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May, 2010
Dear Friends
Our Little Sparrows are thriving today, amid changes. The El Rosario neighborhood is being gentrified, walled in on all but the richest, city side, and cut off from poorer neighborhoods beyond.
Most of the poorest families-- our best volunteers-- are being moved out to the rapidly growing shantytown known as the Swamp (Pantanal), where they are granted ownership of a small lot. [Fortunately it is not a real swamp, only soupy in the rainy season.]
With the enthusiastic consent of Isabel Duarte, our longtime project director, we are moving outward to Pantanal to promote a wider program.
This includes First, the promotion of whole grain rice instead of white rice, the norm down here. In polished, white rice the germ (most of the iron, folic acid, B-vitamins and other nutrients) is sacrificed for the sake of whiteness and fluffiness.
Most kids really like whole grain rice-- when it is cooked right-- to my amazement. The mothers get dragged into it slowly. This may be the single most cost effective improvement in nutrition, in places where rice is the cornerstone of at least two meals per day in every family.
Our promotional program includes education via posters and Isabel’s beautifully cooked rice for sampling; and she sells whole grain rice at 10% below the cost of white rice.
Part Two of our program is the amazing leaf, Moringa oleifera. Our guy Carlos has planted and learned much of the practical about this crop. We promote the eating of Moringa leaves as a natural vitamin-pill-on-a-tree, and it is catching on. This perennial grows powerfully, even after a harvest. and it contains great amounts of needed nutrients, such as iron, magnesium and carotenes.
Surprisingly these leaves taste fine when steamed for a few minutes. The kids have no problem eating them, and they too get the message that this stuff is good for you.
Carlos offers free seeds and knowhow in planting this little marvel around Pantanal.
We make lots of peanut butter, the Third leg of our nutritional table. The kids love it, especially with a banana. We now have a licensed commercial kitchen to make peanut butter: our goal is to finance our nutritional programs through sales to the public. We still provide free, vitamin-enriched peanut butter to a hundred kids.
Peanut butter is a low-cost, dense, protein-rich food that is an ideal addition to the starchy/sweet diet of the poor in Nicaragua.
We have also perfected the roasting of cacao, mainly for our chocolate-peanut butter, which will be sold only in the wealthier parts of town.
As the demographics of Barrio el Rosario change, we shift our focus to the new shantytowns. We make choices with limited funds: 5 meals a week in our now-beautiful Sparrow kitchen site OR a mobile program aimed outward at the poorest. We are cooking fewer noontime meals in favor of our broader program.
Other aspects of our green cultural program continue. Our trash separation buckets have reduced the litter considerably. More importantly, we have shown the alternative to norm of throwing trash anywhere.
We’ve made a non-stinky composting toilet; a high-efficiency trash burner; garbage composting; a plantation of Moringa; sports and dances for teens; and the Great Little Sparrows Circus.
Most important, we continue to nourish hundreds of poor children. We hope it all provides useful examples for other programs
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Our hearty thanks to all; and our invitation to anyone who'd like to jump in to this program: there is fun to be had in Nicaragua.
This is our single annual appeal for funds. Please help us as best you can. Your contribution is tax-deductible under our 501c3 status!
Love and thanks,
Sandy Hepler & Leith Patton
292 Haydenburg Rd, Whitleyville, TN 38588
www.CousinSparrow.org
J Sandy Hepler, director, April 2010
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