Richland Center-Santa Teresa Sister City Project

WCCN is pleased to endorse the work of the Richland Center-Santa Teresa Sister City Project, which promotes people-to-people relationships between Richland Center, Wisconsin, and the municipality of Santa Teresa in Nicaragua.

Most of its contributions go towards supplying agricultural, medical, legal and educational aid to the residents of the Chacocente region. Recent projects have included the construction of latrines, wells, and a school building, beekeeping and agricultural inputs, sewing machines, health training and medical supplies.

For further information visit the Richland Center-Santa Teresa website.

by Derrick Gee, NICA Fund Oversight Committee Member and Study
Tour Participant

On a recent WCCN study tour of Nicaragua, the group visited 'Johnny' Suarez. Johnny is a farmer near the remote, eastern community of Nueva Guinea. He has to keep his cattle and crops healthy in tropical heat and 3 meters (117 inches) of rain a year. To a foreigner, at least, his pineapples, yucca, Brahma X Holstein cows and pelibuey, a tasty breed of tropical sheep, looked in good shape; so did Johnny with his perky, straw cowboy hat perched atop a big Caribbean grin.

by Jane Furchgott, President, Richland Center-Santa Teresa Sister City Project

Last December, I spent a night at the sea turtle nesting beach of Nicaragua's Chococente Wildlife Refuge. The atmosphere at the MARENA (Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources) guard station there felt lighter for the first time in the seven years I've been visiting Chococente. The guards were joking as they worked through the night on a report due the next day in Managua. The turtles were laying their eggs in peace -- no nests were being dug up, nor were there any other suspicious activities under cover of darkness.