Esperanҫa and Saint Thomas the Apostle have been great partners and have been transforming lives together for a long time. Now we want to ask you something kind of strange, if we were to ask you to list the most important life-saving devices in your home, what would be the first one that came to mind? Your smoke alarm? Your fire extinguisher? Your security system?
It is actually your toilet. That’s because here in the United States, things like Cholera and Typhoid have more to do with our history books than our daily lives. We don’t realize just how critical proper sanitation is to the safety of our families and our communities.
Take the small village of Santa Amalia for example. It consists of approximately 280 hardworking families located 60 miles north of the city of Jinotega. It’s a community of farmers who raise livestock and grow coffee in an effort to survive. But it isn’t enough. Something is making them very sick, uncontained waste, which is a huge issue in villages like Santa Amalia. Where there are no latrines, waste is tracked into homes; it contaminates the local ground water and even taints food stores when spread by vermin and other pests. Once those with weak immune systems, like children, show signs of infection there is little hope of recovery.
According to the World Health Organization, 1.8 million people needlessly die every year from diarrheal diseases like Cholera and Typhoid in places like Nicaragua…90% of them are children under the age of 5. That’s 4,438 children who succumb to these diseases every day.
And now you have the opportunity to change these numbers with Esperanҫa and transform lives. We would like to invite you to travel with us from April 5th 2014 to April 11th to Jinotega, Nicaragua and help the village of Santa Amalia change their home. We will be working to introduce latrines to the families of Santa Amalia and learning about all of Esperanҫa’s programs offer to the community of Jinotega, Nicaragua.
Esperança was founded in 1970 and has always been focused on helping transform lives around the world. It started with Father Tupper doing surgeries from a boat along the central Amazon region. From there, is has expanded to health projects including building clean water and sanitation projects, nutrition and food security, disease prevention and treatment, home building and improvements, and health education and training. For more about our history, click here.
Days on a mission with Esperança will consist of mornings visiting the sites of current and completed projects ranging from our surgical teams, water projects, food micro-businesses and health education programs. The afternoons will be spent digging latrines for our partners and working with your fellow volunteers to spread hope.
This is a video of last year’s Mission of Hope.
For more detailed information about the trip follow the links bellow:
Mission trips are limited to 11 people. Expenses are covered by the travelers and will be at a discounted rate due to our relationship with the local community.
Jinotega, Nicaragua Mission Trip Price:
$1,128 to 1,344 per person depending upon project specific expenses (round-trip airfare to Managua, Nicaragua NOT included) Deposit: $100 per person
If you are interested in joining us for a mission of hope, please fill out the following application, and a representative from the Esperança offices will contact you.