Nindiri

Nindiri, located between the capital city of Managua and the artisan capital of Masaya, is comprised of 18 different communities. The principal town of Nindiri was one of the first towns founded in Nicaragua and is home to an impressive four hundred year old temple that is now a national monument. While Nindiri town has preserved much of its colonial flare in the layout of the streets, many of the surrounding 17 rural communities lack even basic infrastructure and are wrought with poorly maintained paths at best, for driving and walking.

Bridges to Community Nindiri is currently in the second year of a five year program commitment with two new communities, Portillo and Piedra Menuda. Bridges has been working in a third Nindiri community, Guanacastillo, since 2007 and is in the process of completing involvement there. The primary program focus in these 3 communities has been Bridges’ housing program, due to the great need for housing in this area.

Portillo: Up until the agrarian reform in 1980, the community of Portillo was owned by a single family.  After the agrarian reform the farm was divided into smaller farms and given to farmers´ cooperatives as a means of production. Unfortunately the agrarian reform lacked numerous components for success; therefore the cooperatives shut down and families began to form the community of Portillo.

Its current population is around 1,050 with its main family income generated from farming, working in textile factories and housekeeping.   Portillo’s leaders worked with another NGO to address the shortage of potable water in the community by constructing a water system. It still has some families that are in the process of digging the trenches to install the water pipes, but more than 90% of Portillo has running water. Community leaders worked to get the main road paved and to get a classroom for the primary school.

Piedra Menuda:  This community was founded in 1990 with originally 60 settlers and has now grown to about 1300 residents. Over the years people have immigrated looking for land to cultivate and a place to call home. This community has a strong leadership and like most of the other committees that Bridges works with, it is female-dominated. Piedra Menuda’s leaders worked with a national lawyer’s office to obtain birth certificates for families that had not been registered. They also achieved getting the main road paved and repairs done for the primary school.

Guanacastillo: The large community of Guanacastillo is located along a major trading highway, near the Bridges’ projects in Masaya and serves as the first community with which Bridges began relationships within Nindiri. The majority of Guanacastillo's 1500 residents work in the nearby garment factories. Few people are able to farm what little land is available and many work as security guards. With little opportunity for employment outside of the large factories, many residents are also under employed, living on little more than $2.00 a day.

There is only one primary school in Guanacastillo and high school students must pay for public transportation to attend the secondary school in a neighboring community.  The literacy rate is very low as almost 70% of the school-age population is not studying.

Guanacastillo has neither a health center nor a pharmacy. For basic health care, a center three kilometers away is used though there is rarely a medical professional available. Community members with medical emergencies must travel to Masaya, 15 kilometers away.

Other major health risks have been greatly minimized through the donation of a well by the Japanese government. Among the almost three hundred families in Guanacastillo, 72% of houses and 39% of latrines are in poor condition. Many houses contain dirt floors and corrugated iron for walls, posing many health risks. Where latrines do exist, many are past a usable age.