By Becca Renk

(Becca Renk is originally from Idaho, USA. For 25 years, she has lived and worked in sustainable community development in Nicaragua with the Jubilee House Community and its project, the Center for Development in Central America. She coordinates the solidarity work of Casa Ben Linder.)

1999: Hurricane Mitch Aftermath

The image is forever seared in my mind: Francisco was two years old; his thin legs and swollen feet were covered in sores. Straw blond hair stuck to his head as he listlessly nursed from his teenage mother’s breast. He weighed 13 ½ pounds.

It was the summer of 1999, and I was weighing babies in Nueva Vida.  I’d come to Nicaragua in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch to help in any way I could through the Jubilee House Community and its project in Nicaragua, the Center for Development in Central America (JHC-CDCA).

With its main office located just a mile down the road from the largest Hurricane Mitch resettlement camp in the country, the folks at the JHC-CDCA were busy. Nine months after the hurricane, the 12,000 people in Nueva Vida – who had been moved from Managua’s flooded lakeshore – were still sleeping on the ground in black plastic tents. There were water spigots throughout the camp where families could haul water for cooking and washing and electricity was connected to the tents via a spiderweb of pieced-together barbed wire.

Mitch’s Malnutrition

Families had lost their sources of income – many had been fishermen on the lake, or had dug through Managua’s trash to find recyclables to sell. In Nueva Vida, there was no lake and no dump. Without work, there was never enough to eat. Aid trucks from the big humanitarian organizations had stopped coming – undoubtedly moved on to the next disaster – and families were left struggling to put food in their kids’ mouths.

We’d been meeting with the leadership emerging from the chaos that was Nueva Vida in the early days, and a list of priorities for the community had been drawn up. Top on that list was a health clinic. At that time, Nicaragua’s neoliberal government had essentially privatized health care, and the people of Nueva Vida had no access to doctors or medicine. Although we were still a few months away from setting up what would become the permanent Nueva Vida Clinic, nurse Linda Mashburn came down to Nicaragua that summer and led a nutritional census of the children to get a better idea of the scope of the malnutrition.

That was how I came to be in the tent with Francisco and his mother in a gut-wrenchingly intimate moment where I knew that a child’s life hung in the balance as he suffered from starvation in front of my eyes. That image, and that feeling, has haunted me for 26 years, and will be with me for the rest of my life.

2025: Nicaragua’s New Generation

What was Francisco’s fate? We don’t know. We brought immediate food aid to the family, but they soon moved on, and we lost track of Francisco as we lost track of so many others in that refugee camp.

Fortunately, I can tell you the fate of Nicaragua’s new generation. Earlier this year, our clinic participated in a nation-wide nutritional census, helping to weigh and measure children in Nueva Vida and the rural areas where we work.  Our health promoters registered 185 children to receive micronutrients from the Ministry of Health every month to help with their growth and development.

Last week, as we handed out the first packets to our tiny patients, the results of the nutritional census came back:

46.6% reduction in acute malnutrition, from 5.8% in 2016 to 3.1% in 2025.

56.9% reduction in chronic malnutrition, from 13.7% in 2016 to 5.9% in 2025.

In 2025, Nicaragua has free universal health care, free education with a hot meal daily for 1.2 million school children, and a host of poverty reduction and income generation programs. This integral approach by the Sandinista government and its herculean efforts to ensure that these programs reach every corner of the country help guarantee that Nicaraguan children today won’t know the type of hunger that Francisco suffered in 1999.

1990-2006: Hunger in Neoliberal Nicaragua

There is no stronger fear than hunger. Hunger has been used historically to control people: if your children are hungry, you will be willing to work for little and accept bad working conditions just to feed them. During the 17 years of Nicaragua’s neoliberal government rule, big business required a cheap, docile workforce in order to further enrich the wealthy. The government’s complete abandonment of the poor, as mandated by the IMF and World Bank, led to chronic malnutrition in children under five years old, which had reached 21.7% by 2006.

1970s: Hunger in Nicaragua Under Somoza

Further back, under the cruel Somoza dictatorship, malnutrition rates were even higher. Keeping the Nicaraguan people hungry was essential to quell uprisings and ensure Somoza’s continued reign. In 1970s, a group of poor peasants met to discuss and interpret the gospel, and these conversations were recorded in The Gospel in Solentiname. During a discussion of the Slaughter of the Innocents from the Book of Matthew 2:16-18, an astute young observer said, “[In Nicaragua] there is so much infant mortality, and so many stunted, undernourished children. I think that is persecuting children. I think the same thing is happening here as happened to Christ when he was persecuted as a kid.”

Today: Gaza’s Slow Starvation

The persecution of children through forced hunger continues today.

As I celebrate the victory of historically low malnutrition rates and feel joy for Nicaragua’s children, I simultaneously feel anguish for the children of Gaza: in the past ten days, the daily death toll from forced starvation has increased alarmingly.

With Palestinians unable to leave Gaza, no farming due to constant attacks, and fishing banned by Israel, all food must be brought in to Gaza from outside. These food shipments are controlled by Israel, and carefully calculated to allow people to slowly starve, designed to control the Palestinian people through hunger.

Right now, it feels as if the whole world is standing inside a black plastic tent, watching all of Gaza’s children desperately trying to latch on their mother’s breast. We are all in a gut-wrenchingly intimate moment where we know that the lives of these children hang in the balance as they weaken from starvation in front of our eyes. This genocide will surely haunt the world forever. The question is, will we move to stop it?

Briefs

By Nan McCurdy

PAHO/WHO Annual Country Report for 2024

The recently released PAHO/WHO Annual Country Report for 2024 focused on Nicaragua’s implementation of innovative health technologies, according to the organization’s representative in Nicaragua, Ana Elena Chévez. Chévez added that the document also highlighted the Nicaraguan model Strengthening the Family and Community Health, as well as how it preserves historic achievements in vaccination and medical supply management.

Nicaragua continued to reduce risks in childbirth by incorporating specialized equipment, special training of all health personnel, and monitoring tools such as first-trimester screening and use of the partograph [a modern system of monitoring labor and childbirth], the report said. The agency recognized the high vaccination coverage thanks to the strengthening of the cold chain [making sure vaccines are kept cold], the improvement of the expanded immunization program’s information system, and the continuous supply of vaccines, including those for seasonal influenza. (La Primerisima, 9 August 2025)

Social Investment Still a Priority

The health and education sectors in Nicaragua account for 68.5% of total social spending reaffirming the importance of these basic services for the population.  Specifically, the Ministry of Health has spent more than US$57.5 million this year on projects, including the replacement and equipping of a hospital in Wiwilí, the construction of another in Las Minas, the new hospital in Nueva Segovia, and another in León. All are large state of the art hospitals. The Ministry of Education has also increased its budget, with notable projects such as the construction and equipping of new educational facilities in Camino del Río and Villa Esperanza in Managua, and improvements to schools in many municipalities. (Informe Pastran, 11 August 2025)

2018 Horror Center in Jinotepe to Be Bismarck Martínez School

On August 12 Co-President Rosario Murillo announced that the former San José School in Jinotepe used as a torture center during the US-backed coup attempt in 2018, has been transferred to the state and will be named after the hero Bismarck de Jesús Martínez.

Co-President Murillo said, “Many Sandinistas were murdered at the San José roadblock [created and managed by thugs who were paid with money from US organizations like USAID and the NED, channeled through Nicaraguan non-governmental organizations] and, although the school had nothing to do with it, Sandinistas from Jinotepe and Carazo were murdered at the San Jose School.” Murillo continued, “Now at the school we have a new educational center which is an achievement of peace, the peace we protect and deserve. In 2018 in Jinotepe, the San Jose Catholic School was converted by the coup mongers into a center where people were tortured and murdered, like Bismarck Martinez. Now, this school has been transferred to the state because it is emblematic of the 2018 barbarism. But it is also emblematic of the Jinotepe families who defeated the coup plotters.”

Murillo went on to say, “That center of torture and hate crimes, formerly known as Colegio San José, will now bear the name of the Hero, the Martyr, comrade Bismarck Martínez. The coup plotters tortured Bismarck Martínez then they murdered him on the surrounding grounds. Now, in these times of victories for peace, that place will be known by the name of the martyr Bismarck, an emblematic comrade whose murder shocked the entire country. We are working to be able to reopen the school next week. Some 600 students from kindergarten to the final year of high school will be covered by the free education policy of the government of the People’s President.”

Murrillo ended by saying that, “We will never forget Bismarck, and we will never forget those hate crimes, that coup-mongering, drug-trafficking coup that sought to undermine the common good and our Christian, socialist, and solidarity-based project. What does well-being mean? Education, health, work, peace, security, prosperity. Let’s move forward with the example of Bismarck Martínez, martyr of the Nicaraguan people, murdered by the criminals who will not return.” (La Primerisima, 12 August 2025)

Millions of Dollars Invested in Hospital Network

The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit presented the Budget Execution Report for January to June 2025, highlighting advances in infrastructure and equipment in the health sector, managed by the Ministry of Health (MINSA).

With a total allocation of US$5.3 billion, MINSA is promoting key projects to strengthen the country’s hospital network. Among these is the Dr. Oscar Danilo Rosales Hospital in León, with an investment of US$10.5 million. This project is 96.1% complete and will be inaugurated on September 21. Also, the construction and equipping of the Nueva Guinea Departmental Hospital is moving forward with an investment of US$13.7 million and is 84.9% complete. The Aldo Chavarría Mairena National Rehabilitation Center in Managua is being rebuilt; this project is in the pre-investment study phase, laying the groundwork for its future development.

On August 27, Nicaraguan families will celebrate the opening of the Héroes de Las Segovias Hospital in Ocotal, a monumental project promoted by the Sandinista government. This modern hospital, with an investment of US$93 million promises to transform medical care in the region, benefiting the inhabitants of three departments – Nueva Segovia, Estelí, Somóto, and beyond. The Nuevo Amanecer Regional Hospital, North Caribbean Coast is advancing with an investment of US$7.85 million and is 54.4% complete, improving medical care in the Caribbean region. The Héroes de las Segovias Departmental Hospital will be inaugurated on August 27 and was built with an investment of US$3.3 million. The Fidel Ventura Primary Hospital in Wiwilí will replace existing healthcare infrastructure. The primary Hospital in Condega, Estelí, is complete and already serving the population. The expansion and equipping of the Clinical Laboratory at the Juan A. Brenes Hospital in Somóto has been completed, improving diagnostic services. The Somotillo Primary Hospital in Chinandega has also been recently finished. (La Primerisima, 12 August 2025)

21 Municipal Markets Renovated

Twenty-one municipal markets around Nicaragua have been renovated and improved in various municipalities across the country this year with money from the national government. Four renovated and improved markets have been inaugurated in Managua, two in El Rama, and one each in San Marcos, Somotillo, Quezalguaque, Chinandega, Matagalpa, San Juan del Sur, Ocotal, Chichigalpa, Jalapa, La Paz de Carazo, Pueblo Nuevo, San Juan de Río Coco, Telpaneca, Villanueva, and San Francisco del Norte. These projects guarantee more dignified conditions for Nicaraguan merchants and families, strengthening the local economy and the model of people-centered leadership. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/rehabilitados-y-mejorados-21-mercados-municipales/

(La Primerisima, 11 August 2025)

Families in Somoto Receive Keys to New Homes

Nine families received the keys to their new homes in different neighborhoods of the city of Somoto, Madriz, through the social housing program. This is a project that continues to make dreams come true for families in this municipality, implemented by the Sandinista government through the Nicaraguan Institute of Urban and Rural Housing (INVUR) and the Somoto mayor’s office. There are social housing programs all over the country where the recipient will pay nothing or a small monthly contribution. There are also hundreds of affordable housing projects where the recipient pays the equivalent of US$30 or more per month. See photos: https://radiolaprimerisima.com/mas-familias-de-somoto-reciben-viviendas-de-interes-social/#google_vignette (La Primerisima, 11 August 2025)

Nicaragua Stands Out in Business Tourism

According to a recent report by the Central American Tourism Integration Secretariat (SITCA), Nicaragua ranked as the second country in Central America with the highest proportion of business tourism in 2024, surpassed only by Guatemala. The study reveals that, out of a total of one million tourists who visited Nicaragua during the year, 8.4% did so on business trips. This percentage places the country in a prominent position in the region, surpassing El Salvador (7.5%), Honduras (7.3%), Costa Rica (5.1%), Panama (4.5%), the Dominican Republic (2.7%), and Belize (3.4%).  Business tourism is not the predominant category in Nicaragua; leisure, sun, and beach tourism continue to be the main reasons for tourists visiting the country, in line with the regional trend.  In 2024, most visitors to Nicaragua came attracted by recreational and vacation activities, consolidating the country as an attractive destination for both rest and commercial opportunities. This flow of tourists contributes significantly to the local economy, especially in sectors related to services and commerce. (Informe Pastran, 11 August 2025)