Santa Rosa Fund Newsletter Issue 21

SANTA ROSA FUND NEWSLETTER ISSUE 21, JULY 2003 Registered Charity No. 1028085

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PENS RELEASED *** FROM CUSTODY ***

After one year in a customs warehouse, Chase De Vere pens finally reach the pupils of the Santa Rosa School As explained in our last newsletter (Issue 20, November 2002), In May last year Santa Rosa Fund supporter and (then) Chase De Vere employee Justin Blower had arranged for Chase De Vere (CDV) to donate 2000 pens to the Colegio Autónomo Santa Rosa (the Santa Rosa School) in Managua. As a result of a change of logo, the company had declared the pens redundant. Accordingly, CDV bore the costs of freighting out from the UK to Managua four boxes of their pens. In June last year, the Nicaraguan Customs Service sent notice of the arrival of the pens to the school, but also requested the payment of an import tax of over US$900, an amount that was greater than the value of the pens. Such a payment was obviously impossible for the school; and in any case it violated the spirit of the donation. The Santa Rosa Fund (SRF) was informed of the problem by René, the SRF representative in Managua. We then contacted Xiomara Urbina in the British embassy in Managua to ask if there was any way in which the embassy could use its influence to grant a waiver for the tax demand. Gary Scrobie, Deputy Head of Mission in the embassy, who knows the school, wrote a letter on our behalf to the Administrative Director of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports (MECD), Alejandra López. In response to this, last November Sra. López sent an excellent letter to Sr. Fausto Carcabelo, Director General of the Nicaraguan Customs Service requesting that the boxes should be exonerated from the payment of taxes and should be released immediately to the college.

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The Santa Rosa Fund could not have asked for better cooperation. But still the pens were not released. In December Virginia expressed the opinion that this failure to release the pens was probably due to corruption, implying that the pens had probably been spirited away for sale. Although the British embassy was again informed of the problem, there seemed to be nothing more that could be done, at least until one of the SRF trustees or supporters visited the country. In April and May this year, SRF treasurer Martin Mowforth visited Nicaragua and made two trips to the Customs Service and warehouses next to Managua's airport. After five hours of being sent from office to office and of accumulating a mountain of paperwork on the first visit, he eventually made it into the warehouse. Almost incredibly among the stacks of boxes and crates of goods not retrieved (because of a ludicrous bureaucracy), the four boxes of pens were found. At the last stage, however, somebody noticed that all the stamps of approval, certification and exoneration collected from all the different offices had been made on a copy of the original customs form. The original was required. A copy was not good enough. Well, at least it had been shown that the pens still existed and that the problem was one of excessive bureaucracy rather than one of corruption. Moreover, Martin did not find all the customs officials using Chase De Vere pens as he had expected. At this stage it was dark and all the customs officials were leaving work. Nothing more could be done. Two weeks later (2nd May) and the last full working day before return to the UK, Martin called at the school to see if the original customs form could be found. Virginia and Elizabeth Toledo (subdirectora) dug through their filing cabinets and eventually re-discovered the original document. Off to the Customs Service again - this time for a further 3½ hour lesson in how to create a mountain of paper and prevent people from retrieving goods from the Customs Service of Nicaragua. But, finally, with the payment of a small tax (approx. US$12), the four boxes of pens were released. They were delivered to the school early the following Monday morning. One lesson the SRF has learnt from this episode is to ensure that in future all boxes are sent by post with a UK Customs declaration. Anything freighted out to Nicaragua by a private company will receive the same treatment by the Nicaraguan Customs Service as did the CDV pens. A last word to Chase De Vere: many thanks on behalf of the Santa Rosa School and the Santa Rosa Fund. All the pens are still in good working order and are being put to good use. The spirit in which your donation was made is much appreciated by all at the school. And a last word to the Nicaraguan Customs Service: unpublishable.

NEWS OF THE SANTA ROSA SCHOOL The Ben Dalton Memorial Library

and Books For A Better World

The last SRF newsletter reported on the £1,160 (+ $50) received in last year's Special Library Appeal. The following list shows that, apart from the construction of the library itself, the SRF has spent a total of £1,581 : 88 on resourcing the library. 1.2.02 to Books For A Better World for approx. 100 books 265 : 12 1.7.02 to Books For A Better World for approx. 100 books 251 : 43 3.9.02 to René Zamora for obtaining 3 quotations for the shelving 16 : 73 24.1.03 Photocopying of shelving quotations 1 : 13 20.3.03 Construction of shelving in the library (US$900) 595 : 32 26.3.03 to Books For A Better World for approx. 200 books 452 : 15 Total1,581 : 88 With the exception of a plaque to commemorate Ben Dalton, after whom the library is named (see SRF Newsletter No. 16), the Fund does not intend to use any more of its general finances specifically to support the library. The school has shown itself to be pretty adept at acquiring books and resources from other sources in Managua -- particularly from libraries already closed down -- and the school's management are aware that our support could not be limitless after the construction of the building. In December (2002) and January this year, René Zamora, the Fund's representative in Managua, obtained three quotations for the building of shelves in the Ben Dalton Memorial Library. These ranged from just over $600 to $900 and were provided by builders in Managua. Money from last year's Library Appeal was taken over to the school in March and deposited with Virginia Gómez Hernández, the school's director. The decision was left to Virginia with René and Martin (the SRF treasurer) breathing down her neck. She chose the most expensive option, much to the relief of René who knows the work of the builder concerned to be of a high standard. Work on the shelves should be proceeding as you are reading this newsletter. René has promised to send pictures when they are finished and hopefully we can include one of these in the next newsletter. We are currently awaiting news of the final delivery of books from Books For A Better World (BFABW), although we know that they have arrived in Nicaragua. Eduardo Báez, the Nicaraguan representative of BFABW, had to go through the same lengthy and frustrating process as was described in the previous article to extract the books from the Nicaraguan Customs Service. BFABW was the major organisation featured in a US television documentary in October last year. The programme won first place in the Associated Press Awards Serious Feature category earlier this year, and the judges commented upon its "important work -- bringing books to impoverished children of Central America". Our readers are once again urged to visit the website of BFABW to learn more about its work: www.booksforabetterworld.org 3 SRF Newsletter July 2003, P.3

Latest visitors to the school In April this year two supporters of the Santa Rosa Fund visited Managua, one for the first time and the other for the first time as a SRF supporter. Jacky Rushall, who teaches in Plymouth, visited Nicaragua to establish a twinning link between her school in Plymouth and a suitable Nicaraguan school. She tells her story in the next article. Tom Hore from Bristol, a regular SRF supporter who coordinates the work of Friends of Morazán (see SRF Newsletter Nos. 8 and 11), also visited Nicaragua in April. Friends of Morazán is a twinning link between Puerto Morazán in Nicaragua and Bristol, and specifically it supports the pre-school in Puerto Morazán. Although Tom visited Puerto Morazán and the Las Chicas II centre of the Asociación Quincho Barrilete (see later article) with Jacky and Martin, unfortunately he missed the chance to visit the Santa Rosa School by one day. Tom, however, is an inveterate traveller and is sure to make it there one day. His wife Christina missed the same chance by one country, returning home from Costa Rica rather than Nicaragua before Tom travelled up to Nicaragua. 

A Twinning Link for Los Pozitos Santa Rosa Fund helps establish another twinning link By Jacky Rushall I applied for a sabbatical in December 2002 and was lucky enough to be awarded this opportunity. The sabbatical scheme was offered to schools in challenging areas, with a high level of deprivation, such as High Street School in Stonehouse, Plymouth, where I teach. The time taken could be up to six weeks and how the money was spent was very flexible. The main criteria was that it should have some benefit to the teacher, pupils and school. My interest lay in travel and learning about other cultures. I also hoped to be able to help children in a Third World country. I knew a little about the Santa Rosa Fund but not how it worked. So I rang up June and Martin Mowforth who invited me along with them to Nicaragua to see for myself how the charity worked. And so my adventure began.

The Fund arranged for me to observe many of the ways in which it helps projects in Nicaragua. As the Fund was always looking to extend its help, visits were arranged to a number of needy schools, with the possibility that I could form a twinning link with one of them. Sister María-José López of the Berriz order of nuns, which has a base in the town of El Viejo, was instrumental in my search for a link. In the nuns' Land Rover we travelled for two hours up into the hills of dry tropical forest in the Cosigüina Peninsula and came to Los Pozitos -- the village of little wells. It was love at first sight! The village is a campesino community of 16 families with over 30 children in attendance at school. Twenty-two of them are of primary and secondary grades, aged 8 - 19, and are taught all together in one class by Melvin Jesus Sevilla Campos. Melvin lives in El Viejo but travels to Los Pozitos on Mondays and returns on Fridays, staying each night in a small wooden room next to the old school house (see photograph) and having meals cooked in turn by different families in the village. At present a mum, Reina María Molina Días, teaches the pre-school children, usually about 10 - 12 in number. The only cost which is met by the Nicaraguan government is Melvin's salary. Fortunately, however, the village has been funded by Amigos de Holanda (Friends of Holland) to build a new purpose-built schoolhouse -- see photograph. Members of the community, including the children, have built the school themselves. When we visited, the new schoolhouse was not quite ready for use, and the only equipment they had was a few tables. The parents have to provide everything that is required for their childrens' education. Martin and I returned the following week bearing gifts of school materials and an envelope of $200 for the purchase of resources, which I gave to the Committee of Parents which oversees education in the village. The parents were delighted and I left puppets made by the children from High Street School along with some photographs of and writing (in Spanish as well as English) about my class. I also left a camera for them in the hope that they will reciprocate with photos and an exchange of culture by writing to my school in Plymouth. The community has no electricity; so life is hard. But everyone we met was so happy and welcoming. And they seemed keen to establish a link with my school. My journey was a wonderful experience and I learned so much about the politics and lives of people in Central America. My lasting impressions of the Nicaraguans are of a very resilient, hard-working and welcoming people who are delighted to receive help, but on their terms. Many thanks to the Santa Rosa Fund for a life-changing experience.  High Street Primary School in Stonehouse has a website on which the twinning link is featured. As the link is developed, the website will be updated. For more information and photographs of the community, please visit the site at: www.highstreet.plymouth.sch.uk

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Asociación Quincho Barrilete Update on the street kids organisation In March the Santa Rosa Fund's annual £100 donation to the work of the Asociación Quincho Barrilete (or Quincho as it is often simply called) was delivered to the organisation in Managua. Regular readers of previous newsletters will be aware that Quincho is an organisation that attempts to protect and advocate for street children. Over the course of the last few years, however, it has changed its nature to some degree. Its current residents are principally children who have been suffering some form of abuse in their home. Some of these are of course street children, as they have been thrown out of their home, often by the mother as a result of the father's unhealthy attention towards the daughter. But others are recommended to Quincho by hospitals, other organisations dealing with abused children and/or by the Ministry of the Family, which contains some little bits of what remains of the formerly competent Nicaraguan social services. In many ways, Quincho's centres and programmes do essentially the same job as they used to when they accepted children direct from the streets. They still provide medical treatment, food, basic education, sex education, a safe home, and training in a number of skills which may in future help them to earn an income. They also try, whenever possible, to reintegrate the kids with their families, if and only if this can be

Infancia Sin Fronteras website:

achieved without further threat to the child. The Las Chicas II centre in Managua serves as a home for the girls. And while the Santa Rosa Fund visitors were there in March and April, new dormitories and a new bathroom were being built as a second storey on top of the old building. The main builders were the boys from Quincho's boys' centre, strongly and willingly helped by the girls from Las Chicas II. The photo shows 3 of the girls having just moved into their new dormitory. Use of the new dormitories will release the old ones for use as a sewing workshop, an office and a bakery (repostería). Quincho now receives most of its funding from organisations in Spain, China and Italy, and from Infancia Sin Fronteras (Childhood Without Borders). The latter has covered most of the new building costs. The Santa Rosa Fund's annual donation is minuscule in comparison with the funding needs of Quincho. But we do know that our small donation is always much-appreciated and well-used. In the past it has been used to purchase (on the same day as it was delivered) medicines, clothes and shoes and to pay medical fees for check-ups for the girls.

The SRF trustees are currently considering whether to increase the amount of the annual donation in future years. If you have any views on this, please let us know.  www.infanciasinfronteras.org

Villa España Pre-School (Previously Villa Germán Pomares Pre-School) This is the third year in which the Santa Rosa Fund has supported the Pre-School at Villa España near the town of El Viejo. Villa España was established in 1998 for homeless victims of Hurricane Mitch. As an encampment of tents and temporary shacks made out of bits of cardboard, chipboard, corrugated iron and plastic, it was given the name of Villa Germán Pomares, after a local hero of the Nicaraguan revolution. Last year, however, after almost four years of living in their temporary shacks, new houses were finished for the 130 families still there and they all moved in at the same time. The new houses, one of which is shown in the photograph, were built largely with the financial help of the Spanish Red Cross; and as a mark of recognition of this fact the name of the new settlement was changed to Villa España. (It is worth pointing out that there are several other villages in this area that also bear the name Germán Pomares.) The Santa Rosa Fund's financial support is paid each year directly to the Berriz order of Missionary Sisters which has a base in the town of El Viejo. The nuns here assist many communities, schools, health centres and building projects in this area, the Cosigüina Peninsula of Nicaragua, the southernmost point and principal town of which is El Viejo. The nuns administer the SRF money and make a fortnightly payment to Veronica Ríos, one of the two pre-school teachers in Villa España. Luisa, the other teacher, takes the morning pre-school class and Veronica takes the afternoon turn. The Nicaraguan government is prepared only to make a payment of approximately US$12 per month towards the costs of pre-school education. Our contribution of US$50 per month (which is fractionally less than the average wage for a Nicaraguan teacher) is paid to Veronica by the nuns. Luisa is also paid by the nuns from contributions made to them by other international organisations. As well as providing early educational stimulus for the children, the most crucial purpose of the pre-school is that it allows the mothers to go out to work. Many of the families in Villa España are headed by single women who are the only possible income earners in the household. The provision of pre-school facilities is therefore vitally important. During her visit to the region to set up another school twinning link, Jacky Rushall [see her report on pp. 45] visited the pre-school at Villa España and saw for herself the unbelievable energy and vitality that Veronica puts into her work. The Santa Rosa Fund's money is well-spent here.

SRF Newsletter July 2003, P.7

Enclosures with this newsletter:

Many thanks To Mike Hunting

1. The Santa Rosa Fund Accounts for 2002. The accounts have been audited by our own in-house auditor, Rick Blower, and as always have been submitted to the Charity Commission. They have been thoroughly discussed by the trustees, but all supporters are more than welcome to make enquiries about any items or all items included therein. (We think it is worth pointing out to our supporters that over 86 per cent of our spending goes directly to all the initiatives we support in Nicaragua - the first five items listed in the expenditure.)

for organising the Kit Hill Grimpeur Audax event (a time-limited, long distance cycle ride) in March for the benefit of the Santa Rosa Fund; and:

2. Forthcoming fund-raising events. A separate list is provided. Please put these crucial events into your diaries.

To The Legg family for collecting the money from the participants.

BBC radio interview on Casa Alianza On 18th February this year in the BBC Radio 4 'Taking A Stand' programme, Fergal Keane interviewed Bruce Harris, Casa Alianza regional director for Latin America Programmes. For those who missed it, the Santa Rosa Fund has a tape of the interview. Please feel free to call us to borrow it.

IMF privatisation of Nicaraguan education In March this year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) threatened to cut off financial assistance to Nicaragua because of a budget dispute between President Bolaños and the National Assembly. Bolaños' proposed budget met IMF guidelines, but the legislature made changes that violated the terms of the agreement with the IMF. Among those changes was a small increase in the wages of some 65,000 public sector workers, teachers, police, healthcare and municipal employees. A new agreement was reached and one element of the plan requires Nicaragua to continue to implement 'school autonomy' legislation that reduces national government funding for schools. Under the 'school autonomy' system the government pays only the teachers' salaries(*), some special training and some school repairs. Parents must provide the money for additional salaries, desks, books and materials, electric bills and cleaning materials. The children clean the schools. For many parents, these fees mean that their children cannot go to school. Given Nicaragua's very high level of poverty, this 'autonomy' will exclude many children from primary education. It is reported elsewhere that in Nicaragua 47% of students drop out of school, with a 34% urban dropout rate and 67% in rural areas. Dr. Gustavo Porras, General Secretary of FETSALUD, the health workers' union and President of the National Assembly's Health Commission, claimed that many Nicaraguan children arrive at school hungry every day -- "We receive constant reports from teachers of children fainting in their classrooms. Yet the government allows the IMF to require the curtailment of any food supplement programme within the schools." Criticising the IMF, the Nicaraguan Centre for Human Rights (CENIDH) said "the Nicaraguan people are the victims of a new dictatorship, that of the IMF, which imposes fundamentalist economic models through authoritarian and anti-democratic means. These models serve only to deepen our dependence and underdevelopment." In addition to violating Nicaraguan law, the new IMF loan conditions contain requirements that violate US law by imposing user fees for Nicaraguan children to attend schools. In November 2000, the US Congress passed legislation requiring the United States to oppose any World Bank, IMF or other multilateral development bank loan which includes user fees for basic health or education services, and to report to Congress within ten days should any loan or other agreement be approved that includes such user fees. *

Basic salary for a teacher is currently US$60 per month. It is estimated that the 'basic food basket' for a family of 5 is $2 66 per month.