By Craig Waddell

All across Nicaragua, Food for the Hungry is actively engaged in community development initiatives aimed at improving access to clean water and sanitation. The schools have emerged as a major concern, as 60% of their rural educational institutions lack water accessibility. This impacts an estimated 600,000 students aged between 4 and 14 years old, so Food for the Hungry Nicaragua is beginning an initiative called “Escuelas con Agua.” Under this banner of “Schools with Water,” Food for the Hungry Nicaragua declares they want to “restore dignity to our little ones.”

Schools are a central part of the lives of young families, and their infrastructure plays a strategic role in the health of children. Providing and optimizing access to potable water in schools will have an exponential effect on the welfare of entire communities. Current BGAV partner churches are already assisting with the water initiatives in their partner communities. Now through “Escuelas con Agua,” all BGAV churches can work together to have an impact on the country of Nicaragua.

In the Pearl Lagoon region of Nicaragua, on the Atlantic coast, Food for the Hungry’s disaster response has been active for about two years, especially because of widespread devastation from Hurricane Julia in 2022. Moving beyond emergency relief efforts, several communities among the multi-ethnic Creole, Miskito, Mestizo, and Garifuna population have engaged with Food for the Hungry Nicaragua in the education, assessment, and consensus-building that is foundational to a sustainable development process. After much preparation, Food for the Hungry Nicaragua was able to establish a development office in Pearl Lagoon to support and coordinate those efforts in October 2024. Today they are at a point where community partnerships with BGAV churches could provide the encouraging relationships and resources needed for their progress.

As our relationship with God heals us as individuals, we grow a desire to be agents of healing in our world. BGAV’s work with Food for the Hungry is an expression of that desire, with partner churches entering into long-term relationships with communities in Nicaragua that want to graduate from extreme poverty. Currently there are 14 of these church-to-community partnerships in the regions of Somotillo and Quilali. The relationships are proving to be mutually transformative as we discover the different ways in which we experience vulnerability and help each other to become more resilient. Now we want to include the communities in Pearl Lagoon.

Learn more at impactmissionsmovement.org/international/what-we-do/programs/focuspoverty/.

If your church is interested in making a difference in Nicaragua and learning about community transformation at the same time, please contact Craig Waddell at  Craig.Waddell@bgav.org. BGAV is making tentative plans for an exploratory trip to Nicaragua in March 2025 with leaders from churches interested in partnering there. 

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Craig Waddell is Partnership Coordinator for BGAV's Impact Missions Team.

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