Project of Human Development (PHD) 2003 to 2007

The PHD program is a five-year program of cooperative empowerment that the Institute of John XXIII and the Quest for Peace have been carrying out for four years with 15 poor rural communities in two areas about an hour north and south of Managua.

PHD - 2007, the "Graduation" year.  The 5-year effort, now in its final year, has compressed and accelerated the development process and challenged the communities to evolve rapidly with an intensive program of leadership training, education of children and their parents, a public health program, strategic planning, titling of land and building of homes and latrines, and the development of popular pharmacies and community- wide potable water systems. During  the process the educational level has risen sharply. The people of the communities, through frequent meetings and interaction with local and regional officials, have grown more comfortable pressing officials for the resources and services they need from government resources.

The changes in the people are obvious when you visit.  People who had doubted that anything would happen, talk with enthusiasm about the projects they are doing together. Shy people have become community spokespersons. Rural women, formerly silent in public discussions, have become articulate officials, voted into office in their communities. Young people now hold meetings with ease and plan sports programs, parties and the tutoring classes they conduct.

Communities that lived in close proximity but never associated, have frequent meetings with their counterparts from other barrios. The people in the remote communities of Cerro Pando, near Ojo de Agua, and Cacalotepe are excited by the new water systems in a dry area that was thought to lack major sources of water. They are also talking about the new community center in Cerro Pando. It will host a new high school to serve 4 communities in that remote area.

All take for granted that the 226 homes planned for this final, ‘senior" year of the PHD will be built, to add to the 600+homes built in years 3 and 4. In this final year 11 community centers will be built so that the planning processes may have meeting space for the future and each center will provide a base for responding to disasters in the area. They draw confidence for the future from their meetings with the communities that make up the Peasant Federation FEDICAMP.         

It should be especially noted that the homeless people who receive new homes, gain title to their land, a key dimension of development for communities where the individual families typically have only "use" title to the land on which their home lies. In November of 2006 we attended a meeting in Regadio in which 97 families received titles to their land. Women headed Seventy percent of the families. In addition the houses are titled so that if the family breaks up, the property stays with the parent who cares for the children, usually the woman.

Finally, when you interact with the people of the 15 communities you become aware that the people have hope for the future, hope that they can confront problems and work out solutions together. Their confidence has grown because for five years they have organized and educated their communities.