UUC brigade: in El Sayulero, Nicaragua, Feb. 2009UUC Friends of El Porvenir works to directly and immediately improve the lives of rural Nicaraguans who live without access to clean water or sanitation.

El Porvenir is a 501C3 organization whose mission is to assist rural Nicaraguan communities to improve their living standards through sustainable development in clean water, sanitation, reforestation, and health education. 

El Porvenir is organized on the self-help model and has been in operation for 21 years.   The major focus is to work with local, sustainable, community-initiated requests for resources to provide clean water:  wells, latrines, laundry facilities and reforestation projects.  In addition, El Porvenir organizes 10-12 volunteer brigades each year to work side-by-side with local communities to build the requested clean water resources.

The goals of UUC Friends of El Porvenir include:

• to educate UUC members about water and related issues in Nicaragua and efforts to address them;
• to raise funds to support the work of El Porvenir;and
• to send volunteers on work trips to assist rural Nicaraguans and El Porvenir staff to construct latrines, wells, laundry centers and to reforest areas in rural Nicaragua. 

UUC sent its first intergenerational work brigade - ages 13 to 78 - to Nicaragua, in February 2010.  They worked side-by-side with members of El Sayulero, a small rural community in northwestern Nicaragua, to build a lavandero, a community wash station.Another group followed in February 2011, and the Youth Abroad participants also worked on a water project in Nicaragua during July 2011. Another volunteer work trip is being planned for March 2012.

For more information or to get involved, contact Judy Oerkvitz.