About Geneseo's El Sauce service-learning program

I am here in Nicaragua with Geneseo students Meredith Cannella (Class of 2009) and Adam Davis (Class of 2009), Spanish majors who want an international experience and to help the rural community of El Sauce.

Geneseo has had a relationship with El Sauce before 2006. The mayor, who I will meet with Friday, came to Rochester and met with representatives from the School of Business about what economic development opportunities there could be.

What has transpired is a collaboration between Geneseo residents, the College, students, alumni and residents of El Sauce, a small community of 10,000 people north of Managua in the remote countryside.
They all work together to make it a success.

Since 2006 about 25 students have come to El Sauce to help implement improvements to better quality of life. They develop their own projects under the guidance of alumnus Kellan Morgan (Class of 2006), who volunteered here twice before turning down an assignment with the Peace Corps to work in El Sauce for Geneseo full time.

Projects focus on sustainable business development, teaching English and personal finance and computer skills, as well as health education, recreation programs and now, building homes for the most needy residents.

Adam is the first to volunteer for a Peace Corps project called 4 Walls. He will work with a mason to tear down and then build a cement and brick wall with the family. Meredith will assist health-care workers who tend to families in the remote farm area and at night they will teach English to El Sauce residents. Unemployment and permanent employment are big struggles; knowing English makes the residents 90 percent more marketable to employers, says Kellan.

The other big initiative is attracting tourists to El Sauce. Other communities have done it, so it can work in El Sauce. Kellan and his partner, Yacarely, are developing tourism in a mountain community and training teen-aged tour guides to provide tours in El Sauce.

They are expanding what other students have started, like Chad Salitan (Class of 2009), who began to develop marketing ideas for artisans who make pine-needle baskets in a mountain community. They have nowhere to sell their wares to make a living.

I can't wait to see what El Sauce is like and learn more about the programs. There are so many.