Strategies and action 

On this page you will find a brief summary of CESESMA's principal strategies and interventions, as set out in our Strategic Plan 2010-2014.

You can also find photographs of many of these activities in our Photo Album.

Training young community educators (promotores and promotoras)

What is a promotor / promotora?

They are young people - both girls and boys - generally aged between 12 and 18 from the rural communities. Through participation in activities with CESESMA, they are empowered to take on a leadership role in their communities, working with groups of younger children on a range of informal educational activities. They are educators, animateurs, organizers and activists in their communities.

We believe that every child and young person has experience that makes them unique and special. These life experiences form the basis for a training programme that starts from their existing awareness, enabling them to build new knowledge, skills and capacities.

To build on this basis we take as a central theme the promotion and defence of their rights, taking account of the context, and offering new learning opportunities that will open up new options in the future. With these new skills and knowledge, the young people are ready to take on the role of Community Educators (promotores), strengthening community organisation, and sharing skills and ideas with other children and young people according to their interests.

Profile of a promotor/a

A promotor or a promotora is a young person:

• with high self-esteem, who respects him/ herself and those around him/her;

• who recognises him/herself as a member of society, and a possessor of human rights;

• with knowledge of the legal and social framework of children’s rights, environmental protection, health and nutrition, non-violence, gender and sexuality, among other things;

• who puts their learning into practice in their personal life, family and community;

• capable of promoting the organisation of children and young people in the promotion and defence of their rights;

• capable of forming groups and facilitating learning processes of action-reflection, promoting participation, resolving conflicts, planning and evaluating group-work;

• capable of communicating with all sectors of the community, children and adults, in their own community and beyond;

• capable of involvement in decision-making at different levels, and in the development of their community;

• with tools for analysing the issues facing their community, and working in partnership with other community members to find solutions;

• In addition, every Promotor/a will have an area of skill or special interest, with tools and techniques for passing on these skills to other children in their community.

The path of development of a promotor/a

Step 1: Children join activity groups

See the Informal education with children strategy below

Step 2: Children and young people opt to join a promotores/as' training course

The current programmes are (more details below):

• Promotores/as' training programme, FOCAPEC

• Girls' and young women's Network

• Training organic agriculture promotores/as, FOPAE

Step 3: CESESMA provides practical support and follow-up

Taking into account the work-plans of the young educators, the CESESMA team offers support in the various community activities that they undertake, helping them increase their knowledge and skills, strengthen their leadership and autonomy, and so reduce their dependence on CESESMA.

Step 4: Multiplication

On completing their training course, the young promotores/as have the basic skills and knowledge to set up and facilitate new learning groups with younger children in their communities, at first working alongside more experienced promotores/as, later organising their own groups. CESESMA's project team will actively support these young people and, in this way, a multiplier effect is achieved, bringing large numbers of children into education and gradually reducing their involvement in exploitative child labour.

Step 5: Development options

Area teams: CESESMA invites the most experienced and committed promotores/ass to join the area teams, where they share responsibility for planning, organising and evaluating the programme of community education and development work in the area.

Associativity: CESESMA supports youjng people in setting up small economic initiatives. See the Associativity Strategy below.

Promotores/as' training programme, FOCAPEC

The FOCAPEC course consists of ten two-day workshops, held monthly from February to November. Courses are run in parallel in the three territories, with up to 25 young people aged between 12 and 16 in each group.

The course curriculum focuses on development of communication and organising skills, awareness of issues facing their communities, and a sound understanding of key underlying issues: children’s rights, participation, child labour and education rights, non-violence, gender equality, health and environment. The diagram below summarises the experiential learning approach used on the course.

This core curriculum is shared by all the course participants. Alongside this they are expected to join learning groups (run by already trained and experienced promotores/as) in their particular area of interest, which may be organic food-growing, craft skills, traditional dance, theatre, radio, puppetry, or reading promotion.

 Key themes

• Principles of children’s rights, The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, The Nicaragua Children's Rights Code.

• Social defence networks for children's rights: claiming and defending our rights.

• Impact of globalization on our communities.

• Violence and non-violence: causes and consequences. Alternatives for reduction of violence.

• Identity and self-esteem, self-awareness, relations of respect, resolution of conflicts.

• Gender equality: women’s rights, personal relationships (boyfriends, girlfriends etc).

• Community health and hygiene.

• Sexual and reproductive health.

• Environmental conservation.

Communication and organising skills

• Participation, leadership and the role of the promotor/a.

• Forming and working with groups.

• Promoting equality, inclusion and managing conflict in groups.

• Planning, evaluation and follow-up.

• Communicating with key adults: parents, teachers, community leaders.

• Tools for community appraisal, planning and development.

• Tools for social communication.

• Participation in decision-making at different levels.

Girls' and Young Women's Network

This is a network of girls and young women aged from 10 to 18, from 25 communities in the three territories where CESESMA works. The groups meet regularly to explore topics of interest to them and learn about their rights as women. This provides an opportunity to reflect on their own lives and experiences, their beliefs and attitudes. Thus they can gradually unlearn the stereotyped roles and cultural beliefs that devalue the position of women in our society, and so develop themselves personally, and strengthen their role in the family and the community.

Currently there are about 80 girls and young women participating in the three area groups. They meet monthly, and work on issues including identity and self-esteem, personal relationships, sexual and reproductive health and sexual abuse. They also prepare themselves to raise these same issues through talks and discussions with groups of girls and young women in their home communities.

Returning to their communities, these young promotoras organise activities to explore the issues within their community. In particular we want to enable the young women to raise the issue of violence and discuss it openly in the community, so it is no longer seen as normal.

In this way the Girls’ and Young Women’s Network is not just another educational activity, but rather a process for the training and empowerment of young promotoras, and a space to develop community action in defence of girls’ and women’s rights.

Training organic agriculture promotores, FOPAE

Objectives:

• To develop knowledge and skills for the production, conservation, preparation and consumption of healthy food, and the responsible management of the natural resources existing in the community and its environment.

• To promote the diversification of family vegetable plots with ecologically sound farming practices, thus increasing the availability of food and strengthening the domestic economy.

Course organisation

One year course consisting of monthly two-day workshops: one day of theory and one day of practical work. Between the workshops, the participants put their knowledge and skills into practice with children and young people in their communities, with the support of a CESESMA worker.

Course themes

• The role of the promotor/a

• What is "The Environment"?

• The natural resources in our community

• The soil as a living organism

• Soil conservation

• Cultivation and management of the family vegetable garden

• Diversification of the vegetable garden

• Pest control without chemicals

• Keeping domestic animals

• The family diet: conservation, preparation and consumption of the produce of the vegetable garden.

Informal education with children

In each community the promotores/as organise children's activity groups on a range of relevant topics which children and young people join according to their interests. These groups include both children and young people who attend school, and those who are outside the school system, thus encouraging interaction between school and community.

The young promotores and promotoras who run the children's activity groups have themselves been trained through CESESMA's Promotores/as' Training Programmes: FOCAPEC, Girls' and Young Women's Network, and FOPAE.

The current range of activity groups includes:

• Traditional dance

Nicaragua has a strong and vibrant folk-dance tradition, with roots in both the indigenous tribal cultures and the European settler cultures blended together over almost 500 years, and particularly strong in the rural, mountainous north of the country. Dances have traditionally been passed down through the generations within rural communities. CESESMA has supported and promoted traditional dance for seven years. This is a sustainable, cyclical process, with promotores/as trained in traditional dance forming children’s dance groups in their communities, from which emerge the new promotores/as who go on to be trained and themselves become the next generation of trainers.

The coming of globalised media, principally television, to these rural communities currently poses a threat to local folk culture. There is a risk that children will believe that the global pop culture they see on TV is in some way superior to their own traditional culture, and will lose interest in learning about and preserving this. Because of this, we believe it is now more than ever vitally important to strengthen the positive aspects of traditional folk culture in these communities

See our Traditional Dance photo album.

• Children's reading programme

Most children in rural Nicaragua receive some primary schooling although many drop out and few are able to go on to secondary school. Thus most children learn the basics of reading and writing. Few, however, get beyond this, and there is no culture of reading for personal growth and development, much less reading for pleasure. Indeed many parents believe that "reading story-books is a waste time", when children should be working.

CESESMA's children's reading programme aims to challenge this situation, making story and picture-books (mainly donated) available to children, organising reading and story-telling groups, training young promotores/as to run these groups, and through telling and reading stories, helping children develop and practice their reading skills. Children are also lent picture-books to take home so they can share the stories with parents and other family members.

See our Children's Reading Programme photo album.

• Handicraft programme

Crafts have been an element of CESESMA’s informal education programmes for a number of years with macramé and crochet the longest established. There are also embroidery groups, and a new course in making artificial flowers has recently started. These crafts are a valued part of local culture, and although mainly used for decorative purposes, the products are much appreciated and the makers respected for their skills. We consider it important to continue to promote and support these crafts in the local communities.

See our Crafts Programme photo album.

• Organic agriculture groups

See Photo Album

There are also arts and media groups, as part of our Media and Communications strategy

• Youth theatre

See Photo Album

• Radio

• Puppets

• Mural-painting

Children and young people join local groups where they can train in organic agriculture, crafts and cultural activities, which contribute to the development of new skills and capacities. These provide them with alternative choices in life, in terms of both personal and economic development.

We currently have courses in carpentry and dress-making

We provide training for parents, teachers and community leaders, to promote changes in established practices and ways of thinking that devalue of marginalise children and young people, ignoring or infringing their rights.

Current programmes include:

• Workshops with parents and community leaders

• Training Primary School Teachers

• Training Community Pre-school workers

Diversification of family kitchen gardens contributes to improved nutrition and better health. If carried out using organic farming techniques, it also helps to protect the environment. Therefore CESESMA promotes organic vegetable-growing, encouraging people to make the most of the resources already available in their communities. We run training programmes and provide ongoing technical support to help the young educators develop their knowledge of organic food-growing, and pass on practical gardening skills to others in their community.

Current activities include:

• School and community vegetable gardens, supporting children  and young people tending family vegetable plots

• Cookery and Nutrition course

• Promoting natural medicine through medicinal plants

• Associativity: chaya growing, bee-keeping, poultry-farming

The social communication and media strategy makes use of a variety of communication media to promote educational processes inside and  outside the communities, in order to inform, raise awareness and publicise issues. 

The media we currently work with include:

• Youth theatre

• Children's Radio Programme

• Puppetry

• Mural painting.

We also support the young people in communicating social messages through street parades, campaigns, community fairs and festivals.

Networks and alliances are established at local, municipal, departmental and national level, in order to combine efforts in the promotion and defence of children's rights. This diagram summarises CESESMA's networks and alliances at different levels (sorry we do not have the diagram available in English).

Our goal is that the children and young people themselves participate directly in these forums, presenting their own proposals, making their demands, promoting and defending their own rights.

• At local community level: with families, local children and youth committees, school councils, local education committees

• At municipal / district level: with Municipal Children and Youth Committees, Environmental Committees, Municipal Development Commissions.

• National co-ordination and alliances: with the National Co-ordinating Council of NGOs Working with Children, CODENI, and allied organisations.

• International collaborations:
  - Irish National Teachers' Organisation, INTO
  - International Play Association: Promoting the Child's Right to Play
  - INWENT Project

We are developing the Associativity programme as a new strategy to meet the changing needs of the young people as they grow up. Through the establishment of "Associativities" or small business co-operatives, we are helping to provide alternative economic opportunities, thus making it possible for them to remain in their communities and continue contributing to their development.

The first associativity projects to be set up are: poultry farms (11), chaya farms (4), bee-keeping projects (6) and dress-making groups (3).