Earlier this month, Meg took all of the grade school kids on a yearly celebration water park trip! The students who achieve an 80% or better attendance rate for the school year are invited to this day of fun. They travel to a water park that has spring-fed crystal pools- one shallow, one medium and one deep. The trip lasts the whole day, from 8AM to 4PM! The kids enjoy lunch, two pinatas, and a goodie bag of assorted snacks and candy. The kids love it! The year-end trip is a great way to motivate kids to attend school regularly, and is much more effective than penalizing them for not attending!

 Here in Nicaragua, we are finishing up the 2016 school year and preparing for 2017. There is a new country policy that everyone passes on to the next grade each year, which makes our work more challenging. At COE, we do testing to make sure our children with sponsorships are at grade level. For the two month school vacation, we have identified and will be working with those students that need help to reach grade level. Because some have suffered from early childhood malnutrition, that is not always possible, but we work wholeheartedly to get as close as we can.

We have seven possible candidates for university sponsorships this year, but it has been difficult to make decisions and prepare the students, as many have not yet received their grades three weeks after school was completed. Those that will go on to university need to have an 80% average, and must take the university entrance exam. This year, however, they have discontinued the university entrance exam, except for the Medicine and Engineering departments! I am still having all our candidates take the test and a prep course, so I have some idea if they will be able to function at that academic level. They must have above a 50%. The recent education changes are not the kind of changes we would hope to see, but we will do our best to fight for a quality education for our children here, as it is critical for the future- not only of these young people, but for their country as well.

We are so grateful for the determination of so many of our students and families, who despite difficult circumstances, continue to push forward. We are so blessed to have such wonderful sponsors which assist us in our education mission! Thank you for using your blessing to be a blessing!
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Happy Holidays!
Meg