Nicaragua's blog

This week I’d like to introduce you to Nelson Lanuza, one of our December graduates who is now working at La Bastilla Coffee Estates. He is a great example of how much education can transform people’s lives, if they take advantage of all of the opportunities presented to them.     

As we celebrated our second ever graduation from La Bastilla Technical Agricultural High School this month, I thought it would be great to share with you the profiles of our graduates and what they hope to go on and do after life at the school.

As part of their last year of classes at La Bastilla, we felt that the final year students should learn about how to write a business plan and over the course of the second semester write their own plan to present as part of their graduation. The students mostly worked in pairs and chose a range of businesses including chickens, coffee cultivation, pig breeding, vegetables, a bakery and an internet café! Having taken classes since July and progressively written the various sections of their plan, the last week in November was chosen for the presentations.  

October was an extremely exciting month here at La Bastilla as we prepared to host the 5^th international Teach A Man To Fish conference; Educ

Hi everyone,

Hi everybody! Seeing as we’ve now been here for 3 months (4 months in the case of Antonio!) we thought it was about time that we introduced ourselves and blogged about the exciting things happening at La Bastilla!

Monday, 17th January 2011.  Where has all the time gone?  I can’t believe that it has been a year already and that it’s time for me to pack my bags and say goodbye to La Bastilla and Nicaragua.

Thursday, 16th December 2010.  The 1^st December 2010 will always be remembered as a special day in La Bastilla’s history.  This day marked La Bastilla Agricultural Technical School’s first ever graduation ceremony, with 15 students, including Escarlet who won a scholarship to study in the US starting in September 2010 (refer to 23^rd June 2010 blog entry: “Bright Students, Promising Futures”), gaining the Agricultural Technical Certificate with Honours in Agribusiness.        

Wednesday, 27th October 2010

These last couple of months have been relatively quiet here at La Bastilla compared to previous months, mostly due to the Independence Day and subsequent school holidays in the middle of September.   In the week leading up to Independence Day on 16^th September, each year group at the technical school led and organised the morning’s school assembly, including performances by the teachers, culminating in a procession involving all 211 students from both the technical and primary and regular secondary school through Las Colinas community.

Wednesday, 25th August 2010 - It’s been quite a while since my last entry and have I got news for you!  Where to begin?