The Treehouse Community Project

While traveling through Central America, I crossed the treehouse hostel in Granada, Nicaragua. This hostel is constructed in the jungle, so people enjoy their stay, away from civilization, surrounded by monkeys and beautiful sunset views. But what was even more impressive to me, was the community projects they established, that are run by the workers and volunteers of the Treehouse Hostel. In order to give you an overview what that projects are about, I just leave you the description written on their gofundme-page: 

"Our main goal is to improve the lives of the people living in the community of Poste Rojo, a village on the outskirts of Granada, Nicaragua. We will work in the areas of education, basic everyday needs (clothing, food etc), healthcare and home improvements. Long term we would like to be able to provide the village with access to clean drinking water.

Since December 2017, we have been gathering donations from our guests, which has allowed us to start an English Teaching Program at the local primary school, build a playground for the school, purchase a football uniform for the local team (who cannot play without one), and do up care packages for various families. The packages consist of clothes, food, blankets and various medications.

With your help we can continue to do this work and much more. We would like to do the following: 

- Continue our English Program, using some of the money raised to purchase school materials like pens, pencils and pay for printing of activities, among other equipment. 

- Continue purchasing weekly food packages for the families that need them the most. 

- Continue buying clothes and blankets for the families. 

- Continue covering various health costs like medications, visits to the hospital, etc. 

- Begin purchasing materials to repair people's homes. We will also hire local workers from the community to do these jobs. 

The reason for setting our goal at $50,000 is that along with all of the aforementioned tasks we would love to connect Poste Rojo to clean drinking water. 

If you would like to get involved, please do not hesitate to donate. 

100% of the proceeds goes directly toward these goals. 

Follow us on Instagram @treehouse_community_project to see photos and videos of our work and to see exactly where your money is going. Also, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to message us on Instagram or Facebook @TheTreehouseNicaragua.

More about Poste Rojo...

Poste Rojo is a rural community of roughly 850 people (57 families) located at the foot of Mombacho volcano, just outside of Granada, Nicaragua. We have a connection with the community because of our close proximity, and all of The Treehouse Hostel's security, driver, cooks, and cleaners come from Poste Rojo. Having a relationship with these people and their families, we have come to see their quality of life, as well as of others living in Poste Rojo. Unfortunately, Poste Rojo is one of the poorest areas of Nicaragua. The people there have very basic housing, that is without plumbing and sewage disposal, some without proper bathrooms, kitchens or bedrooms. It is not uncommon for families to share small rooms and beds for sleeping. The village has access to a primary school that provides basic education, however, the school has limited teachers and consists of only 3 classrooms. This means that children from the ages 4-13 are divided into composite classes. The closest secondary school is over 2 kilometres away and often children opt for the workforce rather than to continue their schooling.

Currently in order to get water the families (often the women) have to walk over 2 kilometres every day and carry it either on their backs, or by cart if they are able to afford one. There is no guarantee that this water is completely clean. On top of this, Poste Rojo is considered a rural community and is roughly 20 minutes outside of the city of Granada, and so, access to healthcare is not only limited, but expensive.

To put things in perspective, the minimum wage in rural Nicaragua is 104 USD (135 AUD) a month. Our cook has a family of 4 children and she spends 3,000 cordobas a month on food, which is 100 USD (130 AUD). This is why a lot of family members of Poste Rojo travel to Costa Rica for work, leaving their children with the elderly members of the family or older siblings for months at a time. So as you can imagine, your money will go a long way." 

Unfortunately, I couldn't take part in one of those projects (not yet), but was really impressed to see their work and the community while attending the community walking tour and being invited by a local family for lunch. So I decided to at least take some pictures I can give to the people living there, and this way maybe conjure a smile on their faces.

If you want to help, please feel free to visit this site: https://www.gofundme.com/6fws6v-the-treehouse-community-project

Thank you so much for enriching the lives of so many!