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I believe in Karma. Good deeds are rewarded. Positive vibes multiply. Giving back to a community is rewarded with big smiles and good waves. This week seemed to prove all those points. Ten friends spent a morning painting a new local school and then scored an amazing week of awesome waves. Click Play above to see how it all went down.
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A group of 17 high school kids from High Tech High in San Diego came down to Nicaragua with Suave Dulce for the trip of a lifetime. They learned to surf, did yoga, went horseback riding on the beach, and boarded down an active volcano. They learned to make tortillas and jewelry while interacting with the local community.
All that was fun and exciting, but the real reason for their trip was to give back by helping to build a new classroom for 4th, 5th, and 6 graders. They painted, dug trenches, and learned to mix cement.
Click “play” above to watch their story.
Imagine you’re a 12 year old kid growing up in a remote fishing village in Northern Nicaragua. You’ve spent most of your life barefoot, chasing chickens and skinny dogs through barbed-wire fences. You learned to ride a horse at age 5 and by age 7 your dad had you herding cattle between pen and pasture. Your parents keep you busy with the chores of survival. There’s a two room school house just down the street but not much incentive to attend so you don’t know how to read.
Then one day, some gringos show up and buy land nearby. They give your uncles jobs in construction building a small eco-resort called El Coco Loco. Your mom gets hired to help out in the kitchen and your older brother scores a job as a night watchman.
Coco Loco founds a community development focused non-profit called Waves of Hope to improve the lives of the community they’ve fallen in love with. Volunteers come down from the US and Canada, girls with big smiles that spend mornings in the little school helping the one teacher that is assigned to teach three grades at once. In the afternoons they organize soccer games on the Coco Loco field, do art projects, and teach English. On Saturdays any kid that has attended classes Monday – Friday gets to borrow a surfboard and feel the joy of riding a wave.
Suddenly, there’s a lot of incentive to go to school. Attendance skyrockets. The tiny two room school house is no longer big enough.
Then Waves Of Hope announces that it will build a new school room for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. But we need your help!
The new classroom will cost $9,000 to build. You can help by donating to Waves of Hope. Every little bit helps.
Email [email protected] or [email protected] for more info on how you can make a difference and help kids go to school!
Imagine this for your winter break in High School – two awesome teachers take you and 16 of your friends down to Northern Nicaragua for an incredible week of surfing, yoga, horseback riding, volcano boarding, and helping the community by building a new school room for local 4th, 5th, and 6th graders. Sound too good to be true? Not if you’re one of these kids…
Two teachers from the public charter school High Tech High in San Diego did exactly that. 17 Freshman and Sophmores came down to Suave Dulce for 10 days of eye-opening adventure.
A few knew how to surf already like Jake Stutz (shown above ripping and painting), who was busting airs and trying to improve his cutback, but most were learning to stand up for the first time.
Lizzie and Sierra fell in love with riding horses on the beach and after asking very nicely, got to do it twice! Maya made a heart-shaped corn tortilla, Nico represented the boys at yoga, and Jadon and Zeek showed off their upper thighs by stealing the girls’ short shorts. Apparently, that’s the new skater style these days, along with calling everyone “daddy”.
Aside from the silliness and adventure, the kids made serious progress on the new school room. They shoveled rocks, learned to mix cement, did some painting, and dug a massive trench that will bring drinking water to future students. There were a few impressive blisters and everyone went home with a new appreciation for construction workers.
Most promised to return next year, if not sooner!
If you’d like to come down with your school for a week of fun and giving back, email us at [email protected]
Check out the videos below for more…
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Waves of Hope is the non-profit started by El Coco Loco to improve the lives of the local community members. One project is an afternoon kids’ club that serves to build confidence, teamwork, and other valuable social skills. This day the kids were introduced to a new experience – the slip and slide.
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Waves of Hope is a community-focused non-profit working to improve the lives of the people of Northern Nicaragua. After noticing that very few kids were attending school regularly they came up with a program to reward attendance. If a kid went to school every day of the week, on saturday he or she could go surfing! School attendance has improved dramatically!
Nicaragua is the second poorest nation in Latin America but while the people are poor they are very friendly. While driving by, kids smile and wave. A little help goes a long way. Suave Dulce has partnered with Waves of Hope, the non-profit arm of El Coco Loco to give retreat guests a chance to interact with the local community and give back in a meaningful way.
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Meg “Margarita” Boren is an inspiring woman. She first came to Nicaragua in 1999 as a volunteer nurse working with a local doctor to provide care to remote villages without access to electricity or potable water. She fell in love with the people and decided she had to stay.
Living in a tent for 8 months while a house was being built she founded Circle of Empowerment , a grass roots project focusing on the development of resources that help the people help themselves in the areas of health, education, and economic development.
Working with donations, other NGOs, and public programs within Nicaragua, she has opened a health clinic, provided a school bus, and created a high school program and library in a community that previously had none of those things.
Margarita’s programs focus heavily on education and developing leadership from within the local communities to assure community buy-in and program sustainability.
During each retreat we will visit Margarita’s clinic to hear her story and be inspired by her energy.
To learn more or donate to Circle of Empowerment, click here or email [email protected] for more information.
Over the last few years a non-profit crew has been working hard to create a community center to benefit the people of the Northern Nicaraguan town of Jiquilillo.
This time around the group donated musical instruments, jammed out with the kids, help release recently hatched sea turtles, put the finishing touches on the community center, learned to surf, did yoga, and made some amazing new friends.
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After hurricane Mitch, the Nicaraguan government relocated newly homeless villagers next to the dump. Without land to farm or any way to sustain themselves they took to scavenging. Anything still with life in it is put to use. Bottles and cans are sold for pennies per pound for recycling. Clean water, like most other resources, is scarce.
Despite their unfortunate situation, the people are beautiful.
A church group sets up a food kitchen at the local school once a week to feed community members who show up with bowls, buckets, anything to hold the little bit of food. The day we visited the meal consisted of chicken noodle soup, with chicken heads and feet as meat. The kids made a line, said a prayer, and were grateful for the food.
We brought clothing to donate and plenty of smiles to share. It was an important reminder for all of us of how good we have it.
For a short video clip of the experience, click play below: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/U2z9ntFn2sM&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
