes even if it meant getting the answer wrong was awesome. The thing that left me beaming all day though was watching them succeed and the pride that showed all over their faces when they got the answers correct. –Jesse

· "Johnny," Luis Fernando's talking basketball, writing the correct answer to a question on the board in our Salero Kids English class. –Maggie

· Francisco, another student in our Salero Kids English class, telling us that we're his family when we got up at 6 am to watch him participate in his school's parade. –Maggie

· Seeing Douglas, a kid in our Child Sponsorship program, sprinting 50 feet down the street in Chureca because he's so excited to see us. –Maggie

· Seeing lots of my students at Mass today, and meeting the adorable little brother of one of my favorite students, William. –Fiona

· Delicious pizza and good conversation with fellow PDs at a nearby Italian restaurant. –Fiona

· Getting a chance to see the house and small store of one of our child sponsorship families in La Chureca. –Fiona

· Jose Raul, one of my math students, understanding how to simplify fractions! –Fiona

Things that made us smile this week

Davis playing Jenga with Janice and Arexa

Maggie and Henry

This past weekend, Fiona shared her most recent blog post, titled “Things that made me smile this week.” After reading her post, several of us in the Manna House were inspired to write similar blogs and emails for our friends and family. The idea is a great one, and helps to explain what makes our work so meaningful here in the communities of Cedro Galan, Chiquilistagua, and La Chureca. Together we’ve compiled a list of experiences that made each of us smile this past week. I thought I’d save some for our next blog post, so stay tuned for more smiles to come!

Things that made us smile this week:

· Randomly running into one of our teen English students, Francisco, at the market on my way to catch a bus, and him actually being excited to see us. –Fiona

· An amazing mother helping her three year old daughter to start learning English, by attending class with her and practicing outside of class as well. –Fiona

· Hearing Lesther, a two-year-old in our child sponsorship program in La Chureca, laugh for the first time. –Fiona

· Realizing that FOIL (an acronym we learned in high school algebra) doesn’t translate to Spanish, and deciding to use a sandwich as an analogy for binomial multiplication. While finding the product of binomials, Jose Antonio, my math student, now mutters “Here is the bread, here is the lunch meat…” –Sam

· The incredible drawings that 14-year-old Samuel makes after math and literacy and lets me take home. Samuel has dropped out of school for the semester and suffers from low self-esteem, so it’s great to see him create something he’s proud of. –Sam

· When our previously unruly girls soccer team responds super well to direction, and doesn’t complain about running suicides! –Sam

· Receiving a drawing of myself and Aydel holding hands. Aydel is a mentally handicapped boy in the community who is 16-years-old and I work with him on learning the alphabet and numbers. He can understand most everything when you talk to him but has a very difficult time saying anything. –Carrie

· Watching the women in exercise class dance Zumba to Shakira’s “Waka Waka” and having the 3-year-old children imitate us! –Carrie

· Singing the weather song with my kid’s English class. (“What’s the weather? What’s the weather? What’s the weather like today? Is it sunnyyy, is it rainyyy, is it cloudyyy, out today!”) –Carrie

· Last week, Davis and I walked home with one of my Kids English students, Norlan. We realized that he walks one hour each way just to come to Farito English classes twice a week. We got a chance to meet his mom and I told her what a great student he is. He was so proud and was grinning from ear to ear. I am so thankful for students like Norlan! –Christin

· Watching Ariel from our loan program making cinderblocks using materials he bought with our loan; also meeting his family and getting to know him better. –Matt

· Hearing from Alejandro that the other students in his math class ask him for help with polynomial expressions—the subject we've been working on for the past few weeks. –Matt

Kids English

One of Manna’s central aims in Cedro Galan and Chiquilistagua is to teach English to community members of all ages. To this end, we currently offer kids and adult classes, the latter including beginner, elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels. Adult classes take place almost entirely at Farito, and thus far have served as a great way to get to know community members in a classroom setting. Our three kids classes, in contrast, meet at both Farito and Salero, and expose us to a wider range of students in terms of both age and background.

In the past group of PDs, Steph was responsible for all kids English classes, which—to put it lightly—was no small feat. Initially, we all found the prospect of teaching a kids English class fairly daunting. Steph was able to gracefully manage and teach classes of nearly thirty kids thanks to her indefatigable optimism and extensive teaching background. Rather than assigning the kids English program to one PD, we quickly decided to divide the classes among ourselves, with two PDs leading each class of 20-30 students. In the past month, we have all received a hands-on crash course in classroom management, and are working to gain the respect and trust of our students.

Nicaraguan kids differ little from their North American counterparts; thus our classrooms are alive with frenetic energy, angst, hormones, and teenage drama. Herein lies both the difficulty and beauty of kids English: confiscating a love note mid-lesson is initially frustrating, but can also prompt a post-class conversation that yields new insight into a student’s life. Because our classes are meant to supplement school as an extracurricular activity, we strive to maintain attendance by make learning fun, engaging students with both games and songs. Despite our best efforts, however, the departure of the 2010-2011 PDs took its toll on attendance. Each year, some students are saddened and disconcerted by the absence of their old teachers, and opt out of class for a while. In the wake of this week, however, we can say that the transition slump has officially passed! Farito beginner’s English boasted an impressive (and loud!) 54 students on Thursday, while Salero classes are full and brimming with anticipation for our approaching pool party. Stay tuned!

Encounters with the Unfamiliar

Syd with a less lethal victim, an iguana

The position of Program Director entails many responsibilities and privileges, one of which is living in the beautiful Manna House. As new directors, we’re starting to better understand how to maintain and take care of the house and our two Rottweilers, Sydney and Cola. However, just as we began to feel that we’d gotten the hang of things, the fauna of Nicaragua threw us a rather frightening curve ball. On Thursday night, Sydney, our beloved older guard dog, attempted to eat a giant toad that had decided to take a dip in the pool. When poor Syd began foaming profusely at the mouth, we realized that she had crossed paths (and fluids) with a cane toad, a particularly nasty amphibian whose poison is responsible for many dog deaths. Against the odds, and after many hours of care and worry, Syd pulled through. We owe a great deal to the plethora of online resources available, our own initiative, and two local veterinarians, one of whom came to the house twice to administer shots and an IV (thanks so much, Jeff!). We’re happy to see that Sydney has completely returned to her normal, voracious, and bipolar self. Watch out, world!

On a lighter note, this past Friday we helped to host a lacrosse tournament with our new partner non profit, Lacrosse the Nations. Lacrosse the Nations utilizes lacrosse as a means of promoting unity, health, and sustainability in the U.S. and Nicaragua. As their partner, Manna will help to coordinate programs and serve as a liaison between local coaches and U.S. based directors. In order to get a better feel for LTN’s mission and work, we spent the better part of Friday at Salero, helping their current group of volunteers to host an impressive lacrosse practice and tournament for over 80 children, most of whom are from La Chureca. Thanks largely to our southern, midwestern, and western roots, few of us at Manna have experience playing lacrosse. However, many of the children from La Chureca have been involved with LTN for several months now, and were more than willing to show us the ropes. We look forward to working further with Lacrosse the Nations as they extend opportunities to children in need. In the meantime, we’ll be honing our lacrosse skills in preparation for the next tournament. J

Getting our Sea Legs

A group shot at the women's exercise despedida

Hello! Sorry for the delay in posting—like all programs and responsibilities here at Manna Nicaragua, this blog has changed hands. We’ve recently said goodbye to all of the outgoing PDs, which has been a difficult process on several levels. Over the past month we new PDs have grown close with those on their way out, relying on them for emotional and practical support as we experience the transition that they went through exactly one year ago. While it is sad to bid farewell to the 2010-2011 team, I am incredibly excited to assume leadership of MPI Nicaragua with our new group of nine program directors. Although biographies and photos of our team can be found on our website, let me briefly introduce the new Manna Nicaragua team! Fiona Turett, Christin Stewart, Anna Gajewski, Davis Snead, Jesse Zimmerman, Carrie Torn, Maggie Thomas, and Samantha Wyatt (yours truly!) compose the new leadership of MPI here in Managua. But that’s not all! We are extremely fortunate to be joined by Matt Creeden, who has opted to stay on as a program director for an additional six months. His experience and wisdom will doubtless prove extremely helpful as we move forward in serving the communities of Chiquilistagua and Cedro Galan.

The past two weeks have been full of bittersweet despididas—in addition to the general bienvenida/despidida party that Megan described, individual classes and programs have put on specific events to thank and say goodbye to outgoing PDs. I was able to attend the women’s exercise despidida, in which women in the class prepared speeches, dancing, and food to express their gratitude for Megan, Steph, and Carly’s work over the past year. The snack of whole-wheat sandwiches prepared by the members of the class was nearly as touching as their speeches; a thoughtful reflection of the nutrition tips that Megan has offered throughout the year.

With Amanda's departure this morning, the last outgoing PD has officially headed home, leaving all responsibilities to the new team. While we still have much to learn about effectively running programs and meeting the needs of community members, I can confidently say that we already feel quite at home within the community. The joy of receiving a personal greeting or hug at the close of a class or practice cannot be understated, and even after only several weeks here, hugs and personal support abound. I look forward to detailing the development of both our programs and personal relationships here in Nicaragua as we strive to serve the communities in which we are so fortunate to live and work. Thank you for reading!