IT business leaders build bridges in Nicaragua

By Leslie Barry
 
During the week celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, a group of information technology business leaders took their own time and spent their own dime to help build a community center outside of Managua, Nicaragua, in the municipality of Ticuentepe.
 
The group of 20 was comprised mostly of federal IT business leaders from industry and government, including a couple of enterprise architects and a chief information officer.
 
This is the second year that I have put together a cadre of interested individuals to travel to Nicaragua with the help of Bridges to Community, a nongovernmental organization. My cousin founded the organization 13 years ago, and I went on my first trip in 2004 with her family. She returned energized to share the experience with her friends and colleagues. In January 2006, the first group of 15 IT business leaders went to Ticuentepe to build two houses in the community of La Borgoña. This year, four of the original 15 returned, bringing 16 new colleagues to share the cross-cultural experience.
 
The group spent most of its time in Las Enramadas, near La Borgoña, building the first story of what will eventually be a two-story community center. Two of the town’s residents, Levia and her daughter Noemi, for whom the IT leaders built a home in 2006, had joined a sewing cooperative that Bridges helped start last year. The community center will house, among other things, this new cooperative. Levia and her family -- Mercedes, Yorleni and Hoover -- walked to the building site every day while the group was there, and they became a living bridge for those that had participated the previous year, connecting the previous year’s work to this year's effort.  
 
Bridges first began working in Las Enramadas in 2004 and completed a general housing project. After a second phase of the housing project began, the town said it needed a community center. The housing payments collected from the first phase of the housing project were used to finance part of the community center, which had been in planning stages for a year and a half. The IT business leaders work brigade and donations are helping finance the other half.  The volunteers laid the foundation and built the walls to the first level of rebar. It will take two other groups to finish the center.
 
The community center will be a commons building, the home of the women’s sewing cooperative and a shelter for Bridges groups. As a commons building, the center will host medical visits from the ministry of health -- there is no health post in the community -- and community-centered projects and meetings such as literary classes. Ivette Mindoza, the community leader working alongside the IT group said this center is a “dream realized; that every wheelbarrow full of dirt and rocks feels weightless because they are full of happiness and joy.”
 
The volunteers, who lived and worked in a rural community, saw firsthand how 80 percent of the world lives. They returned with a deeper understanding and appreciation for the struggles and joys of our global community. The work was hard, but rewarding. The camaraderie and bonds created were intense. The feeling of appreciation of what people in the Washington, D.C., area have and what is important has increased, along with a feeling of humility that doing so little can have such a huge effect on improving others’ lives.
 
A week after leaving Nicaragua, the group received the following e-mail message from one of our trip leaders, Ana Argudo of Bridges:  
 
“Thank you for inspiring those women. Thank you for planting the seed in something that will blossom beyond their wildest dreams, and mine. I never thought that there would ever be a community center in Las Enramadas. I never thought that women who never get to see beauty magazines could conjure up fashionable bags. I never thought Lorena would ever get out of her shell or that Yennifer would ever leave her house. But they have, and it's because of people like you that support them. What a wonderful thing to love people that you barely know. To build real connections to people you cannot even communicate with. I was humbled by your sincerity, hard work and generosity. Thank you for giving of yourself and allowing Nicaragua to steal a piece of your hearts. You will forever be in theirs and mine.”
 
The volunteers received a gift far greater than what they gave and, it goes to the point that it is not how much you get out of life but how much you give. Folks are lining up to go again – are you ready?  If you’re interested in joining a future trip, contact leslie.barry@gtsi.com, or check out www.bridgestocommunity.org.
 
-- Leslie Barry is vice president of government affairs and business development at GTSI