PML’s Community Development Model

Community Development in San Carlos

Human development is a high priority for Project Minnesota/León. In 2014, PML hired Rosa Lira Ulloa as the Director of Community Development in León. Rosa is Nicaraguan and has years of experience with grassroots organizing. She  began working in the semi-rural San Carlos community about seven kilometers from León. Rosa facilitates a process of change that arises from the residents’ own perspectives and accompanies them as they search for the best solutions to the problems they identify. San Carlos straddles the two-lane highway that heads southwest to the Pacific beach area of Poneloya. Many residents live at a subsistence level, surrounded by large agricultural landowners growing cash crops of sugarcane or peanuts.

San Carlos was selected for Rosa’s community development work because it is rural area but is accessible from León. In addition, there has been minimal impact from international agencies working in the area and PML already has a connection in the community. PML helped build a health center and playground in San Carlos in 2012.

The PML Process

The PML approach to community development focuses on relationships and cooperation both in Nicaragua and between PML's Minnesota and Nicaragua boards.

The process includes four steps:

1) Identify Community Needs

2) Build Consensus

3) Take Action/Implementation

4) Reflect, Evaluate and Adapt 

These steps can be used in a variety of settings, ranging from community organizing to board meetings, and can be repeated as often as a group likes. Click here to read “The Inner Working Progression of Youth Development” by PML intern Lydia Hentzen and learn how this process is being used by the teens in the San Carlos community.

Rosa prepared for the development process by listening to people by doing a careful survey of every household in the community. She then conducted a rapid assessment survey. Rosa explored the area’s population concentrations, public gathering centers (churches, school, and the like), economic profile, health status, infrastructure, and other socioeconomic indicators.

Rosa is assisted by board member Orlando (second from left) in the rapid diagnostic assessment of the San Carlos area.

Step 1: Identify Community Needs

Based on the results of the assessment, Rosa gathered key individuals in the area and asked them to invite nearby residents to small group meetings. Four reflection groups met to learn about the process and discuss matters of common concern. One participant showed up and said, “Whatever it is, sign me up!” Part of Rosa’s responsibility is to explain that PML’s role is not to provide material benefits or a pre-determined project.

In this human development model, trust and understanding are built within small groups. Everyone is given equal opportunity to speak. This was the first time many of the participants had met and conversed with neighbors.

At first many attendees wanted to observe from a short distance, but after a few gatherings, participants began automatically to sit in a circle.

Through discussion, each reflection group created lists of the most pressing issues the community faces. Problems identified included:

• poor medical attention

• difficult access and conditions of public schooling

• lack of quality basic services—potable water, electricity, roads

• limited options to earn a living

• poor housing conditions

• contamination of natural resources and water/river at risk

• safety and lack of recreation areas for children

Residents share concerns as well as refreshments during a small group meeting.

Step 2: Build Consensus

The next step was to gather the reflection groups together. Nearly 70 women arrived for the first all-community encounter. This was an opportunity to review difficulties affecting the whole area and build consensus about which needs are most pressing. With this information community members began to create and evaluate proposals for solutions.

Rosa expressed her joy. “I was so happy to see the great turnout for the community encounter. Everyone was excited to get to know their neighbors and hear what was on each others’ minds.” 

Step 3: Take Action/Implementation

In the third phase of the development process, community members form project commissions based on community consensus. PML staff accompany San Carlos residents throughout this process.

Health care

In 2015, the San Carlos community chose to focus first on the need for access to health care. With the support of PML in 2012, the community had built a health clinic, but the electricity and water had been cut off because of confusion about the billing, and the clinic was being staffed only sporadically. 

Groups of San Carlos women negotiated with the utility companies to get the electrical and water services restored. And the national health service made a commitment to provide a temporary doctor for the clinic on a regular basis. Currently the residents are advocating for a permanent doctor to staff the clinic.

Clean Drinking Water

Another community priority was accomplished with great success: to deliver clean drinking water to San Carlos residents, the community dug 9 miles of trench for water piping and installed a well and pump!

In 2016, PML’s Water Committee of sixteen women gathered signatures from the community and then met with municipal and national institutions to request clean water installation.  Technical support came from non-profit SuNica, whose staff was impressed with the community residents’ organizational skill. The mayor’s office and a local sugar cane processor provided initial help with excavating in cleared areas.

In October 2017, the community divided into two work crews (of about 30 people in each) and worked eight-hour days, Monday through Friday, with hand shovels to dig a trench. A total of 150 community members worked every week, with only one week off at Christmas, to dig nine miles of trench! PVC pipes were laid in the trenches, SuNica dug a well and installed a pump to fill a central water tank to bring clean water by gravity to the San Carlos families.  During the civil unrest in the spring of 2018, two women from the Water Committee negotiated road blocks and avoided gun fire two blocks away to press the energy company to complete electrical connections in the pump house. 

PML project coordinator Rosa Lira made daily visits to San Carlos during the water project to support communications and logistics. During small group meetings residents shared concerns and corrected detrimental rumors. Rosa distributed funds and lent the PML truck for hauling sand and supplies.

The community celebrated clean water for 140 households in July 2018 – an astonishing one and a half years from start to finish. Since then, a Water Committee made up of representatives throughout the community has smoothly overseen billing, repairs and new connections. PML’s committee members have been asked to give guidance to other communities seeking clean water because San Carlos is considered a model project!

Youth Priorities: affordable school busing, recreation & a pizza business

San Carlos teens achieved significant improvements in the community.

• High school students who took the bus to school in the city of León were being charged higher fares than those who rode to another community. The youth organized and negotiated with the bus company, and bus fares were decreased so students paid the same fare no matter which school they attended.

• Teens addressed the need for a safe space near home and created a proposal for a recreational area. They received financial support from PML donors and the Lake Minnetonka Excelsior Rotary Club to purchase adjoining farm property to create a permanent recreational field. The community removed plants and levelled the field. Adult and youth teams of soccer, baseball and kickball keep the field busy, entertaining athletes and spectators. The youth are in the process of planning infrastructure improvements like a concession stand, storage shed and bleachers. 

• Most recently, twelve teens participated in entrepreneurial training and started a pizza restaurant. Profits will go towards educational expenses.

Step 4: Reflect, Evaluate and Adapt

Actions steps are followed by community reflection. What worked? What didn't? How have priorities changed? What needs to happen next?  If needed, repeat steps 3 and 4: take action, evaluate and adapt until goals are met.

PML by the Numbers in 2020

• $2,850 for small business loans to women in the village of San Carlos

• $3,915 for small business loans to women in the village of La Gallina

• 19 women entrepreneurs completed Level I sewing class

• 25 women entrepreneurs graduated from a baking class