HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996-12-01-LWSCC-rpt.pdf LEXINGTON-WASPAM SISTER CITY COMMITTEE
P.O. Box 283, Lexington,MA 02173 USA
1 December 1996
Dear Friends:
We are writing to tell you about the activities of the Lexington-Waspam Sister
City Committee during the past year and to ask for your continued support for these
projects in the coming year.
The Lexington-Waspam Sister City Committee has undertaken to pay the salary
of an elementary school teacher,Ms. Lucrecia 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 committee
member Ken Hale during a visit to Awastingni in 1993. The community of Awastingni
was eager for Lucrecia 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 Bilwi(formerly Puerto Cabezas), the
principal urban center in the Northern Autonomous Atlantic Region (RAAN).
Lucrecia has now been through three MED 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 year Community
representatives have 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.
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.The community's plan was to rent 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 for the expenses involved in running the household. This was tried on
an experimental basis in 1995.
When Ken Hale traveled to Bilwi in January of 1996,representatives from
Awastingni informed him that they wished to change the project, as the house
experiment was not really considered equitable by the broader community, since it
served only four students,out of a total of 20 young people eligible for support to
attend school in Bilwi. Therefore,the decision was taken to return to the older practice
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of housing students with relatives and friends and to use the$725.00 to pay the
secondary school tuitions of all the Awastingni secondary students, on an equitable
basis.This is clearly a better plan, and it was put into effect for 1996.
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 she attends her MED
training course in Bilwi (January, 1997). Although the amount involved here is not
great,it is not insignificant, and it must be obtained if the project is to continue in 1997
It is possible as well that Lucrecia's salary will increase this year,assuming that of her
colleagues increases as it should, and we cannot be sure that Lucrecia's expenses in
connection with her professional training will be as low as they were in 1996.We hope,
therefore, that you will be able to help us again with a donation.
Here is an excerpt from a letter Lucrecia wrote us some months ago: "With this
letter I thank you all a thousand times for the help you are giving me again this year. I
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."
For whatever you can give,we thank you again according to the Sumu custom
employed by Pastor Netario McClean of Awastingni when the discussions of the
arrangement regarding Lucrecia's salary were concluded:
Tingki arungka kaldnin ki: tingki, tingki, tingki, tingki.
That is to say. "One must give thanks four times: thanks,thanks, thanks, thanks."
Sincerely,
Wally Leu
Chairperson,LWSCC
Please send your tax-deductible contribution to:
LWSCC
P.O Box 283
Lexington,MA 02173
_other _$100 _$50 _$25
Your name and address:
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