Occasional publications, Books

In collaboration with the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) and the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center, WCCN co-produced this report based on interviews with current and former Government officials, politicians, political analysts, indigenous leaders, housing rights advocates, community leaders and community-based organizations working on housing issues. The reports examines issues including housing availability; property disputes during the Sandinista revolution and under subsequent governments; housing issues affecting indigenous groups and women; and other issues affecting the affordability, habitability and accessibility of housing. A Spanish-language version of this report is also available.

Written by Sofia Montenegro and Elvira Cuadra and translated into English by Donna Vukelich, this study discusses the experience of the Xochilt Acalt Women’s Center in Malpaisillo, Nicaragua during a 10-year period. The Women's Center works to end discrimination against women through consciousness-raising, while also addressing issues such as economic inequality, access to property and land, sexual division of labor, and access to productive resources.

To evaluate the social impact of the NICA Fund, a survey and study of Nicaraguan borrowers was conducted in 2002 by WCCN and the Nicaraguan think tank Fundación Internacional para el Desafío Económico Global (International Foundation for the Global Economic Challenge, or FIDEG). The study examined conditions of the borrower’s business, family and individual life and the role of credit in changing them. Written by FIDEG, the study was published in Spanish. An English-language summary of its findings can be found in the Fall 2002 issue of Nicaraguan Developments. (updated July 14, 2004)

Subtitled "the importance of emotional recovery in the face of natural disasters and gender violence," this document reports on the work from 1998 to 2001 of the Commission of Psychosocial Development of the Women’s Network against Violence. When Hurricane Mitch struck Central America in 1998, it claimed more than 2,500 lives in Nicaragua alone, adding to the trauma of a country whose history was already strewn with natural and social disasters. The Women's Network brought together women's organizations in response to the hurricane, but discovered that the problem people faced "was a lot bigger than Mitch. It had to do with poverty, abandonment, interfamily violence, the war, ... so we exchanged life experiences and knowledge in order to have an integral vision." This English-language document is a translation of a longer report that was originally published in Spanish under the title: Reconstruyendo vidas, reconstruimos Nicaragua: La importancia de la Recuperación Emocional ante fenómenos naturales y la violencia de genero, with financial support from Bread for the World (Pan Para el Mundo) and WCCN.

Written by Sheldon Rampton and Liz Chilsen, Friends In Deed uses stories and photographs to tell the inspiring story of more than 100 U.S.-Nicaragua sister-city projects that promoted people-to-people humanitarian projects during a time of war and official hostilities between the United States and Nicaragua. It also includes a directory of U.S.-Nicaragua sister-city projects and other interest-affiliated groups, many of which are still active today.

Price: $10/copy; available only in print. Send orders to:

WCCN
PO Box 1534
Madison, WI 53703
phone 608-257-7230