Dear Friends:
Thank you for your prayers, interest, and moral and economic support for the ministries in Nicaragua. This year the Women and Community programs have included education and actions to improve the environment. An August report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says last year was among the 10 warmest years on record around the world. In the United States, last year was the warmest ever recorded, with temperatures a full degree higher than the previous record and more than three degrees higher than the 20th century average. Another recent study by Stanford University scientists found the Earth’s climate is currently changing at a rate far faster than at any other point in the past 65 million years. Without intervention, the current pace could spur a rise in annual temperature of roughly 9 to 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. People in Nicaragua are worried because it is already really hot here! |
The Women and Community Scholarship Program provides study scholarships to economically disadvantaged youth and prioritizes youth from remote villages, single parent homes and girls (63.5%). In 2013 the program is supporting 75 students including five sixth graders (who have to travel to another village to study); 51 high school students (7th to 11th), six technical study students (teaching degrees, and skill-based studies that are at most two years) and thirteen college students who study journalism, physics, pedagogy, nursing, accounting, medicine, rural development, social studies and industrial engineering.
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