My good friends Yessica Holguin and Carlos Valverde have been part of the Peace Corps for a couple of years now. This lovely couple has been working so very hard to make a difference in Estelí, Nicaragua. Many of their projects in Nicaragua consist of educating the youth. Unfortunately, their access to technology is limited and very expensive.

 

To give you an example the average cost for somebody to use a computer in Nicaragua is around 50 cents an hour. As Yessica mentioned, that doesn’t seem like a lot but when the average wage is less than $2 per day, this cost becomes a significant amount of money.

 

Last year Yessica asked around to see who could donate laptops so she could bring back to Nicaragua. We were able to gather a couple of laptops some that were broken but then fixed by DFM Technologies in order for these children to have a working laptop.

 

With these laptops, the children were able to obtain knowledge without having to worry about limiting their time due to cost. They are also used for competitions that Yessica and Carlos put together such as business plan preparations.

 

We are doing this again this year to gather laptops. This time for three college students in this small rural town called  Talolinga.

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These three students are breaking the barriers and attending the University so that they could come back and help their hometown once they graduate.

 

They attend Saturday school which begins by getting up at 2:30 am to start the journey to school. They leave their house at 3:00am to walk down for two hours to get to the nearest town. From there, they catch a bus to the carretera. Once they get to the carretera, they catch another bus to the Panamerican Highway. From there they catch a bus to Estelí, where they finally catch the last us to get to the university. Their journey is five hours long.

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They attend school from 8:30 - 5:00pm, then they make the trek back to their community to make it home by 10:30ish pm. Given this dedication and desire to succeed I am asking for three laptops this year.

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If you have a used, broken, old laptop that you don’t need any more and it is just taking up space in your garage, donate it. Be part of making a difference in the development of young minds.

 

Broken laptops will be accepted by DFM Technologies as we will fix them pro bono before they are sent over.

 

Special thanks to Ari Rosner-Salazar, Mark Whitney, Ileana Alvarado and Alejandra Quezada for your donations from last year!