The Condega Homemakers Project: Sending Women's Building Brigades to Nicaragua

Dear friends,

     Happy new year! I'm writing to tell you about a project that I am working on and to ask for your help. I'm gathering groups of women to go on brigades to build houses in Nicaragua beginning in February 1999. We need to raise money for building materials, minor administrative costs, and travel expenses for brigadistas needing assistance. I hope that after reading this letter you will agree that this project deserves your support.

     In October 1997, a little more than one year before the onslaught of Hurricane Mitch, I travelled in Central America with a friend. We spent about a week in Condega, a poor rural village in northern Nicaragua, not far from the border with Honduras. During my time in Condega, I worked at the local women's construction school (La Asociación Colectivo de Mujeres Constructoras), which trains women for non-traditional employment in carpentry, masonry, ironwork, and building construction.

     Though my stay was very short, I was able to join their construction project, laying a few concrete blocks and assembling the iron reinforcements for concrete beams. The building, now complete, is a two-story structure featuring an office, kitchen, laundry, and welding workshop; it has a dormitory on the second floor for up to sixteen students.

     I have never forgotten my experiences in Condega, especially the hard work and dedication of the women in the construction collective. As director of the collective Amanda Centeno told me on the eve of my departure, our collaboration was an act of "communication, not of words, but rather of the heart and the soul."

     The severe flooding that accompanied Hurricane Mitch in October and November 1998, left Condega with more than 10,000 people affected and 550 houses destroyed. For twelve days, the people of Condega -- as well as my friend, who happened to be travelling in Condega at the time -- were stranded without clean water, electricity, telephone, and means of transportation or communication with the outside world.

     The women's construction collective, whose participation on the Emergency Committee of Condega has been indispensible, is asking for help rebuilding fifteen houses. Their specific goal is to provide housing to the one most vulnerable sectors of the community: homeless women, many of them single mothers, who would otherwise be overlooked. While addressing the immediate survival needs of the women of Condega, the project will also have the lasting effects of empowering women with job skills and extending property ownership to women -- quite unusual in Nicaragua.

     My friend has since returned to New York City; in the past months we have been working hard to organize a way for women in the U.S. to respond to the crisis in Condega. We have formed the Condega Homemakers Project, a small, New York-based, grass-roots organization of women that will be sending women's building brigades to Condega to help with the construction.

     I will be leaving for Nicaragua with the first brigade on February 19, 1999. Though I will work there for only one month, some brigadistas are volunteering two months or more. In addition to our physical labor, we are dedicated to raising the money needed for building materials, minor administrative costs, and travel expenses for brigadistas who need assistance, as a plane ticket costs more than $500.

     As each house will cost approximately $4,200 to build, we have set the modest short-term goal of raising $5,000 by the time we depart on February 19. We will renew our fundraising efforts when we return from Nicaragua, and by the time the second brigade leaves in May, we hope to have raised enough to build an additional eight houses. By the end of the summer, we would like to reach our goal of fifteen houses.

     In addition to planning fund-raisers and reaching out to local businesses, we have developed an extensive Web site detailing our project. You can view it at http://www.columbia.edu/~marg/homemakers/

     When I sent out an appeal last November, many of you contributed money to aid in the relief efforts. Though your generosity, we were able to send $1,500 to Condega, which has bought wood for doors, window frames, and shutters for the houses we will be building.

      Would you consider giving a tax-deductible donation towards our project? If you are unable to give as much as you'd wish, we would appreciate it if you could send what you can, and forward this letter on to your friends.

     Though Nicaragua will certainly feel the effects of Hurricane Mitch for the next several decades, international news coverage of the continued crisis in Central America has dwindled. The Condega Homemakers Project is a way to make sure the people of Nicaragua are not forgotten. Though the task ahead of us might seem daunting, we are confident that with your help we can achieve our goals.

     Thank you for your support.

Margarita Suarez
Coordinator, Condega Homemakers Project

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MADRE, an international women's human rights organization, is our fiscal sponsor: your donations are tax-deductible. Please make checks out to MADRE, and write "for Condega Homemakers" in the memo. Send this form along with your contribution to: