The Mundico Foundation was initiated early in 2007 and dedicates itself to the improvement of living conditions of people in developing countries. Mundico is currently committed to two projects in Nicaragua, Central America, in support of the underprivileged children. The first project, called Conos, focuses on their nutrition, development and medical care. The second project, called Educa, focuses on their education.

Project Conos
Under the name of Conos, a soup-kitchen was opened in October 2007 in the city of Granada, Nicaragua. ‘Project Conos’ stands for ‘Juntos Con Nosotros’, which is Spanish for ‘Together with us’. The soup-kitchen provides a daily nutritious and essential meal to 150 of the poorest children in Granada between the ages of 2 and 12 years old. Creativity and the development of fine motorial skills receive little or no attention within the Nicaraguan educational system. For this reason activities such as drawing lessons and story reading mornings are organised. This way the children and given a basis with which they can view their world in a new light.

A doctor has recently added his support to this project. He keeps an eye on the health of the children, maintains contact with their parents and provides them with informative advice on subjects such as hygiene and nutrition.

Project Educa

Project Educa’s aim is to provide secondary school education to children in Granada. This helps these children to work towards achieving a better future for themselves and their families.  Completing this educational program promptly improves their chances of employment, but also offers opportunities for further education. January 2008 saw the first seven children starting secondary school with the support of Mundico. For €15 per month you can provide a child with the opportunity to better their education. These children introduce themselves in our photobook.

Poverty in Nicaragua
After Haiti, Nicaragua is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and this is a many years of suffering under corrupt dictators, inflation, revolutions and a civil war. Half of the population of Nicaragua lives below the poverty line and 18 % of the children suffer from malnourishment. Due to high unemployment, many parents are forced to find jobs in Costa Rica. This leads to children staying behind alone to care for the family and this care is entrusted to the eldest child, who is sometimes no older than twelve years old.

Local Project Leader
The projects are locally initiated by Rolien Kappen. Rolien is a Dutch woman that settled in Nicaragua in 2003. Besides initiating projects, she is also responsible for ensuring that the projects are succesful within their locations. She establishes local contacts, and finds trustworthy volunteers such as the cook in the soup-kitchen, the drawing teacher and the doctor. She also keeps in close contact with the pupils who have just started school via Mundico.

All help is welcome
Mundico is open to all sorts of ideas and questions, as well as donations and contributions.  The website was set up for Mundico free of charge and children’s books were donated to Rolien Kappen so that stories could be read to the children after their meal.  Because the foundation is being run and supported by volunteers, virtually every eurocent is spent in the country of its destination.

Becoming a contributor
We desperately need new contributors for these projects. Firstly the budgetary gap for the support of project Conos needs to be reduced, also allowing more children to participate in this education program.  There are always children on the waiting list for the soup-kitchen that also need the meals but for whom the budget isn’t sufficient. Besides this we have so many wonderful ideas for new projects! Any help sorely needed. For example, is we could pay the doctor a basic salary we could increase his commitment to the project. Or sewing lessons for the mothers so that they can provide for their own income. 
If you wish to support Mundico financially, a registration form can be found on our website, or you can make a direct donation to gironummer 3199861 in name of “de stichting Mundico te Nijmegen”.
For donations from countries outside The Netherlands the IBAN number is often required. This IBAN number is NL59INGB0003199861, BIC: INGBNL2A.

Contact
General information and updates on the recent developments of the Mundico Foundation can be found on our website :  www.mundico.nl
You can email us with your questions and tips at Dit e-mail adres is beschermd door spambots, u heeft Javascript nodig om dit onderdeel te kunnen bekijken