Nicaragua, a country in the heart of the Americas, where 50,000 Nicaraguans were killed under a cruel 40-year dictatorship before idealistic young Sandinista revolutionaries managed to overthrow it in 1979. During the 1980s, Nicaragua’s revolution managed to redistribute land to poor farmers, teach its people to read and write, eradicate childhood illnesses and offer its population free education and health care. It managed all these accomplishments even while suffering a decade of war with 30,000 dead – a war organized, funded and carried out by the U.S. backed-contras who were intent on killing the Nicaraguan revolution.

The U.S. promised to continue its war unless the people elected the U.S.-backed candidate, which they did in 1990 in order to have peace. Nicaragua then entered into a 16-year period of neoliberalism where the rich got richer and the poor got even poorer.

It was during this period, thirty years ago, that the Jubilee House Community was invited to work with the poor in Ciudad Sandino, a city of 130,000 just outside Managua, Nicaragua. Ciudad Sandino had long been the dumping ground for refugees from natural disasters and violence, and as such, was one of the poorest cities in the country.

We founded our project, the Center for Development in Central America, and came not to work for the poor in Nicaragua, but to work with them. Since then, our role has been to help Nicaraguan communities carry out the projects they identify as priorities for their own communities.

Over time, these needs and priorities have changed as the country has changed. For example, in 1998, Ciudad Sandino received 12,000 refugees from Hurricane Mitch, and a new neighborhood of Nueva Vida was formed with no housing, roads, electricity, water or health care for its residents. We began to work in this community at its inception, and much of our work remains focused on this barrio today.