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Work in one NGO leads to another! This is a story of how two volunteers for Habitat for Humanity created their own NGO, Seeds of Learning, to build classrooms in Nicaragua and El Salvador. Best of all, foreign volunteers come to work with local communities to help disadvantaged students get an education. Bravissimo!
Sometimes, right from your own backyard, you can discover an amazing NGO
that works overseas. Recently, I met Annie Bacon, Executive Director of
Seeds of Learning, in Santa Rosa. The US office of Seeds of Learning (SOL)
is just down the road in Sonoma.
SOL's work is in depressed communities in Nicaragua and El Salvador. In the past 19 years, SOL has built 114 classrooms in 38 schools in Nicaragua and El Salvador. SOL's mission – a bit like Greg Mortenson's efforts in the Himalayas, made so well-known by his book Three Cups of Tea – is to promote quality learning in developing communities.
SOL was started in 1988 by two volunteers working for Habitat for Humanity in Nicaragua. Todd Evans and Patrick Rickon first made rustic school desks out of scrap lumber from Habitat’s saw mill. Soon they went on to build one-room schools, created SOL, and in 1995 put up a Learning Resource Center in Dario, Nicaragua, with books, puzzles and eventually reference materials for high school students. SOL also has a scholarship program to help students pay the costs of tuition, books, uniforms, and transportation to school.
All the education-building work is done Central American community members and US and foreign volunteers, often high school students. Volunteers have become so attached to the Central American communities they work in that they have begun a sister school program, now involving 2000 students and 80 teachers.
What impressed me most about SOL is its community development model – Central Americans must participate alongside the foreign volunteers and learn practical and leadership skills. As Annie Bacon put it, “Communities have to invite us and commit to work with us before we go.”
Best of all, SOL’s activities are only a short distance from the US. It’s easy to go and volunteer and the SOL work is a phenomenal learning experience for high school students and US community members. Please visit the SOL web site to learn more.
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Annie Bacon said on Saturday, July 10, 2010:
I am so grateful for the support of the Women's Giving Tree. As you may know, Seeds of Learning is a small nonprofit, but we are working to make a big difference with your help. This week, we have a group of volunteers from Sebastopol and Marin working with the community of Agua Fria to help construct a school. You can see them working together here.