You are interested in bringing a delegation to volunteer with the Center for Development in Central America? Great! We work in the areas of sustainable economic development, sustainable agriculture, health care, appropriate technology, construction projects, and community development.
We want you to know that life here is different and
stressful. We have an International Training Facility to house our
increasing number of delegations, but it is a basic living space with
very little privacy, although it does have separate men's and women's
restrooms. We appreciate open, flexible people. In Nicaragua,
the main characteristic that people need to function is flexibility and an openness to fully
experience their time here.
We expect all volunteers on delegations to:
Because our
donations are for project support, we need you to contribute to your
costs. Besides paying your travel down and back, we ask that the
short-term volunteer delegations contribute $65.00 per day per person
for room, board, and in-country transportation. Included in
the transportation, your
delegation is entitled to use our small yellow school bus which holds
22 people
and driver to get to the work site, to go on a tour of
When groups come,
we expect them to work on our projects. The projects of the CDCA arise
out of the needs of the Nicaraguan community and are a cooperative
effort between the people of the community and the CDCA. For those
reasons and because our funds are already delegated to our current
projects, we cannot create special projects for visiting delegations. We
also request that your group raise some money to apply to the costs of
whatever project they are working on.
We consider working with Nicaraguans to be one of the most important
parts
of the volunteer experience.
It is
imperative that your group members come prepared to work alongside
Nicaraguans
and that they understand that they are here to help the Nicaraguan
project workers,
because it is they who will carry on the work when your group goes back
to the
We also stress that most of the work done with a delegation is done within the volunteer, so listening is crucial. We will arrange for speakers to talk to your groups about many aspects of the Nicaraguan reality. In order to get the most from your experience, we expect all members of the delegation to read the reading packet before coming, to reflect on what they are experiencing while here, and to commit to helping when they return home.
Most
delegations come for a length of stay between one and two weeks. Due to
a sharp increase in our number of delegations since Hurricane Mitch,
please expect to be flexible when working with us on setting dates for
your group's stay at the CDCA. We are only able to host one delegation
per month.
We are booked during some months three years in advance, so please be flexible. The CDCA is closed to delegations from 20 Dec to 6 Jan to spend time with our family during the holidays. We also do not take delegations during Holy Week – the entire country shuts down to celebrate, which makes it impossible to organize delegation activities.
We expect delegation leaders to prepare their own groups for the
experience
and to handle group process while in
Guidelines for your potential delegation members:
Your delegates must answer the following questions to our satisfaction and send the answers before buying airline tickets. For the safety of all we reserve the right to exclude a member of your delegation if we deem it dangerous for them:
If you are still interested, then we ask you to write us a letter (preferably by email). We hate forms but would like to know some things about you to begin a dialogue.
We hope to hear from you and thank you for being interested in this work. We always need all the help we can get!