In Nicaragua, DHF collaborates with seven organisations of PWD’s as well as an umbrella organisation. In January 2009, DHF started a new common project for Nicaragua and Honduras, which is a four-year project with a budget of 22 million Danish kroner financed by Danida. DHF has a project office in the capital Managua. Previously, a Danish project coordinator has been stationed there, but DHF estimates that the local capacities have grown so strong that they can take over themselves. We now have a Nicaraguan woman employed who serves as project coordinator for both Nicaragua and Honduras.

The name of the project is UNIDAD, which means “unity”, and its goal is to strengthen the ability of the organisations to work for the rights of PWPD’s as well as to strengthen them organisationally. In Nicaragua, this implies to strengthen the local division of the partner organisations as well as the coherence in the organisations, as well as it also is a goal to work for the economic sustainability of the organisations. You can visit our Spanish web page in Nicaragua at www.discapacidad.ca.


Elements of the work in Nicaragua:

• Each collaboration partner has a project component, which they formulate and execute individually.
• A common training unit exists, which trains local leaders and active members in different issues of importance for the construction of strong organisations.
• A flexible pool exists, i.e. money that the organisations can apply for to use for small-scale projects, which was not anticipated by the beginning of the project.
  
• A pool of money exists to do activities in collaboration between DHF and the organisations.

As part of the project structure, there has been established a joint meeting for collaboration partners which chooses the member for the project board, discusses the documents and guidelines for the project, and which distribute grants to projects from the common flexible pool. As mentioned, there is also a project board, which distributes grants from the flexible pool, participates in supervision of the project and approves the development reports from the organisations.

If you wish to know more about our work in Nicaragua, please call development counsellor Henry Lind on (+45) 86 55 35 53 or send an email to henry@dhf-net.dk.