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LEXINGTON-WASPAM SISTER CITY COMMITTEE
P.O. Box 283, Lexington, MA 02173 USA
October 30, 19%
Dear Friends:
We are writing again to tell you about the activities of the Lexington-Waspam
Sister City Committee during the past year and about our plans for continuing these
projects in the coming year.
As you know, the Lexington-Waspam Sister City Committee undertook to pay
the salary of an elementary school teacher, Ms. Lutrecia Pedro Patron, in the Sumu
town of Awastingni, in the municipality of Waspam. She had been working as a
volunteer prior to 1994, where her qualities as a teacher were observed and appreciated
by a LWSCC committee member (Ken Hale) during a visit to Awastingni in 1993. The
community of Awastingni was eager for l,ucrecia both to receive a salary for her work
and also to be advanced to the status of professional teacher. The latter requires
additional training, and our committee has agreed to fund Lucrecia's participation in
professionalization courses set up by the Ministry of Education (MED) during the
annual break in the school year, the cost being primarily that of room and board in
Puerto Cabezas.
Lucrecia has now been through three Ministry of Education courses (January
1994, 1995, 1996), and she is concluding her third year as a teacher with the salary
provided by the Lexington-Waspam Sister City Committee. She has been receiving
from us the standard salary for a beginning teacher in Nicaragua—to wit$975.00 per
annum. To this amount was added another$325.00 to be used for school supplies and
travel expenses.
In January of 1995, we added another project at the request of the people of
Awastingni.This was a project designed to give some support for the young people of
the village who attend secondary school in Bilwi (formerly Puerto Cabezas), the
principal urban center in the Northern Autonomous Atlantic Region (RAAN).The
community's plan was to rent of a house in Bilwi in which secondary students would
live, under the care of an adult from Awastingni. For the first year of this project, we
provided $400 for the rental of a house, and the$325.00 mentioned in the precvious
paragraph was to be used for the expenses involved in running the household. This this
was tried on an experimental basis in 1995. However, when Ken Hale traveled to Bilwi
in January of 1996, representatives from Awastingni infoi,ned him that they wished to
change the project, as the house experiment was not really considered equitable by the
community, since it served only four students, out of a total of 20 young people eligible
for support to attend school in Bilwi. Furthermore, it proved difficult to to find an adult
who was free to take on the task of looking after the house and its student occupants.
Therefore, the decision was taken to return to the older practice of housing students
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with relatives and friends and to use the $400.00 to pay the tuitions of Awastingni
students, on an equitable basis. This is dearly a better plan, and it was put into effect for
1996.
in the course of the January meeting in Bilwi, the question of Lucrecia's salary
was also discussed. The representatives pointed out that it would be very important for
us to continue providing her salary through 1997 This would make it possible for her to
receive her teaching certificate, and this in turn would permit her to take a position in
the government education system and to receive a salary as a fully accredited teacher
We will mention now one other expense which has come up—maternity leave.
Here is an exerpt from a letter Lucrecia wrote some months ago:
"With this letter 1 thank you all a thousand times for the help you
are giving me again this year. l am very grateful to your group. As for me,
I am still working here with the children of my village of Awastingni and
with the parents. I have the camara you gave me,but have not yet taken
pictures to send you. Perhaps the next time.
I have a great favor to ask. I need you to arrange to pay for a
substitute teacher for me while l am on leave to have a child.You are the
only people I can rely on, so I am hoping that you can do this for me.
mank you and may god grant you more years of life. Lucrecia Pedro P "
Our main contact with Awastingni, Melba McClean,infoims us that Lucrecia
was on leave for two months and that her substitute teacher was José Janathan.
We need your help again in raising the money for the Awastingni project. The
combined total for Lucrecia's salary and for the secondary school tuitions is $1,700.00.
Another$150.00 will be needed for Lucrecia's expenses while sge attends her training
course in Bilwi (January, 1997). And another$150.00 will be required for the substitute
teacher. Although the amount involved here is not great, it is not insignificant, and it
must be obtained if the project is to continue through 1997 It is possible as well that
Lucrecia's salary will increase this year, assuming that that of her colleagues increases
as it should;and we cannot be sure that Lucrecia's expenses in connection with her
professionalization will be as low as they were in 1996. We hope, therefore, that you
will be able to help us again with a donation.
For whatever you can give, we thank you again according to the Sumu custom
employed by Pastor Netario McQean of Awastingni when we concluded our
discussions of the initial arrangement regarding Lucrecia's salary
Tingki arungka kaldnin ki tingki, tingki, tingki, tingki.
That is to say "One must give thanks four times: thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks."
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