January 2008: Florita López retires. CESESMA recognises an exceptional educator.
After twelve years working in CESESMA, our much-loved colleague Flora López, retired in January. Florita has been an outstanding educator since her early days in the great National Literacy Crusade during the revolution of the 1980s. She played an important part in the development of CESESMA since the beginning, and also a national leadership role in the struggle to end exploitation of child workers. The CESESMA team wishes her every success in the future as she returns to her home town of Jinotega.
 

February 2008: New children’s theatre groups formed
CESESMA welcomes another new member to the team, Juana Virginia López, formerly with community theatre company Quetzalcoatl of San Ramón, who takes over responsibility for our youth theatre programme. Juanita has supported the formation of four new theatre groups in the communities of El Plomo, Yucul, and La Lima in San Ramón district, and El Tuma in Tuma-La Dalia district. The El Tuma group has already performed their new play “A World without Violence” in their local community.
 

March 2008: New Head of Accounting at CESESMA
CESESMA welcomes Fátima Lisseth Larios, who joins our Administration and Accounts team, where she is responsible for consolidation of all the organisation’s accounts. Fatima, who is from Matagalpa, has a degree in business administration and is also qualified in accountancy. In her new post at CESESMA, she is continuing her professional development studying for a Diploma in NGO Management.
 

March 2008: CESESMA education worker researches child participation in Nicaragua and the United Kingdom
Harry Shier has completed a research study comparing how children and young people’s participation is conceptualised and promoted in Nicaragua and the UK. Funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the research was carried out during a three-month Practitioner Fellowship at the University of the West of England. The findings of the study will shortly be published, in both English and Spanish, under the title “Children as Public Actors: Navigating the Tensions”.

April 2008: CESESMA’s Internet Café in operation
CESESMA’s new “Telecentro” opened in April, with computer equipment financed by the US Peace Corps and Irish Aid. The manager of the centre is Alejandra Moreno from San Ramón, who is also studying for a business administration degree at the University of the North of Nicaragua in Matagalpa. Many students from San Ramón district are already using the centre’s five computers with fast internet connection to enhance their studies.

April 2008: Young people in new education programme for prevention of violence in San Ramón
Fifty young people aged from 12 to 16 from fifteen rural communities are participating in CESESMA’s new programme for the training of young community educators (promotores/as) as part of our “Promoting Children and Young People’s Participation for the Prevention of Violence” project, supported by Trócaire from Ireland. The project is also training parents, teachers, community leaders and local authorities to be more aware of the problem of violence and to act in coordination to prevent it.

May 2008: “Friends of CESESMA” charity launched in Britain and Ireland
Friends in solidarity with CESESMA have formed a new charity with the aim of awareness-raising and fund-raising with friends and supporters, both groups and individuals, in Ireland and Great Britain. Officially launched on 13th May, Friends of CESESMA is a limited company with its registered office in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Its charitable status will enable it to claim Gift Aid tax relief on donations, thus maximising the amount of funds it can send directly to CESESMA in Nicaragua.

July 2008: Youth theatre group travels to France
Five young people from youth theatre groups supported by CESESMA are in France on a two-month exchange visit sponsored by our French partner organisation Intercambios y Solidaridad 44. Collaborating with young French actors, they devised theatrical interventions during the World Human Rights Forum held in Nantes in western France. They are also performing their own original plays and presenting Nicaraguan folk-dance in a series of education and solidarity activities in different areas.

August 2008: New diploma course for teachers
As part of the “Child’s Right to Education with Quality and Equality” project, CESESMA has launched a new training course for teachers, “Capacity-building for educational participation and leadership in local education management”, which offers a diploma accredited by the Central American University Institute of Education. Forty-five teachers are participating in the course, from the five municipalities of La Dalia, Walslala, Rancho Grande, El Cuá and Bocay.

September 2008: New generation in Education for Peace
In September, Marisol Hernández will become the third member of the CESESMA team to travel to Berlin, Germany, to participate in the “Education for Peace” programme run by German NGO InWent. CESESMA colleagues Martha Lidia Padilla and Nohemí Molina are already involved in this programme, which brings together educators from different Latin American countries to work together on creating alternatives to violence in their respective countries. In July, Nohemí visited our neighbour country Honduras on the latest stage of the programme.