ICEIDA Funds the Building of Twenty Class Rooms in Nicaragua

ICEIDA has decided to fund and furnish twenty class rooms in nine elementary schools in two municipalities on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua, Bluefields and Puerto Cabezas. This is a tripartite agreement between ICEIDA, the Ministry of Education in Nicaragua (MINED) and each of the municipalities.

“The current government, which came to power in January 2007, puts a lot of emphasis on education for everybody and its first project was to make elementary education free of charge which it had not been for many years,” says Gerður Gestsdóttir, ICEIDA’s Project Manager for social projects in Nicaragua. “There was therefore an increase in the number of children attending elementary schools and especially in the areas where attendance had been the poorest before, such as on the Atlantic coast. Educational authorities have still not been able to meet the demand for elementary school buildings and the situation is the worst in the areas where the hurricane Felix hit in September 2007 but it is believed that 90% of all schools in Puerto Cabezas were damaged, she says.

ICEIDA’s contribution, which is about 80% of the total cost of the project, will be handed over to the municipalities and they will hire contractors to carry out the work. The implementation of the project will be carried out by the Ministry of Education which contributes 20% to the project. That contribution consists of labour but ICEIDA will have the role of a supervisor during the collaboration period. It is estimated that the building of the class rooms will take six months.

Gerður says that according to information from the Ministry of Education over 3,700 children will benefit from the building of these twenty class rooms. She says that all the children in the nine schools will benefit from the project because less overcrowding and better facilities will be good for them all.