Una fiesta de despedida (farewell party)

To celebrate the completion of the professional development conference, the Nicaraguan teachers and members of Alinza American put on a despedida for the MAT team. 

We walked up the street from the conference location to Dr. Oscar Aragón’s house that happens to be a restaurant. There we were served an amazing meal of the most delicious Nicaraguan food.

Getting ready to feel all the hungry teachers

When everyone was done eating, the MAT team gave individual farewell speeches thanking the Nicaraguan teachers for their endless hospitality, generosity, and friendship. We shared our gratitude for being able to participate a once in a lifetime experience with incredible educators in our global community.

I saw their passion for teaching each day of the conference. I learned the teachers would do anything in their power  to help their students succeed. They have the same hopes and dreams for enabling a bright future for their students as I do for my own students. The Nicaraguan teachers may not have much, but give so much of themselves.

After the speeches given by the MAT team members, some educators from a different school district gave speeches. Each school district represented gave each member of the MAT team small gifts as a token of their gratitude. I was overwhelmed and deeply touched by their generosity and thoughtfulness.

Audience of educators

Unexpectedly the music started! Two Nicaraguan teachers came out of nowhere dancing while dressed up in silly costumes. The music was playing and people were cheering them on. The pair dance together and then came over to dance with each of us in front of the whole crowd. I had so much fun!

Dancing with one of the dancers

We also listened to a band of musicians play beautiful traditional songs. What a wonderful end to the fantastic despendida! 

Singing and playing traditional music on the guitar

Professional Development Conference

The professional development conference in Nicaragua was a huge success! I never expected the conference to be as incredible as it was. It exceeded any prior expectations.  

During Professor Kerison’s session on the first day of conference, I was introduced to all of the Nicaraguan teachers. I felt lucky to meet these amazing educators I had heard so much about in stories from team members who had already traveled to Nicaragua. It seemed as though I had been waiting a lifetime to meet them.


I felt incredibly impressed and inspired by the Nicaraguan educators I met while my translator and I moved from table to table around the room to greet them. By talking to the teachers, I learned about their experiences of teaching in rural underprivileged schools. They told me more information on where they taught, what it was like to work in those schools, what their students are like, and how they coped with daily challenges like simply commuting to the school each day. They also shared some of their strategies for dealing with as many as sixty students in a classroom or how to deal with teaching multiple grades at the same time. Some classrooms were outside because there is not enough room for all the students inside the school.

These educators demonstrated their enormous passion, resourcefulness and ingenuity when working with students using limited resources. Each group of teachers from a different school district had the opportunity to present lessons they developed to the audience. The groups of teachers created all sorts of elaborate charts, colorful posters, and graphic organizers as part of their instructional strategies to teach various subjects. One group of teachers even constructed a cardboard TV as a method for teaching story telling. Another group shared a questioning technique of crumbling different pieces of paper into a ball. Each student could take a layer off of the ball and answer that question on the topic of the lesson.

Mathematics lessons

Language Arts lessons

Notice the TV they created on the table top

My individual breakout sessions at the Conference were the most powerful and influential part of whole experience for me. Each day I presented, I grew more confident in my teaching ability and comfortable presenting in front of a group of colleagues. The teachers responded enthusiastically to our language arts unit and lesson plans. It made the hard work Therese and I put into developing our unit all the more meaningful. 


I got the impression that each teacher in my sessions felt grateful to learn new instructional strategies and eager to incorporate them into their classrooms. I found it particularly touching seeing their eyes light up with “ah ha” moments and pure excitement for getting their hands on some of the materials we brought down. They were thrilled with the felt boards we created for story telling using felt pieces.  

After my individual breakout sessions were over, I felt an intense, overwhelming, indescribable rush. My eyes filled with tears at the overpowering sense of fulfilling my life’s purpose. I knew that this is what I was meant to do for the rest of my life. 

Leaving Tonight!

At 1am tonight (Friday morning) are leaving the Albert Schweitzer Institute to head down to JFK International Airport. We’ll be flying to Miami on a 5am flight and then on to Managua by 1pm. From there, we’ll travel to La Villa where our home stay families will be waiting for us. Today I have been so excited/nervous/anxious to go! I am ready to start this journey with my amazing team.

Our first weekend in Nicaragua will include visiting Alianza Americana, meet teachers and students from La Cieba school before the Professional Development Conference, climbing a volcano, go to a beach and see historical sites like El Fortin. 


Starting on Monday, the MAT team will be presenting at the Conference and the Agriculture team will begin working on their projects at La Cieba.

Last night at final meeting before the trip, we packed the last of the 75 binders, school supplies for each of the 13 schools, some supplies for two school districts to be distributed at the teacher’s Conference. The agriculture team is bringing down supplies to distribute to the children while working in La Cieba. I can’t wait to see the reaction of the teachers and students when they get all the supplies we purchased and received from generous donations!

Pasta Dinner with Oscar & Margine

Lou Venturelli

On Thursday March 3th Lou Venturelli, a former Nicaraguan delegate on the agriculture team, held a Pasta Dinner to raise donations to benefit a student in Nicaragua he met on the trip last year. The dinner was wonderful! 

Lou made such yummy food! He made pasta, pizza on muffins, salad, rolls and dessert for everyone. Fortunately, Lou was able to raise some funds to send to his Nicaraguan friend.

Our guests of honor for the evening were Dr. Oscar Aragón, one of the founders of Alianza American, and Margine Hernandez.

Alianza American is a school which trains Nicaraguan people in English. Learning English provides the students at Alianza Americana with greater opportunities for future careers. Oscar and Margine were visiting from Nicaragua for 10 days and we were lucky enough to see them both before the trip!

Promo Video for Nicaragua Benefit Dinner

Check out A Road Unpaved

Please take a look at Taylor Roberts & David Fitzgerald’s blog “A Road Unpaved” about a documentary they created focusing on the life of people in Nicaragua with disabilities. They are both members of the Nicaragua Alternative Spring Break Delegation.

The documentary explores the social atmosphere in Nicaragua and the public’s view of people with disabilities. They are looking at what the government is and is not doing to help improve their quality of life as well as the link between a physical disability and depression.

Taylor and David have been shooting this documentary since October and will continue with this project in March. They are reaching out for support for this powerful documentary which they are both so passionate about.

Benefit Dinner Tonight at TGI Fridays!

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are all resting up and enjoying your day off so you will be well ready for tonight's event at TGI Fridays! This evening from 6-11pm, TGI Friday's is holding a fundraising event to assist students going on the alternative spring break trip to Nicaragua through the Albert Schweitzer Institute at Quinnipiac University. TGI Fridays will be giving 20% of the total bill to our cause, so please take the time to come out and support us. Each table needs to have a flier to present to the waiter.Fliers will be passed outside of many of the doors on campus, but you may also print out. Just click on the picture linked to this message and click print!

Hope to see everyone there tonight to share in great food for a great cause!

T.G.I.Friday's
2335 Dixwell Avenue
Hamden, CT 06518
(203) 407-0111

Nicaragua Alternative Spring Break 2009 - MAT Delegation

Science, Mathematics and Language Arts Units

All the members of the Quinnipiac University MAT Nicaragua Service-Learning Team, under the guidance of Dr. Cheryl Kerison, will present the Sixth Annual Teacher Training Conference from March 14, 2011 to March 16, 2011 in León, Nicaragua. The MAT Nicaragua Service-Learning Team will conduct workshops in the areas of Mathematics, Science and Language Arts.

The topic of the Science workshop for the 2011 conference is motion, force and energy. The workshop will provide the Nicaraguan teachers with useful experiments and hands-on learning activities they can share with their own students.

The theme for Mathematics is the coordinate system and ordered pairs. The workshop will focus on teaching children how to plot and identify ordered pairs.

The Language Arts Team will focus on folklore. The workshop will assist teachers with teaching children how to use oral tradition as a tool to communicate effectively. 

Successful Event

THANK YOU to everyone who came out to support our ASB Almost Midnight Breakfast event!!! It was a huge success! We had music playing to create an enjoyable atmosphere and a slideshow with pictures from past trips. 

At 7:30pm when we started there was a line for pancakes all the way to the SGA office in the upper area of the cafeteria. 

There was another line on the opposite side for omelettes made to order.

Everyone there enjoyed delicious chocolate chip and/or sprinkle pancakes, omelettes, muffins, brownies, fruit, orange juice and coffee. 

David Ives created his infamous animal pancakes! 

It was wonderful to have the chance to talk with people waiting in line and while I was making them pancakes.

 This event was a fantastic way for the whole Nica Team to get to know each other better and work together to serve everyone.  

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Supply Drive

We are greatly in need of the items below to provide to the Nicaraguan teachers. If you wish to donate any of the supplies listed please either email me at samantha.sardella@quinnipiac.edu or contact another member of the Nica team. Thanks so much!

·         3 ring binders (1 ½ in to 2 in)

·         8 pack of dividers

·         Pencils

·         Pens

·         Notebooks of paper

·         Expo Markers*****(lots please)

·         Overhead Projector Markers

·         Sheet Protectors (Heavy duty)

·         NO crayons (they melt in the heat)

Almost Midnight Breakfast

It's that time of year again! 

Come to the Cafe on Mt Carmel Campus on Wed December 8th from 7:30-11pm for all you can eat breakfast for only $5....we will be having eggs, bagels, muffins, fruit juice, coffee and David Ive's famous animal pancakes, both real and mythical!

David Ives making his famous animal pancakes

octopus pancake

elephant pancake

This event is sponsored by the Albert Schweitzer Institute and Chartwells.

We will be selling tickets and raffles in the student center starting Dec. 1^st. We’ll also have tickets and raffles available at the door.

We have fantastic hammocks & beautiful bracelets and earring from Nicaragua to sell! Don’t miss out on your chance to score some of these wonderful items…perfect gifts for the holiday season!

Please join this event on Facebook and invite all your friends

NICA VIDEO by Taylor Roberts

Working Directly with the Community

Both the MAT and Agriculture teams are working directly with the Nicaraguan community. Team leaders and faculty travel to Nicaragua in October, months before the March ASB trip, to find out from the community what specific knowledge the Nicaraguans teachers need to gain for their professional development at the conference and what projects the school in La Ceiba needs assistance with. We listen to what the Nicaraguan people tell us they need rather than airlifting ourselves there, doing projects, and leaving. The team leaders and faculty return to Quinnipiac with this information and incorporate the needs of the Nicaraguan community into the framework of the workshops and projects for the ASB trip in March. 

For example, this year at the school in La Ceiba, one of the projects the Agriculture team will be working on is building a retaining wall to reduce the amount of water from a nearby river that floods the school during the rainy season. We hire local artisans and contractors to oversee the project. We work under their guidance during the ASB trip and after we leave, they continue to work on the projects until completion. These workers would not have the funds or supplies to complete these projects on their own without our help.

Empowering Women and Girls

2011 MAT Team

MAT team with some Nicaraguan teachers

I believe that it is important not to overlook the fact that the MAT team is composed of all women and the majority of the people the team will be working with at the 3 Day Professional Development Teachers Conference are women. 

On a global level, the conference is an example of women empowering women. The book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by husband-and-wife Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn (2009) argues that the key to economic progress in the world is empowering women. Here is a review of the book from the New York Times. This book discusses the Half the Sky Movement which focuses on supporting women in developing nations. I love the quote from the book: "Women aren't the problem, they are the solution along with men" because it has been proven over and over again with statistical data that the best way to overcome poverty and extremism is to empower women and girls (Kristof & WuDunn 2009).

There is a direct correlation between women’s education and total rate of fertility in developing nations like Nicaragua. “Education is key because educated women are more likely to know what social, community, and health services, including family planning, are available and to have the confidence to use them. In addition, women with more education have more opportunities outside the home and can see the benefits of education for their children” (Population Reference Bureau 2010). Below is a graph from PRB (2010) that illustrates this tread in developing nations (PRB.org):

Women's Education and Family Size in Selected Countries, 2000s
The Alternative Spring Break Program supports empowering girls (and boys) in La Ceiba by improving the infrastructure of the school which enhances the learning environment. Improving the infrastructure is so important because it meets the students’ basic needs such as being protected from the sun and creates a motivational & engaging climate. 

The long-term effects are that the students will obtain a higher quality education by not worrying about their basic needs and these positive experiences will encourage them to continue their education career. The Alternative Spring Break Program program is also empowering women in Nicaragua by providing professional teacher development for the teachers, who are predominantly female. The conference supports Nicaraguan teachers because most teachers would not be able to acquire these skills, strategies and teaching techniques otherwise.

Story of the Seed

A teacher held up a seed for all of his students to see and said, “What do you see?” The responses were unanimous; the students claimed they saw a simple seed. “What else do you see?” The teacher was apparently looking for a different answer.

The class was silent and the teacher began to speak:
Look beyond this seed. What do you see? I bet you can see a plant. You can even see a tree, or an entire forest of trees! And in the forest, you can see the animals that inhabit the forest. If we look beyond this simple seed, do you see what our imaginations are capable of?

This small seed has the ability to grow into something incredible; it represents infinite possibilities. What we are looking at here is the capacity to change, the growth of life. Remember this seed. It stands for all opportunities and most importantly the manifestation of something bigger. In life, we must look beyond the seed. Let us start with something so simple and with a bit of imagination envision something great.

(From Meghan Cousin's post on Facebook 2010)