Our Projects

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OUR PROGRAMS

Community Garden & Marmalade Project

La Isla Foundation will work with UNAN-León to demonstrate organic farming methods to residents of La Isla and Candelaria. We will show local farmers how to produce organically grown grains, vegetables, and livestock by incorporating the use of natural "permaculture" methods and eco-friendly pest management. We will also assist residents in bringing their produce to market in Chichigalpa and surrounding communities.

The project seeks to achieve the following goals:

•To assist farmers in the design and operation of their farms, consulting on technology, farming methods, health care, farming communities, and productivity, with a continued focus on sustainability.
•To educate farmers and other members of the community in the use of Integral Plague Management techniques, biological control, organic fertilization, and the protection of horticultural farming in order to obtain healthier products.
•To educate farmers and producers in basic veterinary medicine and nutrition, and in handling of small livestock (chicken, hens, pigs, rabbits, etc).
•To establish educational bio-intensive orchards and gardens at schools and in communities for the purpose of studying and practicing permaculture techniques.
•To create livestock farms for small livestock species.

Supplementing the organic farming initiative, La Isla Foundation is creating an organic community garden at the Foundation's headquarters in León, Nicaragua, near Chichigalpa. Using the garden, we will teach children in the community how to raise and keep subsistence and small-scale gardens without relying on industrial fertilizers or equipment, and we will teach students how to use tools such as organic fertilizer and pesticides. UNAN-León will also use the garden as a seed bank for the organic farming project. We will also allow community residents to use the garden to grow local fruits and assist them in making marmalade and jams that can be sold to the public.

The production of marmalade is a way to utilize the vast quantity and variety of fruits grown in the region. Fruit trees in Nicaragua are primarily grown organically, which increases demand for the product. La Isla Foundation will be a partner in organizing and marketing

marmalade that will be produced by a women’s group in La Isla. We will provide the equipment and training to the participants to help them start their own businesses. All participants in the program will be widows who have lost their husbands to chronic renal insufficiency and are struggling to provide for their families.

PROJECT:

In Progress

With the Foundation's modest resources, Foundation leaders Juan Salgado, María Eugenia Cantillano Romero, and Jason Glaser organized a volunteer effort to renovate the abandoned local health clinic and the elementary school in La Isla. Several dozen community residents joined in the work, which was completed quickly and under budget.

The re-opened health clinic made basic medical services available to the community. Just as important, the effort to re-open the clinic and renovate the local school revitalized the community of La Isla. Demoralized residents saw that they could make a difference when they joined together to improve their community. They also saw the Foundation as part of their community and their ally in the struggle for relief from the kidney failure epidemic.

Latrine and Well Project

La Isla Foundation has compiled a long list of volunteers from the community who will help build 58 new latrines -- one latrine for each of the households in La Isla currently without one. We will build new Ventilated Improved Pit (“VIP”) latrines, which are outhouses with a screened chimney to provide ventilation and help limit disturbances from flies. Many of the most common diseases that affect children in La Isla are a direct result of unsanitary living conditions, especially improper waste disposal. Solid refuse and garbage are predominantly disposed of through burning, which releases toxins into the air.

The latrine program directly addresses a pressing community need. The lack of plumbing or safe sewage disposal drastically increases the risk of exposure to diseases and parasites. La Isla does not have potable water and the population receives well water that residents attempt to purify with home treatments. The latrine program will bring sanitary latrines to the community and mitigate health threats that contribute to the prevalence of CRI in the community.

We will also soon start the construction of systems to access and distribute safe water to every home