Michael Martínez is originally from the La Sabanita community. She volunteered with Progressio ICS Nicaragua in 2015 (cycle 12). Michael took on the community liaison role in her team, one she performed perfectly. She helped the Santos Sánchez Cerda School and the community to host us and allocate the timetables for us to deliver our capacity building activities with the students. She set up an alliance with the local Catholic Church, allowing us to build a community allotment. She also introduced us to the community leaders and other key community members so that they supported us with the different activities that we implemented during our cycle.
After her experience with Progressio ICS, Michael was one of the first national volunteers to do her Action at Home project, helping in the school. She delivered talks about recycling and got further involved in her community. For Michael, nothing is impossible. She is a strong woman, just like her mother, who was well known to all the volunteers for her kindness and her renowned cooking skills. The charisma of the whole family is quite remarkable. The little Zakura, Michael’s daughter, goes to the stage during school functions, and without any nerves, recites poems by Rubén Darío.
This year, the former UK volunteer Matt Maloney returned from England to Nicaragua, to visit the local families that opened their doors when he was volunteering in La Sabanita. For several days, he was hosted by our former volunteer, who not only opened her house to Matt but also extended her friendship.
Michael’s skills to engage with the community, and the fact that she took on the community liaison role in her team, are bearing fruits. Today she is the President of the school’s Parent’s Association, aside from having taken on several leadership roles in the community.
The classroom and the corridors are now clean
In her Action at Home, Michael delivered classes on recycling and climate change to the students, and this was done on a daily basis, using her spare time. She also hosted a competition to reward the students who kept the cleanest classroom, thus teaching them the beauty of keeping spaces clean. They also made bins from recycled bottles that were placed among the school corridors.
The rubbish is collected by the students and separated in bags to be collected by the rubbish truck. This is a result of Michael’s talks, as well as of the work of the volunteers from cycles 11 and 12
The school supported Michael with her talks, in fact they gave her full access so that she could deliver them. The Sub-Director of the school,