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“Engineers don’t set out to collude and conspire against the environment,” says former Secretary General of the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE), Francisco Gutierrez, “degradation results out of ignorance, ignorance about the impact that some of our actions will have”. If ignorance is the cause, knowledge is the basis for the cure.

Not long ago, the people of Piedras Grandes, Nicaragua would trudge down to the river and lug its unsafe water back to their homes. The river was the only source of the village’s drinking water. As a result, water-borne illnesses affected many children and their families. Something had to be done.

Victoria Rayo primary school in Limay, Estelí province, northern Nicaragua, has undergone remarkable changes since it joined the country's Child-Friendly and Healthy Schools Initiative in 2003. Water and sanitation facilities have been fixed, children are being served a daily meal and the classrooms are nicely decorated with learning materials.

For the past year, the Canadian Red Cross has been working with Nicaraguan Red Cross to implement a Community Health Care project in the municipalities of Estelí, La Trinidad, and Tipitapa. The project aims to improve the health conditions of over 7000 vulnerable families through health education, promotion and prevention activities and by strengthening local capacities to respond to priority health needs.

When Ingrid Cornejo sips a cup of coffee she is now likely to use words like citric, chocolaty or herbal to describe the flavor. She also has another set of words for a bad cup of coffee. “If it has a taste like dirt, fermentation, mold, or medicine, it’s defective”, she said.

Lexania Marín says she is a “coffee addict” and has been drinking coffee all her life. Now she does it for a living. Raised on a small coffee farm in the community of Dipilto Viejo in the northern Segovia Mountains of Nicaragua, the university student became a cupper (coffee taster) through a USAID-financed coffee program.